SDrive question

[mimo]

Before I make one of these, does anyone know if it will work with an 800 or 400 with 48K upgrade?

[a8maestro]

Before I make one of these, does anyone know if it will work with an 800 or 400 with 48K upgrade?

 

Its an sio device so in theory, makes no difference.

Will know more soon.

 

Rick D.

[mimo]

cool, that's what I thought/hoped.

Hopefully I will be able to get one or two put together soon

[raster/c.p.u.]

I haven't any Atari400/800 computer, but my friend Bohdan told me that he tested SDrive with Atari400 and it works well.

[mimo]

I haven't any Atari400/800 computer, but my friend Bohdan told me that he tested SDrive with Atari400 and it works well.

Great news, thanks for your reply

[alsp]

Just in addition - I have build this device and successfuly connect it to the 800XL.

[a8maestro]

I have been working on making a few sdrives since chat around November 08. After about a month of recovering from and auto accident, I finally got the chips programmed this week after more than a week of trying(computer #3 worked). While the leds work the way they are supposed to, the sdrive does not respond to the xl at all. Checked boards and circuits many ways, and nothing seems wrong. May be a case of I'll have to do it all 10 times to finally get it to work(as was programming).

 

And I am only guessing at what I need on the root dir of the sdcard other sdrive.atr, no good instructions.

 

Rick D.

[c0nsumer]

I have been working on making a few sdrives since chat around November 08. After about a month of recovering from and auto accident, I finally got the chips programmed this week after more than a week of trying(computer #3 worked). While the leds work the way they are supposed to, the sdrive does not respond to the xl at all. Checked boards and circuits many ways, and nothing seems wrong. May be a case of I'll have to do it all 10 times to finally get it to work(as was programming).

 

And I am only guessing at what I need on the root dir of the sdcard other sdrive.atr, no good instructions.

 

Rick D.

 

All you need in the root of the SD card is SDRIVE.ATR. As long as the firmware is on the chips correctly and things are wired up, it pretty much just works. One doesn't actually need any buttons nor LEDs to make it work, and everything the DIP and toggle switches do could wired up that way while connecting the SD card.

 

(Did you set the fuses right on the AVR? If not, it won't run / run right...)

Edited March 6, 2009 by c0nsumer

[HiassofT]

Did you set the fuses right on the AVR? If not, it won't run / run right...

Just a small hint: After having troubles with the SIO2SD Christoph (HardwareDoc) from ABBUC discovered that it's better to also enable the brownout detector (BODEN, BODLEVEL) of the Atmel. The fuse bits for the SDrive also didn't enable the detector, so instead of

 

Low=0xFF, High=0xDF

 

ist's better to set them to

 

Low=0x3F, High=0xDF

 

so long,

 

Hias

[c0nsumer]

Did you set the fuses right on the AVR? If not, it won't run / run right...

Just a small hint: After having troubles with the SIO2SD Christoph (HardwareDoc) from ABBUC discovered that it's better to also enable the brownout detector (BODEN, BODLEVEL) of the Atmel. The fuse bits for the SDrive also didn't enable the detector, so instead of

 

Low=0xFF, High=0xDF

 

ist's better to set them to

 

Low=0x3F, High=0xDF

 

so long,

 

Hias

 

Hias,

 

Do you have more information on the problems he was having? It makes sense that this may be desirable in some cases, but I'm not really sure why it'd be needed in this application.

 

I could see that, if there's a bunch of capacitors helping smooth 5V that a very quick power off/on of device could sag Vcc until the chip performs wrongly but isn't turned off. Is this possibly what was happening?

[HiassofT]

Do you have more information on the problems he was having? It makes sense that this may be desirable in some cases, but I'm not really sure why it'd be needed in this application.

Christoph wrote that sometimes the flash memory might get corrupted or erased, especially when (un-)plugging the device while the Atari was powered on. He had to fix serveral "dead" SIO2SD devices, the Atmel chip was still OK but the programming was lost. After enabling the brownout detector this didn't happen again.

 

so long,

 

Hias

[c0nsumer]

Christoph wrote that sometimes the flash memory might get corrupted or erased, especially when (un-)plugging the device while the Atari was powered on. He had to fix serveral "dead" SIO2SD devices, the Atmel chip was still OK but the programming was lost. After enabling the brownout detector this didn't happen again.

 

Hmm, that makes sense. I don't imagine it'll hurt, and (as you stated) may provide a benefit.

[a8maestro]

I have been working on making a few sdrives since chat around November 08. After about a month of recovering from and auto accident, I finally got the chips programmed this week after more than a week of trying(computer #3 worked). While the leds work the way they are supposed to, the sdrive does not respond to the xl at all. Checked boards and circuits many ways, and nothing seems wrong. May be a case of I'll have to do it all 10 times to finally get it to work(as was programming).

 

And I am only guessing at what I need on the root dir of the sdcard other sdrive.atr, no good instructions.

 

Rick D.

 

All you need in the root of the SD card is SDRIVE.ATR. As long as the firmware is on the chips correctly and things are wired up, it pretty much just works. One doesn't actually need any buttons nor LEDs to make it work, and everything the DIP and toggle switches do could wired up that way while connecting the SD card.

 

(Did you set the fuses right on the AVR? If not, it won't run / run right...)

 

===========================

Never mind! Problem Solved! Magnifiers are great for finding a bad solder at the dip switch. Thx.

=============================

From the video, I did put sdrive.atr on the root. I also added a couple of folders just to browse. I assume this works since the 4 drive LEDs go on when I insert the card, which the doc says the atmega read that file as the special drive.

For the Fuses, I am going by the Fuses.gif in the sdrive zip file. I will try again, but I seem to recall an error when writing the security bits.

 

Thanks,

Rick

Edited March 8, 2009 by a8maestro

[c0nsumer]

From the video, I did put sdrive.atr on the root. I also added a couple of folders just to browse. I assume this works since the 4 drive LEDs go on when I insert the card, which the doc says the atmega read that file as the special drive.

For the Fuses, I am going by the Fuses.gif in the sdrive zip file. I will try again, but I seem to recall an error when writing the security bits.

 

Yep, if all four (D1-D4) LEDs light up when you plug in the SD card, it's working.

 

What sort of circuit were you programming the AVR in? If it doesn't have an oscillator present, you'll immediately get an error after writing the fuses.

[a8maestro]

It runs quite nicely. Spent one Sunday afternoon while I was on chat letting it run a demo .ATR. Drunken Chessboard is quite nice.

 

So, kits, circuit boards, and program atmega mpus are now at my site.

 

I have also posted my efforts at programming, and started info on using it.

http://morethangames.a8maestro.com/proda8/adv-ek0130.htm

Should be enough extra info on how to make it yourself, and/or assemble it, use it.

 

Thanks for info.

 

Rick D.