flashjazzcat Posted July 17, 2015 Author Share Posted July 17, 2015 No luck with this Bios28 on this machine... Sorry Roy: the fix was solely meant to address the forced reboot issue Spookt had reported, but I got a little swamped in the flurry of posts. There's little I can do to address the IDE instability, especially since the PBI BIOS has had low-cost error correction built-in since version 1.0. Sorry to hear you had problems, anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danwinslow Posted July 17, 2015 Share Posted July 17, 2015 So....I've a single U1mb equipped 130xe. I don't have any kind of flasher hardware or other chip-based recovery methods. Would I be foolish to try to flash my U1MB with the beta at this point? What would 'recovery methods' be? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted July 17, 2015 Author Share Posted July 17, 2015 You got an AtariMax 8Mbit cart Dan? We could use that to recover. Anyway: to lay it out on the table so you can decide: the BIOS won't brick the machine unless you're the unlucky person (of whom we've so far had one, in Poland) whose machine appears have an address line issue which doesn't trouble the original BIOS at all, but which makes the machine choke on the new BIOS's NMIs. If the hardware works properly, I see no evidence of any software bug which will render the machine inoperative. The other risk factor is the flash itself. If you happen to employ uFlash for the job, all I can say there is that the BIN is held in RAM and stays there (from where it can be re-flashed) for as long as the flash operation encounters errors. So if after ten tries it doesn't flash, then you can maybe conclude it's buggered anyway. That said: the unavailability of recovery methods with those who have told me they have none would seem to mysteriously and fatalistically invite issues. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spookt Posted July 17, 2015 Share Posted July 17, 2015 Try this: ulbios28.rom Fixes bit logic reversal in routine which waits for keyup. Is this an U1MB build or Incognito? I get "Invalid file signature" on my Incognito 800 when trying to update. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phoenixdownita Posted July 17, 2015 Share Posted July 17, 2015 I think I can guess that. ul = ultimate .... what did I win? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted July 17, 2015 Author Share Posted July 17, 2015 (edited) Yes: Ultimate. Edited July 17, 2015 by flashjazzcat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danwinslow Posted July 17, 2015 Share Posted July 17, 2015 You got an AtariMax 8Mbit cart Dan? We could use that to recover. Anyway: to lay it out on the table so you can decide: the BIOS won't brick the machine unless you're the unlucky person (of whom we've so far had one, in Poland) whose machine appears have an address line issue which doesn't trouble the original BIOS at all, but which makes the machine choke on the new BIOS's NMIs. If the hardware works properly, I see no evidence of any software bug which will render the machine inoperative. The other risk factor is the flash itself. If you happen to employ uFlash for the job, all I can say there is that the BIN is held in RAM and stays there (from where it can be re-flashed) for as long as the flash operation encounters errors. So if after ten tries it doesn't flash, then you can maybe conclude it's buggered anyway. That said: the unavailability of recovery methods with those who have told me they have none would seem to mysteriously and fatalistically invite issues. I do indeed have an 8MB Atarimax cart. I'll use whichever flasher is recommended...I'm quite new to the whole topic, so I guess I better go RTFM a bit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
morelenmir Posted July 17, 2015 Share Posted July 17, 2015 Sorry Roy: the fix was solely meant to address the forced reboot issue Spookt had reported, but I got a little swamped in the flurry of posts. There's little I can do to address the IDE instability, especially since the PBI BIOS has had low-cost error correction built-in since version 1.0. Sorry to hear you had problems, anyway. One thing I have noticed is that the 'COVOX' entry on the "Device' paine is not greyed, but by default marked as 'disabled' on my real hardware, despite not having a "COVOX" nor obviously therefore one connected to the "Ultimate1MB". I guess this is because the BIOS can electronically detect whether a "VBXE", "SimpleStereo" or "Soundboatrd" is present while the "COVOX" is not so obliging. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spookt Posted July 18, 2015 Share Posted July 18, 2015 (edited) I think I can guess that. ul = ultimate .... what did I win? yes I think I saw that, but I reported the issue on my Incognito 800 so I did wonder Edited July 18, 2015 by spookt 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
w1k Posted July 18, 2015 Share Posted July 18, 2015 flashed to atari.. works fine.. i cant wait for next version 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted July 18, 2015 Author Share Posted July 18, 2015 yes I think I saw that, but I reported the issue on my Incognito 800 so I did wonder Excellent point. Can't see the wood for the trees at times... inbios28.rom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted July 18, 2015 Author Share Posted July 18, 2015 One thing I have noticed is that the 'COVOX' entry on the "Device' paine is not greyed, but by default marked as 'disabled' on my real hardware, despite not having a "COVOX" nor obviously therefore one connected to the "Ultimate1MB". I guess this is because the BIOS can electronically detect whether a "VBXE", "SimpleStereo" or "Soundboatrd" is present while the "COVOX" is not so obliging. You guess correctly. And this is yet another reason for keeping stereo/Covox inside the plugin module. Both can be omitted entirely, or simply one or the other provided. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DrVenkman Posted July 18, 2015 Share Posted July 18, 2015 So messing around with U1MB stuff in Altirra today before the real thing arrives sometime in the next week or so, I tried to update the BIOS to play with FJC's fancy new version but both 2.7 and 2.8 give me an invalid file signature error at the end. I'm updating using UFLASH from a mounted virtual floppy, reading the BIOS .rom files off a second virtual floppy. Any clue what this newbie might be doing wrong? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
morelenmir Posted July 18, 2015 Share Posted July 18, 2015 So messing around with U1MB stuff in Altirra today before the real thing arrives sometime in the next week or so, I tried to update the BIOS to play with FJC's fancy new version but both 2.7 and 2.8 give me an invalid file signature error at the end. I'm updating using UFLASH from a mounted virtual floppy, reading the BIOS .rom files off a second virtual floppy. Any clue what this newbie might be doing wrong? Is it possible you are not using the newest version of 'uFlash'? If not it is on the v2.4 roms that you get directly from FJC's site. Did you also start out from a functioning, earlier version ROM with FJC's custom SDX+APT distro and so forth? I personally think its best to get the old version fully flashed and working and then just flash in the new BIOS and PBIBIOS roms. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DrVenkman Posted July 18, 2015 Share Posted July 18, 2015 Is it possible you are not using the newest version of 'uFlash'? If not it is on the v2.4 roms that you get directly from FJC's site. Did you also start out from a functioning, earlier version ROM with FJC's custom SDX+APT distro and so forth? I personally think its best to get the old version fully flashed and working and then just flash in the new BIOS and PBIBIOS roms. Well I don't know - the UFLASH I'm trying is from the version that is on the APT Tools disk I got from FJC's site. And yes, everything is working fine with the virtual U1MB otherwise. Eh, no worries. I'll play around some more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spookt Posted July 18, 2015 Share Posted July 18, 2015 Try with the version of uflash FJC posted in this thread. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
morelenmir Posted July 18, 2015 Share Posted July 18, 2015 Well I don't know - the UFLASH I'm trying is from the version that is on the APT Tools disk I got from FJC's site. And yes, everything is working fine with the virtual U1MB otherwise. Eh, no worries. I'll play around some more. Give it a shot with the new version that comes on the v0.24 beta distro: Update: Better use the one FJC posted below. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted July 18, 2015 Author Share Posted July 18, 2015 Any from this thread will do, but here's the latest one: uflash.xex No alternative BIOS existed when the version on the APT toolkit disk was written, and necessary changes to the flasher were considerable. Hence the old version doesn't recognize it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted July 18, 2015 Author Share Posted July 18, 2015 Updated website somewhat: http://atari8.co.uk/uflash/ See News and APT->Ultimate/Incognito pages for links to the initial Ultimate/Incognito BIOS releases posted in this thread. Latest builds will be found in this thread and migrated to the site periodically. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DrVenkman Posted July 18, 2015 Share Posted July 18, 2015 Updated website somewhat: http://atari8.co.uk/uflash/ See News and APT->Ultimate/Incognito pages for links to the initial Ultimate/Incognito BIOS releases posted in this thread. Latest builds will be found in this thread and migrated to the site periodically. Gotcha, thanks to you and morelenmir, both. I used the version of UFLASH in his link to update to 0.24, and then once that was up and running, to update to 0.28. Now to figure out all the SIDE2 stuff! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roydea6 Posted July 18, 2015 Share Posted July 18, 2015 •Customisable shortcut keys This is a bullet from Post #1, and I have not been able to find a way to do this---yet--. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted July 19, 2015 Author Share Posted July 19, 2015 (edited) Customisable shortcut keys This is a bullet from Post #1, and I have not been able to find a way to do this---yet--. It's in advanced options Roy: you can change the BIOS menu and forced coldstart key assignments. There was previously no alternative to Help+Reset. Edited July 19, 2015 by flashjazzcat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roydea6 Posted July 19, 2015 Share Posted July 19, 2015 Ahhh Yes I knew about the Advanced Settings options, I was hoping to change the save changes and boot to [R] so it would be similar to the uflash menu to REBOOT.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted July 19, 2015 Author Share Posted July 19, 2015 (edited) NP. Actually I want to massage the menu key assignments a little (without making them configurable, which is just gilding the lilly IMO), so I'm open to reasonable suggestions there. Also, now that things appear to be reasonably stable, I need to finish unimplemented/incomplete stuff, including: Boot device menu Key click? HDD boot bypass D1: Redirect The Boot device menu is currently gotten into via Esc on the logo screen when the PBI BIOS is enabled. All it does at the moment is manipulate DUNIT so you can boot the OS from any disk device you like (HDD partitions, floppy drive, etc). The implementation is currently imprecise, however, since it's completely indeterminate how long this boot redirection persists for. I'm guessing the sensible thing is to clear it on the next warmstart. Its purpose is basically to allow booting from a different drive when you have - say - the HDD set to boot from D3: or wherever. Similar functionality (suppressing an HDD boot) would be accomplished by an "HDD bypass" hotkey which would basically ignore the HDD on startup on a one-off basis, although here DUNIT would simply be set to the OS default of 1 and the PBI bypassed completely. We then get into a hot-key overcrowding situation, however, since we also require a hot-key to reload the partition table (when held during Reset) to obliterate any ATR disk image mounts when they're finished with. Then we have D1: Redirect - a facility which appears in the IDE Plus 2.0 BIOS and was - in both cases - suggested by ProWizard. This will essentially do the exact same job as "Boot device", but is set up from within the menu, so since there's some duplicated functionality we can probably consolidate it. I'm all for simplicity here. Lastly there's the key-click sound in the menu. There was one, but the NMIs made it sound awful so I removed it. Is one needed? Again - I think enable/disable keyclick is overkill, so a universally appealing hard-coded state would be preferable. Bear in mind the menus are controllable via the joystick as well, which could in itself be a for or against argument for click-on-input. Me - I'm not missing it. Edited July 19, 2015 by flashjazzcat 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
morelenmir Posted July 19, 2015 Share Posted July 19, 2015 NP. Actually I want to massage the menu key assignments a little (without making them configurable, which is just gilding the lilly IMO), so I'm open to reasonable suggestions there. Also, now that things appear to be reasonably stable, I need to finish unimplemented/incomplete stuff, including: Boot device menu Key click? HDD boot bypass D1: Redirect The Boot device menu is currently gotten into via Esc on the logo screen when the PBI BIOS is enabled. All it does at the moment is manipulate DUNIT so you can boot the OS from any disk device you like (HDD partitions, floppy drive, etc). The implementation is currently imprecise, however, since it's completely indeterminate how long this boot redirection persists for. I'm guessing the sensible thing is to clear it on the next warmstart. Its purpose is basically to allow booting from a different drive when you have - say - the HDD set to boot from D3: or wherever. Similar functionality (suppressing an HDD boot) would be accomplished by an "HDD bypass" hotkey which would basically ignore the HDD on startup on a one-off basis, although here DUNIT would simply be set to the OS default of 1 and the PBI bypassed completely. We then get into a hot-key overcrowding situation, however, since we also require a hot-key to reload the partition table (when held during Reset) to obliterate any ATR disk image mounts when they're finished with. Then we have D1: Redirect - a facility which appears in the IDE Plus 2.0 BIOS and was - in both cases - suggested by ProWizard. This will essentially do the exact same job as "Boot device", but is set up from within the menu, so since there's some duplicated functionality we can probably consolidate it. I'm all for simplicity here. Lastly there's the key-click sound in the menu. There was one, but the NMIs made it sound awful so I removed it. Is one needed? Again - I think enable/disable keyclick is overkill, so a universally appealing hard-coded state would be preferable. Bear in mind the menus are controllable via the joystick as well, which could in itself be a for or against argument for click-on-input. Me - I'm not missing it. I have to strongly disagree FJC. Extra choice is never too much. There is no such thing as too much choice. Add it. Leave it up to the user if they want to use it. The only downside is when doing so occupies space that could go for something else. If that is the case here then its still not the extra choice that is the problem, its the lack of room on the ROM. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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