Atari 800 SIO2SD Setup (with 1050 drive)

[Ruttin]

Hello all - While the SIO2SD is awesome, the documentation leaves a bit to be desired, especially on an A800. I wanted to write this up and share it out in case it is helpful to others. The SIO2SD (at least the one I purchased) doesn’t work out of the box with an A800 unless you perform a number of tweaks so here is an end to end walkthrough of how I got mine going. I also have an 1050 that I configured as D3 so I can use that if I ever want too.

1. Formatted SD card FAT32 (mine was performatted so I was good there)

2. Create ATARI directory in the root of the SD Card and dump a few ATRs in there to test (I downloaded Castle Wolfenstein and DOS 2.5 from AtariMania)

3. Get the modified Boot Loader from this thread (http://atariage.com/forums/topic/237177-sio2sdxex-on-an-800/?p=3219659) , rename the file to sio2sd.xex and drop this in the root directory (NOT the ATARI directory). This makes the function keys on the Atari 800 work with the SIO2SD

4. Plug the SD Card into the SIO2SD

5. Unplug both the 1050 and the A800 (I’m super paranoid about blowing something plugging and unplugging SIO devices)

6. Set the 1050 to Drive 3 (or whatever you want)

7. (Assuming 1050 is still plugged into the A800), Plug SIO2SD into the 1050

8. Plug power back into the 1050 and the A800

9. Hold down shift on the SIO2SD and power on the Atari

10. Press K1 (first button on the left on the SIO2SD) to cycle through the setting until you see sio high speed.

11. Press K2 (second button from the left on the SIO2SD) multiple times to change the setting to OFF

12. Press K1 to cycle to top drive mode.

13. Press K2 to change the setting to OFF

14. Press K1 to cycle to cfg tool mode

15. Press K2 to change this setting to startup+shift (it may already be set that way)

16. Power off the A800

17. Hold down shift on the SIO2SD and turn on Power to the A800. If all goes well, it will boot to the Config screen and you will be able to scroll up and down using the arrow keys and select images using the number keys

18. Choose an image to mount into D1

19. Power off the A800

20. Power on the A800 as you normally would and it should load the disk in D1

I wasn’t able to get any of the reboot methods listed on any various sites from the configurator so this was my workaround. Basically, hold down shift on the SIO2SD at power on when you want to make changes to the disk images and then power off/on to boot as normal. For changes while the system is booted up I can go to the usual mounting of images with the buttons on the SIO2SD but I wanted to minimize that as much as possible until I get a sturdy case for the unit. I also won’t mount anything on the SIO2SD on D3 to make sure it never conflicts with my 1050 drive.

I still need to figure out how to mount an EMPTY floppy into SIO2SD so I can generate blank virtual floppies, once I figure that out I’ll post it here if it is anything radically different. I’m not sure you can mount an EMPTY from the configurator or if that has to be done via the buttons.

If anybody has any suggestions on the EMPTY or I'm doing something really wrong, please shout. I'm very new and this was what I came up with in a few hours of playing around last evening.

 

Edited August 5, 2017 by Ruttin

[Justin Payne]

Awesome! It's always nice to have easy to follow steps, especially when there is a work-around.

[Ruttin]

Just reading this again - Step 5 should be more clear. Unplug *POWER* to both the 1050 and the Atari 800. Sorry, I couldn't figure out how to edit the original post again for some reason...

[Ruttin]

Next part - This is all about using the SIO2SD using the buttons. After many searches here I found a post (sorry, don't have it handy) that said go translate the SIO2SD docs from German to English. Bingo! Much better. It actually lists how to use the damn thing! I've put that here so folks can see it and search on it. Looks like many already knew but this took a couple hours for me to actually find something that made sense on how to use the buttons. From there I used the steps at the very bottom to create a blank floppy that I can save BASIC programs too. Hopefully it will save others time. I'm going to play with virtual drives (Favorites) next and see if I can get my head wrapped around the Configurator docs that are in Polish after that.

 

From the German translation of the directions (http://sio2sd.gucio.pl/wiki/KeyboardDoc_de):

Normal Running Mode: (The version 3.1)

• K1: Next drive: D1, D2, .., D15, V1, ... (up to the first free virtual drive)

• SHIFT + K1: previous drive

• K2: next folder / next file

• SHIFT + K2: previous folder / previous file

• K3: superordinate folder (cd ..)

• SHIFT + K3: swap the current drive to the next virtual drive (SWAP). For example: D1 -> V1 -> V2 -> ... -> D1, etc.

• K4: go to the folder / assign the current file to the drive

• SHIFT + K4: turn off the current drive ("Eject Disk")

• SHIFT + K4: when the drive is switched off (the display shows "OFF") create a new ATR file (the display shows "EMPTY") ATTENTION! The drive must still be formatted by Atari DOS. • SHIFT (double-click): SETUP mode

SETUP mode: (The version mode 3.X)

• K1: next setting

• SHIFT + K1: previous setting

• K2: next value

• SHIFT + K2: previous value

• K3: SETUP Exit mode

• SHIFT + K3: Firmware update (confirm with K2)

• K4: Configurator mode (the Configurator is assigned to drive D1)

• SHIFT + K4: Switch off the SIO

• SHIFT (double click): Exit SETUP mode

I haven’t played with this yet but wanted to document it for later. I didn’t understand what “virtual disks” were in SIO2SD. They appear to be really poorly documented favorites or shortcuts to commonly used disk images that can be assigned. From the translated German documentation:

Favorites/ShortCuts: (Short selection (from version 3.0))

When one of the K1 to K4 keys is held down, one of the virtual drives (corresponding to V0 to V3) is assigned to drive D1. This allows fast allocation of the favorite ATR files to the drives V0, V1, V2 and V3 and the short selection at power up. The device starts in this case in "Virtualdisk Modus".

Virtualdisk mode (version 3.0 only):

• K1: next drive (D1, D2, ...)

• SHIFT + K1: previous drive

• K2: next virtual drive (V1, V2, ...)

• SHIFT + K2: previous virtual drive

• K3: replace the drives (D1 <-> D2)

• SHIFT + K3: Exit Virtualdisk mode

• K4: move the drives to the left (D1 <D2 <D3 <D4 <D1)

• SHIFT + K4: move the drives to the right (D1> D2> D3> D4> D1)

Using the above I was able to create and format a blank floppy in D2 using the buttons by doing the following:

- Load Atari DOS 2.5 into D1 on SIO2SD. Boot to it.

- Press K1 on SIO2SD to change to D2 - D2 is probably label off, if not press Shift+K4 on SIO2SD to “Eject” the disk

- Press Shift+K4 on SIO2SD (again if you did it in the previous step) to set D2 to EMPTY

- Format as normal in your software (DOS 2.5 example = I to format, 2 for Drive, Y to proceed)

- Disk File in D2 will be created. It was called NEW_00000.ATR and will show up on the SIO2SD display

- Copy DOS Files to D2 (I wanted to save BASIC programs in this example: H to copy files, 2 for Drive, Y to proceed)

[Ruttin]

I was able to decipher some of the Polish in the Configurator manual and came up with the following for the Configurator (at least on the 800, not all the keys appear to work). I was able to confirm the following:

up/down = scroll up, down

1-9 = assign selected to drive 1-9 (can’t assign 10-16 in Configurator, keys A-O don’t seem to work)

Shift+1-9 - Unassign from drive

CTRL-SHIFT-up/down - Scroll the top box on the screen (i.e. see drives 9-16)

CTRL-T - Change to LCD mode (bad name for regular drive assignment mode), Mapping Mode (no idea what that does), and Virtual Drives Mode (I can only figure out 1-4 for now, see below)

CTRL+1-9 Assign Image to virtual drive

(Note, no idea how to unassign them from the configurator or the buttons)

CTRL-R = rename a file - VERY useful, glad I found this. I was able to rename the blank I created in the previous post. I can now create blanks (using the buttons) and rename them (using the configurator)

Not much else was useful or didn’t work but this is good enough for now.

 

Note on the virtual disks or favorites. Also noted on the previous post if you hold down buttons one of the four buttons at boot on the SIO2SD, it will boot the disk assigned to V1-V4 respectively. I found this cool because I could then have a few favorites and then swap them back and forth. No idea how you would use anything above 1-4 but it’s good enough for now. Also, I didn’t seem to be able to get into virtual mode from the previous post no matter what I did. I’ll use the configurator for now as a work around to assign buttons 1-4 and just use it that way until I can dig into it another day.

[Ruttin]

Awesome! It's always nice to have easy to follow steps, especially when there is a work-around.

 

Thanks! I just made this hopefully a one stop shop to set up a SIO2SD with an Atari 800. It's kludgy at best so I'd figure I'd post if nothing else than for me to add to it as I find more uses and workarounds.

[darwinmac]

I haven't had to shut off the SIO high speed, but it may be different on the 800. I agree with you on the lack of documentation for this great device. I've always wondered what top drive actually means. I've also wondered how to eject a disk from the config program. I've had to use the buttons to do it.

 

I did finally figure out that I can use the virtual drive (found by hitting Ctrl-t) to swap disks by hitting Shift-K3. It's handy for games like Leaderboard where the tournament disk is on side B.

 

Bob C

[Ruttin]

I haven't had to shut off the SIO high speed, but it may be different on the 800. I agree with you on the lack of documentation for this great device. I've always wondered what top drive actually means. I've also wondered how to eject a disk from the config program. I've had to use the buttons to do it.

 

I did finally figure out that I can use the virtual drive (found by hitting Ctrl-t) to swap disks by hitting Shift-K3. It's handy for games like Leaderboard where the tournament disk is on side B.

 

Bob C

 

I think the SIO high speed needs to be disabled for the Atari 800 for it to work properly and as I understand top drive is basically "Turbo mode" like on the 1050 maybe? I've read a lot of threads over the weekend - haha. Basically, the Atari 800 wants everything nice and slow and I'm OK with that. Great to know about the swapping and I'll play with that. Thanks!

[TheNightOwl]

Thanks for putting all this together - I think I've barely scratched the surface of what my SIO2SD can do (I don't even use the multiple drives) so seeing all this now makes me want to experiment a little more.