phoenixdownita

Nope . This didn't work, only thing it did is XEGS OS if no keyboard attached goes to diagnostic (or turning on with Select or Option pressed and keyboard). I guess Missile Commando is not mapped without XEGS mode jumper and that's it. Now before anyone asks, yes I also reflashed with U1MBv2 stock rom and used "Stock OS" and it is the same (except that the no keyboard just goes to basic as expected), I also tried with copy of the rom on-board the day I received my U1MB which had Stock XL/Stock XE instead of Diagnostics/StockOS [i believe they are slot 2 and 4] and it also made no difference ... this is so annoying. I must have reflashed 20 times by now , I start to believe the problem is somewhere else. Is it possible that simply XEGS doesn't work with U1MB + SIDE2 and "L" to mount ATR? Or maybe U1MB should also inject PBI ROM if XEGS mode as otherwise it does not seem to work on real XEGS (oh ... the irony ) BTW at least once MyBIOS R2 is on U1MB I found a way to boot the flasher ATR while having U1MB SDX on, I suspect it is a glitch but it works. Basically I have the flasher ATR set as D1 in MyIDE2 partition space, then turn on Atari (U1MB SDX is set to ON), it locks, then I press reset and it unlocks and boots the flasher, with U1MB SDX off the ATR boots just fine from MyIDE2 but the flasher gets stuck waiting for the "SDX card" ,that's why it needs to be set to enabled on U1MB. I hope Candle gets back his PC soon so maybe he can figure out something, I still have around 99980 flash cycles [unrelated note I just found this: http://www.retrobits.net/atari/pbi.shtml which at the end says: PBI pin 31 (phi2) should be taken from ANTIC pin 29 instead directly from CPU phi2 output pin 39 makes one wonder ....]

OK later I will try to take the jumper out and see where that goes. Will this work with an XEGS OS or do I have to use Stock XE/XL OS? [in XEGS mode the OS made no difference wrt ATR booting] Can anyone explain what the XEGS jumper is supposed to be doing? [we should add it to the documentation on U1MB] I mean is it there to have U1MB simulate XEGS on std XE/XL or is it there to tell U1MB that the underlying Atari is an XEGS? I guess that caused the confusion for me. I thought the jumper was there to tell U1MB that the underlying Atari is an XEGS and as such compensate for the different ROM size and MMU pinout. Regarding why it is the way it is, considering XEGS never had PBI or even the ECI interface it is possible that Atari engineers decided to "drop support", just speculation.

Good question, well according to Lotharek if I want to use SIDE2 as SDX, I need to use the SDX from IDE2 and not the one from U1MB. I did try to prepare the CF card entirely from SIDE2 (U1MB SDX off, Side HW disabled), FDISK managed to prepare the card and I managed to build the APT "table" with 1 partition. I didn't go much further than that, did not try to mount or anything past formatting. But at this point U1MB would still not allow me to work with ATR file in FAT32 portion via L. What I noticed was that if the APT portion on the CF is created by MyBIOS then it can't be used by SIDE2 SDX, size mismatch, formatting fails. That is when I got back to use CF as formatted by MyBIOS (with a FAT32 and the rest is simple custom space, no APT at all). Is APT space mandatory for this to work? I mean on the CF to succeed in mounting a FAT32 thru SIDELoader is there a need to have an APT part? Any info greatly appreciated.

Nope. Same issue, when I start an ATR it goes to basic.

What exactly is the fix? And more importantly which piece of the ROM can I replace without undoing the fix? In specific I'd like to be able to put my OSes (XEGS stock and MyBIOS R2) and be able to take whatever upgrade happens down the road. I'll surely test it. If it works whatever you fix should find its way back to the official images so nobody has to go thru my same hiccups.

Well, if instead of 10 pin header it would have been the 14 pin header (same 2mm pitch) it would have worked, but that's beside the point. I got a Xilinx USB programmer from a friend and it didn't help. But this is what I managed to do: set OS as MyBIOS R2, no SDX, no SIDE PBI, then boot a SDX rom prepared with MyIDE2 driver from FAT32Loader, all OK. On MyIDE2 I had prepared an ATR partition with the flasher and set MyBIOS to have it as D1.... eventually it booted but at flash time it complains that it was waiting for SDX card. Enter U1MB bios, activate SDX, reset, see SDX that almost starts, press reset again and see SDX starting and "restoring" RAM drive then booting the flasher out of MyIDE2. Then let the flasher go, it says erasing 128x4K, then flashes 64blocks, it asks at the end (no errors) if I want to restart the program, I simply reset and check and I didn't brick my U1MB flash ....so I guess it kind of worked ... given I need MyBIOS R2 to start the process (and mount D1 as the SDX flasher ATR) I couldn't have done without the physical burner given my situation, nonetheless a bizarre set of coincidences have allowed me to see the flasher running from ATR at least once [i used the ROM generator but I replaced the flasher with the one that allegedly supports SST39SF040 ]. Regarding my U1MB + SIDE2 I am still baffled, it may be my NTSC XEGS that is weird, or something within U1MB or SIDE2, I hope to find someone with the same setup I have to prove to me that it works so I can start ruling out pieces until I find what's wrong. I guess I was trying to rule out the obvious first (old flash content or old CPLD core of U1MB) , now a trip back to Poland to Lotharek seems to be inevitable, alas with no guarantees that it'll work in the end.

Got a Xilinx USB cable and validated CPLD version with Ultimate-v2.jed file that Lotharek sent me (and also available on website, I did a fc /b on the 2 files and they are the exact same), and it all matched. I really was hoping it didn't as that would point to an old CPLD core. Anyway I erased and reprogrammed it twice and validated each time the CPLD was erased and once reprogrammed that it matched the checksum for the file and of course it all tallied. Still I can't mount ATR from U1MB + L. Maybe I just got a defective board, but it's hard to tell because it looks in pristine conditions and professionally made. Is there anyone that has my same setup and attest it can actually work? I mean NTSC XEGS with U1MB v2 + SIDE2, maybe I'm missing something.

Yep, TL866CS is pretty good, and I can tell you its software runs on win8.1 64bit (I believe I only had to run by hand the 64bit driver installer because they were launching the 32bit instead although the 64bit was right there). Unfortunately even the TL866A [which support SPI, the CS does not] does not support Xilinx, so I have to meet a friend that presumably has a Xilinx USB programmer that I can borrow, then I have to build a custom cable because the U1MB JTAG is not std pinout ... apparently Xilinx has a std 14 pin header that they suggest to adopt but that didn't happen here ... oh well I guess I'm a little frustrated given my U1MB was supposed to be "fully" tested and I bought it in bundle with SIDE2 .and what doesn't work is exactly the only feature that involves both .

MyDOS does not have FAT32 driver to access the FAT32 partition on MyIDE2. The way you go about it is to create a bigger image/partition partition (use the MyDOS image tools for that and put 3 as the image space). Then you prepare ATR out of the files you care for on a PC, finally use MyIDETool on your PC to put the ATRs in the image/partition space (depending on how big they are, but for what you are trying to do partition space is the way to go). Now once you boot into MyDOS you'll have access to the mounted ATR partitions (up to 15 I believe) and proceed that way. Here on atarimax there are 4 PicoDOS ATRs (16MB each) with a huge selection already and with slow SIO set [so they mostly work on MyIDE2 partition space], pay attention that to play them MyBIOS R2 is the way to go, F2 is not that compatible being RAM based, and you almost always need MyBIOS to trap SIO calls (not all games works as some have custom SIO routines and don't go thru the OS so they just won't work from MyIDE2 image/partition space). But you can use those PicoDOS disk with a MyDOS boot and then transfer whatever is in there to floppies, not perfect but a beginning.

Press Enter.

everything you say makes sense but I have seen a 320K version of Commando, so somehow it should be possible to pack code and data together. The XEX can just be hardcoded to contain the 512K of the ROM and just load everything in RAM (maybe CompyShop 576 mode don't know), at which point all 8K pages with the exception of what's needed to flash are data pages. I'm not saying it's an easy feature just something I would have appreciated, MyIDE2 allows flashing thru its FAT32Loader by pressing CTRL-F over a properly prepared ROM file (it's 512K of flash as well, with 512K of SRAM [likely mapped very differently]), that is why I suggested maybe the feature could be part of SIDE loader on U1MB, CTRL-F over a prepared bin/hex or whatever we need could activate the flasher routines and load from FAT32. I do understand if it is hard and eventually it won't work but it would be a very nice feature indeed.

Lotharek suggest I reprogram the U1MB CPLD via a Xilinx JTAG programmer .... not exactly a walk in the park given I don;t have one, there's a parallel port version for around 10$ and I found an old laptop in the house with parallel port. I am not sure at this point how much of a trouble it's going to be given U1MB JTAG is not even a std 2.54mm pitch connector but a 2.00mm which has its own set of issuse, basically I will be forced to solder cables on the pads rather than use the comnnector .... will see, I don't have the programmer yet anyway so it is not like I am in a hurry. Still so far this experience is far from "plug, solder only 4 signals and play", assuming reprogramming the CPLD fixes the issues of course. I will report if/when I manage to try yet another "fix" .... To be fair Lotharek as offered to reprogram my U1MB for me by sending it back but it probably costs more in shipping than attempting to buying one of this parallel programmers. If that doesn't fix it though I guess my U1MB has a serious issue with this ATR business.

If XEX was supported I could have reprogrammed with the chip mounted rather than have to go the burner way, I bought the burner for this purpose. The fact that it doesn't work still it's a different issue, Lotharek suspects that I may have an old CPLD core (he sent me a JED file) and for that I'm pretty sure I need JTAG/SPI support which my burner does not have, so that is a totally different type of disappointment. XEX support could be used to reprogram U1MB from MyIDE2, as I am assuming no SDX needed, ATR can only mounted thru SIDE2 so XEX could help U1MB owners that have other way of running it.

Please have it support XEX, I'm still stuck with no ATR support despite my direct flashing with OS replacement, if I had XEX support I could reflash without having to take the chip out. Small victory but I'm kind of tired of opening and closing the XEGS, also although PLCC sockets are meant for swaps I am not sure how many they can take before causing issues with loose contacts.

DEFEAT I reflashed from the v2 U1MB stock rom replacing 2 OSes, one with stock XEGS and one with MyBIOS R2. On the good side, both OSes work and myBIOS R2 can see MyIDE 2 just fine and it all works as expected, also XEGS stock OS behaves on U1MB as real XEGS, booting to Basic if keyboard pluggend and booting to Missile Command if keyboard not plugged ... everything as expected there, very good. This ends the nice part, I still CANNOT mount ATRs over SIDE2, it just goes to BASIC (I can hear the "purr" then eventually the READY prompt). FYI If I press space I can see the "D1" appearing and so on, it's just when I press Enter that I get around 3 sec of "fast purring" on a black background then blue background, then "slow purring" and in the end READY appears. So I'm stuck where I was but with the added extra 2 OSes, I was hoping to restore ATR support on the SIDE2 part. Anyone has an idea of what can be flaky/wrong/misconfigured? I repeat everything else on U1MB appears to be working just fine: OS selection, memory expansion, XEGS game slot, "L" SIDE loader ... I don't even know if the issue is on U1MB or in SIDE2 at this point or maybe SW side as in the SIDE loader or a PBI driver. It's possible there's a bug in SIDE loader on U1MB. I noticed that the one inside SIDE2 and the one inside U1MB are not the same, the difference is obvious once I "updated" SIDE2 with the latest Candle loader with rom support (http://atariage.com/forums/topic/216189-sideside-2-cartdidge-firmware-update/). The rom support is only there if booting from SIDE2 (U1MB set as mem exp only), if instead I go thru U1MB (SIDE HW on w/button + SDX on) then I press "L" then no rom support. One more piece of info: If I set U1MB as Side HW on w/ button but No SDX, then when I press "L" I go to Basic, is this expected? Help!?!?!

I just received my TL866CS burner. I will attempt to rebuild my U1MB flash (SST39SF040) and hope that it works. (Lotharek has not responded to me since he's been made aware of the issue, not sure if he's still investigating or ...) Alternatively I noticed that my SIDE2 has the good old AMD flash chip (AM29F0408), if shit comes to shore I will try to dump its content and flash it instead. Not sure I can put the SST39SF040 in the SIDE2 but I figured that attempting to swap the chips may just work, assuming my issues are due to the SST39SF040 rather than something else. I'll post something once I get around it ..... definitely it sucks to need to buy an EPROM burner for this, an XEX based solution would be much better given U1MB has plenty or RAM to load the whole 512K of ROM and flasher, and given the fact I can at least load XEX from SIDE loader just fine.

Payment sent. Looking forward to play with it.

As the PO managed to git his one fixed?

Hi Candle, any chance to develop a XEX based firmware flasher for U1MB? As you can read here http://atariage.com/forums/topic/218960-u1mb-side2-on-xegs-issues/ my U1MB + SIDE2 combination does not load ATRs, it always goes to Basic. Lotharek is aware of the issue and probably looking for answers. In any case I wanted to flash the 4th slot with XEGS OS and slot 3 with MyBIOS R2, but U1MB flashing solution is thru an SDX ATR so for me at the moment it's a no go. I am not an Atari expert at all so I do not know how much work you put into making the side-update.xex, maybe I am wrong assuming that it will flash SIDE2 side loader, but if it does do you think it possible to build a XEX based integrated flasher + ROM for U1MB. Like loading the whole thing in the extended RAM and then flash from there, after all the flash onboard U1MB is 512KB but there's 1MB of RAM available. I am not thinking of allowing to flash pieces independently, the whole 512K would be good, a little PC tool that creates the XEX with "flasher + ROM" is what I am looking for. Once more, apologies as I am not an Atari expert, so if I make no sense don't take it the wrong way. I am not sure if it is even technically possible, just asking here. Thanks

An update about there being no further updates so far Lotharek asked me what other mod I have (NTSC XEGS + U1MB is all that there is to it) and then asked me pointers to the ATRs that don't work (given it's all of them is pretty easy, but I pointed to Ultimate2.atr on his site as an example, and all the "Gyruss" and "Mario Bros (v1)" over at atarionline.pl). I have not heard since but it's been only 2 days, again just me being impatient, so I do not know what/if he's investigating or if he has been able to repro the problem on his end and maybe working on a fix, if there's something to fix that is.

As you saw here http://atariage.com/forums/topic/218960-u1mb-side2-on-xegs-issues/?do=findComment&comment=2873226 Lotharek is attempting to assist me, for now not much has happened. I'm in WA, I ordered the programmer as well but Lotharek already told me that I have the latest firmware so flashing might not help. To be clear, I have another Eprom programmer that may work but I do not have the PLCC adapter, given it is a TOP853 with no support for 64bit I decided to purchase the TL866CS (I don't need the A version) with PLCC 32pin adapter, we'll see what happens but the SW seems to support 64bits (I already installed it on Win 8.1) so I can use my primary machine (the old crappy laptop I was using with Win7 32bit is really slow and the TOP853 does not support many chips that the TL866CS does). Thanks for the offer though, hopefully we'll get to the bottom of it. MyIDE2 supports flashing from FAT32Loader (CTRL F on the flashing rom, it has 512K of SRAM + 512K of Flash so it can always load the flash content in SRAM first then flash from there), I wish U1MB would support something similar from SIDE loader, after all U1MB has 512K of flash and 1024KB of RAM, more than enough to load the whole flashing ROM + ad-hoc flasher. Anyway finger crossed, let's see what happens. It will be mid-December for me too to receive the programmer, definitely not a plug and play solution, MyIDE2 (bricking aside, at which point it requires a flasher too [Maxflash USB Cartridge Programmer Kit]) is a more thought out alternative regarding this particular aspect. Without such feature the ATR based formatting requires SIDE2 or SIO2PC/SIO2SD, oh well, I wish Candle'o'Sin, Lotharek and Steve would join force and build the ultimate solution .... it ain't going to happen, it's like asking van Gogh, Renoir and Michelangelo to cooperate ... not a chance. .

Lotharek is assisting me in finding the root cause. For now except failing to start ATR it all looks normal to him. SIDE2 works as expected, SDX works only when launched from SIDE2, cannot use U1MB onboard SDX in that case. Missile Command access -> set Basic to CAR1 and SDX off -> missile command starts as expected. I guess we are ruling out obvious things. He also suggested me NOT to flash as I have the latest firmware (given my goal is to have MyBIOS R2 in it I need to flash eventually but until my programmer arrives I'll obviously not touch anything). We'll see what comes out of it, I really wonder if it can be due to some bad soldering or bad contacts in the ICD cable adapters, if it is even possible. For sure it is bizarre that everything else works but this one feature, maybe it could be the CF but then again it works perfectly for XEXs loading.

It's also the ROM, the chip on the XEGS is a 32K, while for the rest it is a 16K, but they all have the same number of pins. What happens is that the 32K chip uses 1 unused pin as A14, while for the 16K is simply NC, I've noticed it in the EPROM versions (27C256 vs 27C512), the 27C512 moved the VPP [programming] pin into a different spot and reuses the 27C256 VPP as A14, the ROM have the same pinout, they simply do not support programming [VPP]. That is the reason I said U1MB has to know the ROM size if it needs to drive A14 at all [XEGS mode].

Cool, at least I got an answer to the XEGS mode "incompat", namely I need the XEGS OS. I guess the dip switch only tells U1MB what OS rom size to expect on the board (16K vs 32K) so it knows if it can use the extra addressing pin on the rom chip, likely also subtle MMU differences, it makes sense. Thanks for the download, I will certainly use it once I get the programmer.

This is partially covered in other topics, I just want to "summarize" my experience so maybe someone can help. I have an XEGS and I bought SIDE2 and U1MB form lotharek. I installed U1MB myself [needed to trim the ICD adapters as on XEGS there's not much space]. My U1MB came flashed with the following OSes: 1)HiSpeed 2)Stock XL 3)QMegs 4)Stock XE I did put a jumper on the U1MB XEGS mode pin header bridging the pins, I believe that is what is needed for XEGS mode. No matter what OS I choose I cannot get to Missile Command, I believe for this to work I need an XEGS os rom in slot 4. Now onto SIDE2. If I disable SDX and SIDE HW on U1MB I can use the embedded SDX mode with FDISK to prepare the cart, and then put XEX and ATR on the FAT32 portion, then with the switch in Loader mode I can load XEXs fine. now on U1MB + L (SIDE2 switch set in Loader mode): 1) Side HW Off, SDX Off, attempt to start an ATR => no PBI driver/device error [expected] 2) Side HW On, SDX Off, attempt to start an ATR => xxx not mounted error [expected, SDX seems necessary for this] 3) Side HW On, SDX On, attempt to start an ATR => led flashes then goes to basic prompt [NOT expected] because of 3 I cannot flash U1MB as I cannot start any ATR, so I'm kind of stuck. [i tried both Side HW On settings with and w/o button support, no difference] During all this XEXs always work from any Side loader (either the SIDE2 or the U1MB + L). Even more details, I can only FDISK thru SIDE2 SDX mode (and all settings off for the U1MB). Otherwise U1MB keeps on complaining that it cannot recognize the device (in this case I have Side HW on, SDX on but I simply don't press L, I just get out of the U1MB setup menu). I believe the issue may be in the U1MB PBI drivers, that are there but have issues maybe in recognizing the CF (and I only have 1 4GB DaneElec to play with), or alternatively in the U1MB SDX drivers that don't play nice with the PBI and fail to mount the ATR, not sure which is which. For completeness pay attention that if you prepare the CF with MyIDE2 the APT partition is not compat with SDX on SIDE2. I noticed that the sizes reported are half on SIDE2 SDX than they are on MyIDE2 SDX [there's a SDX rom to which you can add MyIDE2.sys for MyIDE2] and SIDE2 SDX then fails to format them. So I decided to stick to just one simple FAT32 as all I care are XEXs and ATRs and apprently U1MB should be able to support them both from the FAT32 partition (with SIDE2). Because of the IDE register clash MyIDE2 cannot run as PBI device for U1MB, I know that, but the U1MB extra mem is usable from within MyBIOS just fine, so I was trying to use U1MB as memory expansion + multiOS. What was I trying to achieve? Having U1MB flashed with a XEGS stock bios so I can use my XEGS as normal XEGS (the onboard Stock XE does not seem to work for me) + MyBIOS R2/RE so I can use it with MyIDE2 [i like R16 support] because MyBIOS R2 compat is much better than MyBIOS F2 (soft OS versus rom os). I bought SIDE2 because I thought it would be easy to make it work with U1MB as a way to reflash it but I got stuck. I am now using the same CF among SIDE2 and MyIDE2 and YES I did try a complete ground up FDISK/Format cycle for CF completely from the SIDE2 to make sure only lotharek hardware was involved .... and nothing changed, so I went back to use MyBIOS to do the disk preparation (because it needs a special partition for its own support of mounted ATRs) and simply "share" the CF FAT32 portion among the 2 devices. So to summarize: U1MB + SIDE2 -> not capable of ATR launch from SIDE Loader, in specific it appears the SDX image in U1MB cannot recognize SIDE2 device (not sure if it may be the particular CF). U1MB stand alone -> not capable of running as a stock XEGS, I believe because the Stock XE OS is not XEGS U1MB + MyIDE2 -> can use the extra mem (I tried commando 320K and TowerToppler 128K file version and they worked), but because can't flash OS then can only use MyBIOS F2 with reduced compat. I contacted lotharek about a week ago with no answer yet, now I ordered an (E)EPROM flasher in the hope that I can use the ROM generator output rom to reflash U1MB and hopefully fix the blunder ..... just not exactly a cheap solution (MyIDE2 FAT32loader allows MyIDE2 self flashing, I wonder if we can have SIDE loader on U1MB to embed a feature like it so as long as SIDE loader can see the file then it can flash U1MB). I'll contact him again maybe he was just busy with life, I just checked here in case someone as a quick solution, keep in mind I have no access to SIO2PC, SIO2SD or any other device that can simulate real Atari devices, I only have SIDE2 and MyIDE2. So please do not post anything about lotharek services, it's been too early and maybe he has a solution, for now I'm just being impatient. I like his skills, and the products look fantastic. Anyone else experiencing my issues with U1MB + SIDE2? If so did trying another CF help in any way?