a8isa1 Posted October 1, 2014 Share Posted October 1, 2014 Is there such a thing as a high speed loader for boot disks for SDrive? For XEXes I use ATRs with Hias Reichl's MyPicoDOS and high speed SIO works great but for boot disks I have to patiently wait while I/O operates at 1X. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kogden Posted October 2, 2014 Share Posted October 2, 2014 Only way I can think of is installing a modified OS or 3rd party OS ROM with high-speed SIO support baked in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sup8pdct Posted October 2, 2014 Share Posted October 2, 2014 Another way is to use the BlackBox. It has highspeed SIO built in. James Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kogden Posted October 2, 2014 Share Posted October 2, 2014 IDEPlus would be another route, it has high speed SIO routines built in as well. Forgot about that, I boot from HDD most of the time. I doubt he's looking to buy an IDE controller if he has the SDrive though. Easiest thing is probably just to get someone to burn him an OS ROM if it is worth the effort for him. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
a8isa1 Posted October 2, 2014 Author Share Posted October 2, 2014 IDEPlus would be another route, it has high speed SIO routines built in as well. Forgot about that, I boot from HDD most of the time. I doubt he's looking to buy an IDE controller if he has the SDrive though. Easiest thing is probably just to get someone to burn him an OS ROM if it is worth the effort for him. I formerly had an 800XL with 4 OSes including QMEG+ OS but that machine died when I inadvertently left it on and unattended. Not sure how long it was on. I swapped out all the chips that weren't soldered but it made no difference. Just a black screen and no sound, At some point I'd probably send the current 800XL for upgrades and get the other one repaired. Not ready to do that yet. PBI add-ons aren't something I'm interested in. Don't like circuit boards hanging off the back. Perhaps a future upgrade that's small enough to fit inside. Thanks for the suggestions everyone. -SteveS Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kogden Posted October 2, 2014 Share Posted October 2, 2014 An OS ROM with a high-speed SIO patch is a nice easy install. Just swap the ROM chip, no soldering required. I thought about getting one of those multi-OS boards, they seem pretty handy. The Ultimate 1MB upgrade isn't much more expensive than the AtariMax 32-in-1 OS upgrade and gives you SDX and flashable OS slots IIRC. Easy install if you have a socketed board and it's all internal. I'll probably end up running into this eventually, I was planning on homebrewing a couple SDrives. SIO2SD seems a bit overkill and tough to build an enclosure for. The SDrive is something that could have been built had SD cards existed in the late 80's. The 2GB limit isn't that serious. 2GB is an insane amount of storage on an 8bit. Booting big games at 19.2Kbps is no fun. I run into this from time to time with my Happy 1050 too which is a little slower than the SDrive at 19200 because it has to seek and such. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
a8isa1 Posted October 2, 2014 Author Share Posted October 2, 2014 An OS ROM with a high-speed SIO patch is a nice easy install. Just swap the ROM chip, no soldering required. I thought about getting one of those multi-OS boards, they seem pretty handy. The Ultimate 1MB upgrade isn't much more expensive than the AtariMax 32-in-1 OS upgrade and gives you SDX and flashable OS slots IIRC. Easy install if you have a socketed board and it's all internal. I'll probably end up running into this eventually, I was planning on homebrewing a couple SDrives. SIO2SD seems a bit overkill and tough to build an enclosure for. The SDrive is something that could have been built had SD cards existed in the late 80's. The 2GB limit isn't that serious. 2GB is an insane amount of storage on an 8bit. Booting big games at 19.2Kbps is no fun. I run into this from time to time with my Happy 1050 too which is a little slower than the SDrive at 19200 because it has to seek and such. Unfortunately only the 40-pin chips have sockets on this 800XL. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+CharlieChaplin Posted October 2, 2014 Share Posted October 2, 2014 (edited) Well, yes it is possible, but with some restrictions. Bob1200XL wrote some programs for highspeed/ultraspeed SIO. They are attached here. The one you are looking for is named "SPDSIO2.COM", put it onto a DOS 2.x disk and name it Autorun.SYS or *.AR0 or similar. Boot this disk (or ATR you have created), after a while the computer seems to hang - simply insert your bootdisk (bootdisk ATR) and press the START key. Your bootdisk (ATR image) should now load with ultraspeed. Restrictions: - the program uses RAM under the OS, thus it cannot load any program that also uses this memory - it does not work with any program that changes $D301 Read the docs, these are short ATASCII texts written on the A8 (not MS Word files). One of the Happy tools may or may not do the same, I cannot test it, since I do not have a Happy drive. P.S.: My SIO2SD enclosure is a 1010 data recorder, this enclosure was not so tough to build, since Atari did it for me... boot_us_happy.zip Edited October 2, 2014 by CharlieChaplin 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
a8isa1 Posted October 2, 2014 Author Share Posted October 2, 2014 Well, yes it is possible, but with some restrictions. Bob1200XL wrote some programs for highspeed/ultraspeed SIO. They are attached here. The one you are looking for is named "SPDSIO2.COM", put it onto a DOS 2.x disk and name it Autorun.SYS or *.AR0 or similar. Boot this disk (or ATR you have created), after a while the computer seems to hang - simply insert your bootdisk (bootdisk ATR) and press the START key. Your bootdisk (ATR image) should now load with ultraspeed. Restrictions: - the program uses RAM under the OS, thus it cannot load any program that also uses this memory - it does not work with any program that changes $D301 Read the docs, these are short ATASCII texts written on the A8 (not MS Word files). One of the Happy tools may or may not do the same, I cannot test it, since I do not have a Happy drive. P.S.: My SIO2SD enclosure is a 1010 data recorder, this enclosure was not so tough to build, since Atari did it for me... It's working! Thanks! I map SPDSIO2 as D1: and my game ATR as D2: and boot. Press a button on the SDrive and OPTION+START on the Atari. I can't use a divisor below 5 but that's OK. -SteveS Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
a8isa1 Posted October 3, 2014 Author Share Posted October 3, 2014 It's working! Thanks! I map SPDSIO2 as D1: and my game ATR as D2: and boot. Press a button on the SDrive and OPTION+START on the Atari. I can't use a divisor below 5 but that's OK. -SteveS I have to revise that to "...can't use a divisor below 6..." This is ability is still a big help for re-flashing an Atarimax cart. Saves lots of time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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