Side2 Cartridge and Basic XE?

[Side2 Cartridge and Basic XE?]

3 hours ago, Technoid Mutant said:

Back when I was was owner of the real carts, from the shrinkwrap.   I never used the BXE extensions either.  For the most part I used it as a BXL replacement.  I forget what it has that BXL doesn't, but without the extensions it still has some added features.

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BXE allows you to use the 130XE extended memory, it has a FAST command that makes GOTOs and GOSUBs faster, it has a line renumber command, and it displays error messages rather than the error numbers. I believe that all four require the extensions disk but I know for sure that the error messages require it.

[Side2 Cartridge and Basic XE?]

I managed to get the system loaded onto the SIDE2 cart using the side2_full_oss_carts.atr file, and I have to say that it is AWESOME.  A big thanks to ebiguy and FJC for making this available.

 

I am new to the whole SIDE2 world and I didn't quite understand how it all would work once flashed so I had some trouble getting it to work due to some misunderstandings that are certainly my own fault.  I had expected the boot menu containing the OSS carts to appear when I booted, but that simply did not happen.  Instead it booted to SDX and I couldn't figure out how to get to that menu and boot into the ACTION! cart. 

 

It turns out that you have to run the SIDECFG file included in the archive which presents the list of OSS carts and you select between BASIC XL, ACTION!, etc.  That seemed really promising, but when I rebooted, I still ended up at the SDX menu.  Eventually, I figured out that all I needed to do was type "CAR" and I was dumped into ACTION!.  Simple and elegant and works exactly as though you had the ACTION! cart in the cartridge slot and with SIDE2, DOS operations are almost instantaneous which is a real improvement over the SDrive-Max that I was using before.  

[Side2 Cartridge and Basic XE?]

On 9/29/2019 at 11:24 PM, Scatter said:

Ah. Clearly I should have read the description a little more closely. That is really exciting. Thanks FJC. 

Looking at the readme.txt in the archive I see two files:

side2_full_oss_carts.atr   Full 512K ROM with SDX, loader, OSS carts, with UFLASH and SIDE DLT flasher
side2_full.atr                   Full 512K ROM with SDX, loader, OSS carts, with UFLASH and SIDE DLT flasher
 

Both files have exactly the same description. I assume there is a difference between the two?  If I was to guess, I would say that one contains the OSS carts while the other does not and that the description on one is wrong, but maybe I am missing something?

[Side2 Cartridge and Basic XE?]

18 hours ago, flashjazzcat said:

Under the download heading:

 

Ah. Clearly I should have read the description a little more closely. That is really exciting. Thanks FJC. 

[Side2 Cartridge and Basic XE?]

9 hours ago, DrVenkman said:

Check Jon’s firmware download page:

 

https://atari8.co.uk/firmware/side/

Thanks.  There are both drivers and firmware downloads on his site, but I don't see any mention of an OSS carts image

[Side2 Cartridge and Basic XE?]

On 9/10/2019 at 7:33 AM, flashjazzcat said:

Thanks to ebiguy, you can now run patched versions of all four OSS language carts right off the SIDE2 ROM. The ROMs work with or without U1MB, and you can run the OSS carts alongside the U1MB/SIDE HDD, ATR disk images, with or without SpartaDOS X.

 

You'll need to upgrade the firmware on both the U1MB and the SIDE2, though.

 

That is awesome!  Where would these files be downloaded from?

[What do you do with your SIDE2 ?]

Having all four OSS carts together on the SIDE2 would be amazingly useful. it has been a few months since the last post was written.  Has this been released yet?  I tried scouring the web but I don't see it anywhere.