Mr Robot Posted May 16, 2019 Share Posted May 16, 2019 I got two of these for my CFIII https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GHBBK82 There was a lot of conflicting stuff early on the the XEL-CF development where there were issues with certain cards and limited compatibility but mytek and fjc fixed almost all of them by the time it got to CFIII Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted May 16, 2019 Share Posted May 16, 2019 Cards (and the FAT partitions on them) can be as big as you like (subject to the capabilities of the FAT filesystem). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DrVenkman Posted May 16, 2019 Share Posted May 16, 2019 I got two of these for my CFIII https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GHBBK82 There was a lot of conflicting stuff early on the the XEL-CF development where there were issues with certain cards and limited compatibility but mytek and fjc fixed almost all of them by the time it got to CFIII I use two of these as well, one for my XEL and a second for my XLD. The only issue, as such, with these particular cards is they don’t take well to hot-swapping. So although the XEL/XLD TK-II firmware allows you to trigger a card-refresh (F9, I think), it doesn’t work reliably. So if you swap cards during a session, a simple power-cycle is required. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Robot Posted May 16, 2019 Share Posted May 16, 2019 Yes I've noticed the CF refresh thing with these cards, if you refresh and it's wrong, refresh again, it tends to correct itself eventually. I have a similar issue with the Ultimate cart in the XEL too, if I press the button on the cart and hit reset, 8 out of 10 times it goes back to the menu but the menu is blank. I need to power cycle to get the cart contents to show up again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted May 16, 2019 Share Posted May 16, 2019 I would love to know what the problem is with that, but several months of testing and development last year didn't reveal any answers. All kinds of different controller reset timeouts were tried and nothing made a bit of difference (although dual card compatibility was greatly enhanced as a result). I've been unable to reproduce such controller reset issues with any of the cards I use here either, which doesn't exactly help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bfollowell Posted May 16, 2019 Share Posted May 16, 2019 Cards (and the FAT partitions on them) can be as big as you like (subject to the capabilities of the FAT filesystem). OK, I'm reading that the size limit for FAT/FAT32 is 32GB with Windows. That said, FAT/FAT32 can actually format up to 16TB hard drives and most operating systems support up to 2TB. So, I guess two 16GB or 32GB CF cards shouldn't be an issue. So, how/where do I format them for use with my CF3? Do I need to partition/format them from my 8-bit or can I format them as FAT from my Windows desktop? Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DrVenkman Posted May 16, 2019 Share Posted May 16, 2019 OK, I'm reading that the size limit for FAT/FAT32 is 32GB with Windows. That said, FAT/FAT32 can actually format up to 16TB hard drives and most operating systems support up to 2TB. So, I guess two 16GB or 32GB CF cards shouldn't be an issue. So, how/where do I format them for use with my CF3? Do I need to partition/format them from my 8-bit or can I format them as FAT from my Windows desktop? Thanks. Most of these kind of operational questions can really wait until you have a machine up and running. Long story short, once your XEL is working, put the card into the CF slot, boot the XEL to SpartaDOS X and run FDISK from the command line on your new machine. You can partition the card there by specifying how much to allocated to APT partitions and how much to allocate to the FAT32 partition. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted May 16, 2019 Share Posted May 16, 2019 (edited) OK, I'm reading that the size limit for FAT/FAT32 is 32GB with Windows. That said, FAT/FAT32 can actually format up to 16TB hard drives and most operating systems support up to 2TB. So, I guess two 16GB or 32GB CF cards shouldn't be an issue. I'd forgotten about the arbitrary 32GB volume size limit in the Windows Disk Management console, but I imagine a 128GB CF card with one huge partition on it would present no problems to the U1MB firmware if you prepped such a card using a third-party tool. 64GB is tested here and known to work. Filling it would be challenging, however, since I estimate that all software ever written for the A8 will probably fit on a 4GB card. So, how/where do I format them for use with my CF3? Do I need to partition/format them from my 8-bit or can I format them as FAT from my Windows desktop? It depends whether you want an APT (the container for native Atari partitions). If you do, you should insert the card, power on the Atari, enable the PBI HDD in the BIOS setup menu, then run the FDISK tool (which ought to be pre-installed on the SDX cart ROM) from the SpartaDOS X prompt. From there, choose 'Initialise disk...' via the menu (activated via the ESC key), and divide the total disk space between APT and FAT. You may only create a single FAT at this stage, but should you require more (the loader will handle up to fourteen FAT partitions), you can always use the Windows Disk Management console later on to shrink the primary FAT and add others in the empty space. Just be sure to NEVER let Windows format the partition it doesn't recognise (namely the APT container). Should you be interested only in running XEXs and disk images from the loader, you don't need to do anything but right-click the card and pick 'Format'. Select FAT (which is FAT16) or FAT32 (makes no difference to the loader), fill the partition with software, and off you go. Edited May 16, 2019 by flashjazzcat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted May 16, 2019 Share Posted May 16, 2019 but Atari now has music and videos and such cool fun super duper space eating stuff. So just like the PC of old, We can clutter up our drive with pictures, movies, music, and all the cool games and demos... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Robot Posted May 16, 2019 Share Posted May 16, 2019 Interesting... I was going to offer to send fjc one of my cards with the cf refresh issue so I fdisked it, partitioned it, stuck some files on the FAT partition and stuck it back in the XEL to get some photo evidence of the issue. I couldn't get it to fail; not once. So I stuck my other card in and as soon as I started hitting F9 I started getting problems again. With just the other card, no problems again no matter how I tried to abuse the refresh/reset mechanism. It seems this only crops up if you have two disks inserted at the same time. A single disk is totally solid. If both disks are in it can screw up if you hit F9, hit F11, power off and on too quickly and hit 'L'. All of these sometimes work, sometimes don't, sometimes look like they worked ok but nothing works if you try to load it. One disk at a time and it works perfectly, I can even swap the cf cards and hit F9 and it updates correctly, just don't plug in a second one! This is how it should look With two disks inserted I variously got these. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted May 16, 2019 Share Posted May 16, 2019 (edited) Yes: something about having two cards on the bus (especially if they're not identical cards) is causing a stability issue here. The underscores and missing characters in filenames indicate that data transfer is heavily screwed up. In the last screenshot, it appears that at least one byte from the directory was completely lost, causing each directory entry to be skewed left until the first entry in the next sector was retrieved (at 'MIDI-C_1.ATR'), at which point things line up again. This is 100 per cent a hardware issue, unfortunately, and impossible to program around. It's the exact issue that has plagued IDE devices (even when only a single physical disk is present) ever since the original MYIDE hardware. The SIDE2 more or less nailed the bus timing issue, but since the XEL-CF is less sophisticated (SIDE is based on a Xilinx CPLD), there's less scope for dealing with ringing, etc, in hardware. The PBI BIOS (like the IDE Plus 2.0) attempts to opportunely retry sector transfers (or simply return an IO error) when it suspects that a byte has been missed or repeated, but such error correction is somewhat last-ditch given that a dropped byte and a double-read in the same sector will completely evade it. You can probably expect an error message instead of garbage in the upcoming version of the loader, anyway, since I've added a simplified version of the same DRQ check as found in the PBI BIOS. Doubtless this will irritate some users who believe their card 'seems to work OK', but I'm of the opinion that if the CPU cannot reliably read the IDE controller's data register in the first place, it would be better to know about it. Fortunately the situation is greatly improved by XEL-CF3 (over where things were with XEL-CF2), but it still ain't perfect when it comes to dual-card adapters. I have a pair of identical 4GB SanDisk CF cards here which work very nicely in tandem, but if I swap one out for a different brand or an SD/CF adapter, odd behaviour can ensue. Edited May 16, 2019 by flashjazzcat 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bfollowell Posted May 16, 2019 Share Posted May 16, 2019 I got two of these for my CFIII https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GHBBK82 There was a lot of conflicting stuff early on the the XEL-CF development where there were issues with certain cards and limited compatibility but mytek and fjc fixed almost all of them by the time it got to CFIII I think I'm going to follow your lead and get two identical 16GB cards. 32GB worth of hard drive space is probably way, way overkill for an Atari 8-bit setup, but at some point you wind up spending as much or more for smaller cards and it just makes no sense to get anything smaller. Since we can load XEXs and ATRs from these now, I'll probably have little use for the SIO2SD I'd planned to buy, and I probably won't have a lot of need for my AtariMax SIO2PC-USB unless it's for the printer or modem emulation. Between these two cards and my Ultimate Cart, I should be in good shape 8-bit-wise. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Robot Posted May 16, 2019 Share Posted May 16, 2019 After the testing today I'd recommend a single card slot over a twin, you can pull the card, stick in the other one and hit refresh in the loader to get any content on the other card but it's not reliable to have them both plugged in at the same time. I kind of wish I'd stuck with my single slot now and not cut a second hole in my case which is now doomed to stay empty Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bfollowell Posted May 16, 2019 Share Posted May 16, 2019 (edited) After the testing today I'd recommend a single card slot over a twin, you can pull the card, stick in the other one and hit refresh in the loader to get any content on the other card but it's not reliable to have them both plugged in at the same time. I kind of wish I'd stuck with my single slot now and not cut a second hole in my case which is now doomed to stay empty Well, I could do that too, but I've already purchased the dual version, so I have a dual adapter, whether I ever use it or not. I'll probably go ahead and cut the lid and use them together, just to try it out, even if I do wind up abandoning one like you did in the longrun. Edited May 16, 2019 by bfollowell Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mytek Posted May 17, 2019 Author Share Posted May 17, 2019 After the testing today I'd recommend a single card slot over a twin, you can pull the card, stick in the other one and hit refresh in the loader to get any content on the other card but it's not reliable to have them both plugged in at the same time. I kind of wish I'd stuck with my single slot now and not cut a second hole in my case which is now doomed to stay empty I've had good success running dual cards when keeping the CF rated media speed to 30 MB/s or lower. The CF cards you have are 50 MB/s and as you've noted they are a bit cranky about always responding to a manual refresh (I know this from experience since I have one of those cards in my collection as well). But with that said, not too many people will find the need to have 2 CF slots. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bfollowell Posted May 17, 2019 Share Posted May 17, 2019 I wound up ordering two of these babies instead. The speed matches what Michael said we should shoot for. Let's face it, these things are getting harder and harder to find. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted May 17, 2019 Share Posted May 17, 2019 (edited) Has anyone tried a pair of the known working UDMA SD/CF adapters in tandem yet? I still didn't get a second adapter so haven't been able to test a dual SD adapter setup. Edited May 17, 2019 by flashjazzcat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mytek Posted May 18, 2019 Author Share Posted May 18, 2019 There was a question asked in a PM that will benefit everybody if I post the answer here. Question: The BOM for the XEL-CF3 doesn't call out either a switch or an LED indicator for the swap function. What can be used? Answer: Pretty much any momentary contact normally open switch will work for the swap latch activation. And the LED can be any type you wish (as well as any color), so long as it doesn't have an inline resistor. I believe MacRorie stocks something that will work for both of these. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted May 18, 2019 Share Posted May 18, 2019 Has anyone tried a pair of the known working UDMA SD/CF adapters in tandem yet? I still didn't get a second adapter so haven't been able to test a dual SD adapter setup. Just ordered a second one... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MacRorie Posted May 19, 2019 Share Posted May 19, 2019 There was a question asked in a PM that will benefit everybody if I post the answer here. Question: The BOM for the XEL-CF3 doesn't call out either a switch or an LED indicator for the swap function. What can be used? Answer: Pretty much any momentary contact normally open switch will work for the swap latch activation. And the LED can be any type you wish (as well as any color), so long as it doesn't have an inline resistor. I believe MacRorie stocks something that will work for both of these. I do. I can put together a DIY kit or something plug & play. Just let me know. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MacRorie Posted May 19, 2019 Share Posted May 19, 2019 After the testing today I'd recommend a single card slot over a twin, you can pull the card, stick in the other one and hit refresh in the loader to get any content on the other card but it's not reliable to have them both plugged in at the same time. I kind of wish I'd stuck with my single slot now and not cut a second hole in my case which is now doomed to stay empty Just out of curiosity, are you running a CF3 with F-series chips? Ever since switching to that, I have had no troubles whatsoever with my dual slot. Even with the previously marginal CF cards. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Robot Posted May 19, 2019 Share Posted May 19, 2019 Just out of curiosity, are you running a CF3 with F-series chips? Ever since switching to that, I have had no troubles whatsoever with my dual slot. Even with the previously marginal CF cards. I very much hope so! I ordered a kit from you and requested the f series chips. I haven't actually checked to make sure those were the the ones provided, I assumed I didn't need to. I'll check today! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bfollowell Posted May 19, 2019 Share Posted May 19, 2019 So, I see we can add a swap switch to swap disks in a set. Can we do this only for two-disk sets or sets that span several disks? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted May 19, 2019 Share Posted May 19, 2019 Can we do this only for two-disk sets or sets that span several disks? Up to fifteen-disk sets, if it's possible to keep track of that many. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bfollowell Posted May 19, 2019 Share Posted May 19, 2019 (edited) Up to fifteen-disk sets, if it's possible to keep track of that many. I seriously doubt I'd need that many! I'd say most sets are two to four, but I know there are a few with more. Now I'm going to need to redesign the cover for my 1088. Luckily I hadn't ordered one yet! Edited May 19, 2019 by bfollowell Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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