IDE Plus 2.0

[Frankie]

-answered my own question-

 

 

[+Guitarman]

3. When flashing the BIOS, shouldn't the number at the top of the IDE+ menu change to reflect the BIOS version?? For instance, the last ARC'ed BIOS you posted showed flasher 0.7 when I ran the lba0.com, but my IDE+ menu still shows 0.4. See picture.

 

The BIOS revision number is the one which is visible in the menu. The *.COM upgrade flasher only displays own version number, i.e. the revision number of the code that flashes the BIOS into the ROM.

 

Ok. Then, is 0.4 the latest or is there something newer?? If so, can you attach it or point to the post that has it??

 

Also, I hope you don't take any of my comments as complaints. You are doing an amazing job at fielding the support and updates on this thing. :thumbsup:

[drac030]

I think 0.5 is the newest one that was distributed in public: http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/179613-ide-plus-20-preorder-starts-today/page__view__findpost__p__2300231

 

Of course, I must setup a page for the downloads.

Edited June 17, 2011 by drac030

[+Guitarman]

I think 0.5 is the newest one that was distributed in public: http://www.atariage....ost__p__2300231

 

Of course, I must setup a page for the downloads.

 

That's the last one i used and it is showing up as 0.4 on mine. I'll try flashing to an earlier one and then reflash to see if it changes. Also, does the filename have to be LBA0.com before running it or can it be named something else??

[drac030]

I downloaded the archive and LBA0.COM, when viewed, shows "0.5" (the texts the config menu displays are near the end of the file).

 

Of course, I will be changing the file name to avoid (a possible) confusion.

[+Guitarman]

I downloaded the archive and LBA0.COM, when viewed, shows "0.5" (the texts the config menu displays are near the end of the file).

 

Of course, I will be changing the file name to avoid (a possible) confusion.

 

I updated with the last one (0.6) and it still showed 0.4 in the menu and the extra feature you added was not there. I did it from SDX. I then decided to try it from MyDOS, so I booted to the KMKDIAG MyDOS disk and ran the 0.6 BIOS from there, and it did work!! Seems I'm having an issue with the BIOS flash from SDX. But, the good thing is, I got it updated OK.

 

I see you posted another update today, so I will try it again tonight from both SDX and MyDOS, and see which one works.

 

EDIT: I just updated to the latest via SDX, so it is working fine. Must of had a slightly glitched update previous to the one I did in MyDOS but now it's updating fine.

[twh/f2]

Hi everybody,

 

I have now my dual Master+Slave CF Adapter and two 2GB CFs. Everything seems to be OK with KMKDiag/FDISK.

 

Unfortunately I have problems setting up and formating partitions for SDX on the slave device.

 

 

What I did so far:

 

1) Upgrade IDE Plus to SDX 4.44

2) Upgrade IDE Plus to BIOS IDE Plus BIOS 0.7

3) Activate the "Slave" option in the IDE Plus config screen

4) Create two partitions using FDISK2

4.1) 65535/512 as Partition1 on the Master

4.2) 32000/512 as Partition1 on the Slave

5) Boot SDX and format

5.1) Unit "A" -> works -> 65535 sectors free

5.2) Unit "B" -> works -> 32000 sectors free

 

After formating the slave-partition1 "DIR A:" shows in SDX the content of B: (partition 1/slave) ... files created on "B:" then are reported on drive "A:". It seems that the "redirect" option of the slave partition accidently is overloading the master partition. How can I deactivate "D1:" redirects for slave-partitions?

 

Doing the same thing with four (instead two) partitions *should* produces this picture:

 

partition1/master -> A:

partition2/master -> B:

partition1/slave -> C:

partition2/slave -> D:

 

But after reboot and formatting with SDX I get this picture:

 

dir A: -> content of C: (partition1/slave)

dir B: -> content of B: (partition2/master)

dir C: -> content of C: (partition1/slave)

dir D: -> content of D: (partition2/slave)

 

When I now format A: again i get this:

 

dir A: -> content of A: (partition1/master)

dir B: -> content of B: (partition2/master)

dir C: -> content of A: (partition1/master)

dir D: -> content of D: (partition2/slave)

 

that's confusing .. Bug or feature?

 

grüße,

\thomas

Edited June 23, 2011 by twh/f2

[flashjazzcat]

I'll hold off from testing my dual adapter, then, for the moment.

[drac030]

Definitely a bug and I seem to know where, even without looking to the code.

 

Anyways, it seems that few people overlooked what I wrote when introducing the internal BIOS: that slave drives are not supported for the moment. The reason is that I only have one disk, the master drive. Of course, this is a bit of overstatement, because the code is there, it takes the slave drive into account, and - as I am surprised to see - it even almost works. But the slave access is not tested at all, therefore I preferred to announce that there is no support.

[+orpheuswaking]

Glad I didn't plunk down the cash for one of those sexy Vesalia Dual CF adaptors then

 

 

[flashjazzcat]

Definitely a bug and I seem to know where, even without looking to the code.

 

Anyways, it seems that few people overlooked what I wrote when introducing the internal BIOS: that slave drives are not supported for the moment. The reason is that I only have one disk, the master drive. Of course, this is a bit of overstatement, because the code is there, it takes the slave drive into account, and - as I am surprised to see - it even almost works. But the slave access is not tested at all, therefore I preferred to announce that there is no support.

I'll assist in any way possible. I'd like to get this working.

[GoodByteXL]

...I wrote when introducing the internal BIOS: that slave drives are not supported for the moment.

Ah, so practicing ancient methods of information keeping pays off. Even with a bad hand writing ...

[kurtm]

Anyways, it seems that few people overlooked what I wrote when introducing the internal BIOS: that slave drives are not supported for the moment. The reason is that I only have one disk, the master drive. Of course, this is a bit of overstatement, because the code is there, it takes the slave drive into account, and - as I am surprised to see - it even almost works. But the slave access is not tested at all, therefore I preferred to announce that there is no support.

 

I've found in my day job that even if you have flashing neon signs chained to the user, they will be surprised when you point out that information...

[twh/f2]

Hi *,

 

thanks Drac030! I did not know that the SLAVE option should not be used for the moment.

 

I just tested with only one CF card and left the other CF slot free. In this combination I found a stability issue. KMKDIAG gave suddendly:

 

Read stability ... PASSED

Slow I/O ... FAILED (timeout)

 

The device was not usable at all. DOS write operations killed the sparta file system after seconds.

 

So I decided to plug in the second CF card again. KMKDIAG certified me a stable device. I disabled the slave option in the start-config screen and erased the partition table on the slave drive. now everything runs stable. I really wonder, why the second CF card is required for stability even though I can't use it for partitions?!

 

greetings,

\twh!

Edited June 23, 2011 by twh/f2

[flashjazzcat]

Hi *,

 

thanks Drac030! I did not know that the SLAVE option should not be used for the moment.

 

I just tested with only one CF card and left the other CF slot free. In this combination I found a stability issue. KMKDIAG gave suddendly:

 

Read stability ... PASSED

Slow I/O ... FAILED (timeout)

 

The device was not usable at all. DOS write operations killed the sparta file system after seconds.

 

So I decided to plug in the second CF card again. KMKDIAG certified me a stable device. I disabled the slave option in the start-config screen and erased the partition table on the slave drive. now everything runs stable. I really wonder, why the second CF card is required for stability even though I can't use it for partitions?!

 

greetings,

\twh!

Same thing happens when using dual card adapter with only one card with my SDX MyIDE driver. I only realized the other day. With dual adapter, use two cards - else use single adapter.

[+orpheuswaking]

Does your Dual CF adaptor have a jumper to swap out Master/Slave ? I'm wondering if you can set it to only show the master.

[flashjazzcat]

Does your Dual CF adaptor have a jumper to swap out Master/Slave ? I'm wondering if you can set it to only show the master.

I think the jumpers usually just swap the drive order.

[drac030]

twh/f2

 

if you find time/courage for further experiments, please test the BIOS I have linked you via PM.

[flashjazzcat]

One thing I have established: interface is rock-steady (according to KMKDIAG) with two CF cards connected. So the hardware is fine... just those elusive tweaks to the firmware required. The dual adapter's really solid, too, and has nice 3mm power and activity LEDs.

[flashjazzcat]

Tried the test BIOS on a 130XE (I'm having some hardware troubles on the XL, probably because I forgot to hook up the cart lines), and master/slave works like a charm.

[AtariGeezer]

 

Originally i wanted to use a brown BASIC car, but they dont have all the fingers on the cart edge.

 

sloopy.

 

Besides Flight Sim, anyone know what other "plentiful" carts have all of the traces/fingers needed for this adaption?

 

Jay

[sloopy]

 

Originally i wanted to use a brown BASIC car, but they dont have all the fingers on the cart edge.

 

sloopy.

 

Besides Flight Sim, anyone know what other "plentiful" carts have all of the traces/fingers needed for this adaption?

 

Jay

 

any grey atari cart will have them, a 16k brown cart should have them...

 

basically when you are look at the edge connector on the cart as it goes in the machine,

 

RD4
|
A  B  C  D  E  F  H  J  K  L  M  N  P  R  S

1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 10 11 12 13 14 15
|                               /   |  \   \
/S4                           /S5   /   |  /CCTL
                                  Vcc   RD5

 

these are the 6 lines you need RD4, /S4, /S5, Vcc (aka 5v), RD5, /CCTL

 

just make sure you dont have any lines connected on the cart in any way, i had to cut 3-4 traces on my FSII cart.

 

sloopy.

[AtariGeezer]

 

any grey atari cart will have them, a 16k brown cart should have them...

 

basically when you are look at the edge connector on the cart as it goes in the machine,

 

RD4
|
A  B  C  D  E  F  H  J  K  L  M  N  P  R  S

1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 10 11 12 13 14 15
|                               /   |  \   \
/S4                           /S5   /   |  /CCTL
                                  Vcc   RD5

 

these are the 6 lines you need RD4, /S4, /S5, Vcc (aka 5v), RD5, /CCTL

 

just make sure you dont have any lines connected on the cart in any way, i had to cut 3-4 traces on my FSII cart.

 

sloopy.

 

Got it, thanks

 

Jay

[Rybags]

My IDE to SD adaptor arrived today.

 

Got it up with a 2 Gig Verbatim micro-SD card+adaptor+adaptor.

 

What's the deal with 512 byte sectors? I could only use MKSDFS on a 256 byte/sec partition.

 

Ran the RWTEST benchmark

 

DOS writing: 37132.1017

DOS reading: 46680.3565

DOS average: 41906.2291

[spookt]

My IDE to SD adaptor arrived today.

 

Got it up with a 2 Gig Verbatim micro-SD card+adaptor+adaptor.

 

What's the deal with 512 byte sectors? I could only use MKSDFS on a 256 byte/sec partition.

 

Ran the RWTEST benchmark

 

DOS writing: 37132.1017

DOS reading: 46680.3565

DOS average: 41906.2291

 

If you create a partition with 512 byte sectors, boot SDX and use the format command to format it. It will warn you that it's not a floppy and ask if you're sure then create the root directory.

 

I may have missed a meeting, what is MKSDFS?