APT Hard Disk Preparation and Utilities

[+Stephen]

What's MATR stand for?

Mount ATR

[flashjazzcat]

What's MATR stand for?

Mount ATR. For those occasions when you just want to mount a disk image from DOS without (necessarily) rebooting. It also handles standard partition mounting now. Note the ATR side of MATR has nothing to do with IDE Plus, which has its own image mounting system.

Edited December 31, 2013 by flashjazzcat

[flashjazzcat]

One problem solved, which should please a few people:

 

[flashjazzcat]

PBI ROM flasher nearly done: all coming together nicely. For 64KB sector chips (i.e. early U1MB boards), the existing U1MB BIOS is first read into extended RAM, so it can be re-flashed to the erased sector. This isn't necessary for 4KB sector chips (later U1MBs and Incognito). Flasher is also a self-contained XEX, which can be run via the SIDE loader if the user so desires.

[twh/f2]

hi!

 

I Hope that MATR still supports non PBI adapters like the SIDE ...

 

Does it ?

 

Thomas

[flashjazzcat]

I Hope that MATR still supports non PBI adapters like the SIDE ...

 

Does it ?

Sure it does. You can use any combination of soft-drivers and PBI devices and choose which one to work with.

[flashjazzcat]

Any volunteers with stand-alone programmers want to test a flasher for the U1MB/Incognito PBI ROMs?

[Kyle22]

Any volunteers with stand-alone programmers want to test a flasher for the U1MB/Incognito PBI ROMs?

sure

[+Stephen]

I can also test both.

[flashjazzcat]

Brilliant - thanks guys. I'll test U1MB flasher on all four machines here first (2 x 64K sector flash ROMs, 2 x 4K sector), then post it here for testing.

 

Incognito will follow. Been so long since I messed with Incognito: I can't even recall if PBI is at the same offset in the ROM. Is there a breakdown of the Incognito flash ROM offsets some place?

[AtariGeezer]

Incognito PBI uses 0x58000-0x5DFFF block in the 512k ROM,

Code at 0x58800, 0x59800 and 0x5A800...

 

Hope this helps?

[flashjazzcat]

Incognito PBI uses 0x58000-0x5DFFF block in the 512k ROM,

Code at 0x58800, 0x59800 and 0x5A800...

 

Hope this helps?

Many thanks Jay. It's the same as Ultimate then. I'll do the Incognito version tomorrow morning. Flashed all my U1MBs tonight without problems.

 

Now I've overcome the sector size problems of the older boards when flashing small blocks, I wonder would there be any demand for a GUI based flasher: something like the ROM generator but on the A8 itself, where you have a list of slots you can just pick, browse to the file, and flash just that slot there and then? Wouldn't take long to write...

[AtariGeezer]

I wonder would there be any demand for a GUI based flasher: something like the ROM generator but on the A8 itself, where you have a list of slots you can just pick, browse to the file, and flash just that slot there and then? Wouldn't take long to write...

You'd probably get your GUI based flasher done before I get m my text based flasher completed. I'm dragging butt lately

[Roydea6]

Any volunteers with stand-alone programmers want to test a flasher for the U1MB/Incognito PBI ROMs?

I can help test both also, if you need a wider range of programmers.

[Kyle22]

GUI flasher on the A8 would be Awesome!!!

 

That's one more step toward not having to depend on Intel/AMD/Apple/M$

Edited January 4, 2014 by Kyle22

[flashjazzcat]

You'd probably get your GUI based flasher done before I get my text based flasher completed. I'm dragging butt lately

Well, just because the UI is pre-existing. The rest is pretty formulaic now. Of course that's easy to say. Anyway, hopefully these tools will make bricked boards an extreme rarity.

 

I can help test both also, if you need a wider range of programmers.

Good stuff Roy. Hasn't been tested on any NTSC machines yet.

Edited January 4, 2014 by flashjazzcat

[AtariGeezer]

I can help test both also, if you need a wider range of programmers.

Same here

[lotharek]

Also here

[flashjazzcat]

Ok. Just tested on Incognito so that's five machines it works with here. Will upload for testing tomorrow.

[flashjazzcat]

OK: for you brave souls who want to test the PBI BIOS upgrade tool, here it is:

 

PBI Update 0.4.zip

 

UMPBI04.COM should be used with Ultimate, while ICPBI04.COM is for Incognito. Don't get them mixed up, since I haven't yet implemented a positive ID check for a given interface (although you'd get some indication things weren't right when the flasher failed to recognize the existing BIOS).

 

Suggested Test Strategy

 

I've tested the U1MB flasher with two machines with Rev. 1 Ultimate boards, and two machines with Rev. 2 boards. The main difference as far as the flasher is concerned is that the older boards shipped with Amic 64KB sector flash ROMs, while the newer boards have 4KB sector ROMs. Now, the U1MB BIOS menu occupies the lower 32KB of the 64KB sector whose upper half contains the PBI ROM, so naturally when erasing one, we also erase the other. I've gotten around this with a kind of "trim" system whereby the four banks we want to keep intact are stored in extended RAM and then reflashed along with the new PBI BIOS. This means you'll need to have extended RAM activated when flashing the older boards.

 

Ultimate Rev. 2 and Incognito don't have this problem; indeed, if a 64KB sector flash ROM is found in an Incognito board, the flasher currently refuses to proceed.

 

As well as extended RAM being required for early boards, you'll should activate SDX. That's not to say the program requires SDX: you can run it from anywhere you like, since it's self-contained (the PBI ROM part is only 6KB of data). You should be able to launch it from Candle's XEX loader, although I haven't attempted it yet. There's absolutely no reason for it not to work.

 

I'd recommend running the flasher repeatedly using different extended RAM capacities (320K, 576K, etc) if you have a board with an Amic or AMD PLCC. If the device gets bricked, you'll be informed. You should keep a copy of the current U1MB ROM on the PC so that you can flash things back the way they were using your external programmer if you encounter a problem.

 

It should be impossible to brick Rev. 2 Ultimates and Incognitos when upgrading the PBI BIOS, since the main boot banks aren't even touched with 4KB sector flash ROMs.

 

Any problems, let me know. I'm also keen to hear of successful flashes.

 

Thanks to Candle whom I have credited as co-author of the flashing tool. He sent me a 6502 JEDEC flash library some time ago around which I cobbled a rough, unpublishable tool to flash my own Rev. A devices during development. A few days ago he sent me the same library with 4KB sector support (and a tool he'd written for upgrading the Incognito BIOS menu), so I've combined everything together and added the caching and extended RAM functionality to create something which (hopefully) works with everything.

 

Note: this program does NOT upgrade the BIOS menu or XEX loader: just the PBI BIOS.

 

PS: I've also included the latest FDISK build, containing some improvements suggested by Drac030 (for which, many thanks indeed - and thanks also for your testing of the application, Konrad).

Edited January 5, 2014 by flashjazzcat

[w1k]

succesful updated U1MB rev.2 PBI to 0.4 via SIO2PC..

succesful rewritten partitions with new fdisk

Edited January 5, 2014 by w1k

[Kyle22]

It looks good on the Incognito in XL/XE mode. Coleen mode was a no-go. Locked up tight, reset+fuji did nothing, had to power down. It came right back, so it's all good. no brick. I tried different RAM sizes, even loaded it from the QMeg OS loader and (with SIDE disabled), it worked.

 

FDISK looks good, but I still don't understand how the named partitions work. It lets me name the FAT32 partition only. It says partition has no metadata on the others.

 

I'll test the U1M later.

[flashjazzcat]

succesful updated U1MB rev.2 PBI to 0.4 via SIO2PC..

succesful rewritten partitions with new fdisk

 

Excellent - thanks Viktor.

 

It looks good on the Incognito in XL/XE mode. Coleen mode was a no-go. Locked up tight, reset+fuji did nothing, had to power down. It came right back, so it's all good. no brick. I tried different RAM sizes, even loaded it from the QMeg OS loader and (with SIDE disabled), it worked.

OK - it makes little sense to flash the PBI BIOS in Colleen mode (since the PBI doesn't exist in that context), so I guess I need to add this to the instructions. Great to hear the upgrade worked, though - thanks for testing.

 

EDIT: Reason it doesn't work in Colleen mode is because it tries to put the OS in RAM. I'll add a check that setting bit 0 of PORTB results in RAM under the ROM: if not, it'll tell the user to switch modes and rerun.

 

FDISK looks good, but I still don't understand how the named partitions work. It lets me name the FAT32 partition only. It says partition has no metadata on the others.

Have a look in APT->Properties on the editor screen. Is "Global Metadata" enabled? If not, none of the new partitions you create will have namespace allocated by default. Set this global flag (tab into it, and press the space bar), and write the table to disk: the setting will be remembered. You can add metadata (which is where the partition names are stored) to existing partitions too: just select Partition->Properties, tab to "metadata", and press space to toggle the check box. Be aware that doing this will move any existing partitions on the disk after the one you're editing, so you need to set this up before formatting partitions (unless you don't mind formatting them again).

 

The global metadata flag will be cleared by default when editing a partition table created by older versions of FDISK, since the flag didn't exist in the APT header back then. Perhaps I'll add some kind of warning to that effect.

 

Anyway: I definitely need to update the docs and probably make a tutorial video.

 

I'll test the U1M later.

Great - thanks.

Edited January 5, 2014 by flashjazzcat

[Kyle22]

Everything went well on the U1M. I had a little scare when it said unrecognized version (or something similar). I must have an older U1M with an old BIOS?

 

I had to load the flasher from the APE loader because I have no SIDE. Right now, I am using a MyIDE+Flash SDX cart. I am going to install internal MyIDE and see how that works. I won't have the advantages a PBI driver provides, but I'm willing to accept that. This is in a 1200XL, so I have few options. I really don't want to have a rat's nest inside from adding a PBI port.

[flashjazzcat]

Everything went well on the U1M. I had a little scare when it said unrecognized version (or something similar). I must have an older U1M with an old BIOS?

Most probably v.0.2 or earlier, yes.

 

I had to load the flasher from the APE loader because I have no SIDE. Right now, I am using a MyIDE+Flash SDX cart. I am going to install internal MyIDE and see how that works. I won't have the advantages a PBI driver provides, but I'm willing to accept that. This is in a 1200XL, so I have few options. I really don't want to have a rat's nest inside from adding a PBI port.

Get a SIDE2 from Lotharek. You don't need a PBI port to enjoy a PBI hard disk with U1MB+SIDE - just plug the cartridge in (after you've filed the tunnel a bit wider, heh). The PBI BIOS in U1MB has nothing whatever to do with anything you'd connect to a PBI port. PBI HDD interfaces (such as IDE Plus) provide their own PBI BIOS. The PBI-less 1200XL is exactly the kind of scenario in which U1MB+SIDE excels. Significantly easier even than installing an internal MyIDE, I'd suggest. Especially if you've already gone to the trouble of installing Ultimate.

Edited January 5, 2014 by flashjazzcat