Trouble With Ultimate/SIDE2 Loading ATR's -- looking for ideas...

[+Larry]

I have an otherwise excellent NTSC 800XL that I've put an Ultimate 1MB in. This Ultimate is a V1 updated successfully (I think) to V2. Works fine, flashes good -- no issues that I've uncovered at all. I recently got a SIDE2 cart, and the SDX works fine, XEX files load great, BUT... I cannot get ATR's to load at all. The issue seems to be that the XEX loader cannot find the PBI driver. I get an error message (to the effect) "cannot locate PBI driver... aborting." -OR- it will attempt to load and then time out when it cannot find the device and go to Basic or Self Test. I should add that I have a brand-new V2 from Lotharek, and when I swapped Ultimates in the same computer, it behaved exactly the same. (Which almost definitely points to this computer.)

 

FJC has been kind enough to help me a bunch, but we're run out of things to do/check. The only thing that I know to do is to move this to another computer. Since most of the issues that I've read about *seem* to be with XL's (presumably with the "old" Antic), it may be prudent to move this to an XE.

 

So...

-Has anyone else run into a problem like this?

-Were you successful in curing the problem?

-Did you move to another computer and get around the issue that way?

-Or any suggestions of things to look at?

 

Thanks,

Larry

 

 

 

[+Roydea6]

I have a stack of CF cards that don't Boot Atr's. After buying way more than I should have I finally have Three that work very good with my 800xl and 130xe and the 600xl So I am able to grab any of these three and use in any computer.... But I have changed the Ultimate in the 800xl through three different 800xl to get the GOOD fit.. 130XE works flawlessly from day one and the 600 xl I bought from PAL land for Pal games demos etc...

[Marius]

When you say it loads XEX files... is that with the "L" pressed key or with the loader from the Side2?

 

(I'm not sure the "L"press-version does do XEX files at all)

[Marius]

You can try swap LS08 TTL btw with a GOOD working XL. It's a very important component when it comes to stability.

[+Larry]

Hi Roy and Marius-

 

I have several cards that show different degrees of failing to work. On some, the file names are corrupted. On others, I get an error message saying it cannot find any files on the card. On others, the files are listed properly, but the ATR's won't load. But I also ordered a new Sandisk Ultra 4 GB, so we'll see about it. What cards do you have that do work?

 

Yes, XEX do load from the "L" press. And IIRC, the Loader comes up if you try to boot with nothing else bootable on the system. But with L, loads first time, every time. OK, I'll check the LS08. Thanks.

 

-Larry

[Jinks]

What if I put a cf to sd adapter in the side 2 as cf cards are super rare to buy in stores as are obsolete? what kind of sd card would work the best?

If I get my u1mb to work one day I may be in the same boat. I could already load xex files easily stock with sio2bt so hopefully this combo turns into an advantage.

[flashjazzcat]

Sandisk Ultra II CF cards work great and are readily available online. Anything Sandisk seems to work in all my SIDE2 carts on every machine I own. I was never able to get a CF to SD adapter to work with SIDE2, but they do work with IDE Plus.

[Jinks]

Sandisk Ultra II CF cards work great and are readily available online. Anything Sandisk seems to work in all my SIDE2 carts on every machine I own. I was never able to get a CF to SD adapter to work with SIDE2, but they do work with IDE Plus.

Thanks for the advice!

[Dragon375]

I have a CF2SD that works fine in a MyIDE II, but it is too fat to fit in the Side2. As far as the adapter goes, it works fine and havent had any probs with any SD card I have used in it. It seems both Side2 and MyIDE II are fairly picky about CF cards though. I have some Kingston 4GBs that work perfectly. Just bought a lot of 5 8GB CFs that are some kinda Chinese make. These seem to work ok, but will not boot the Atari. They hold info, but for some reason wont boot right. I guess you get what you pay for, quality wise.

[Marius]

@Larry

 

Hmm... it's seriously rather odd that XEX's do load but ATR's do not load. Data = Data.

Did you also test pretty large XEX files like a huge 320K demo or so?

 

Did you test RWTEST program on that CF card and this atari setup to see reliability of read/write?

 

@FJC

Is there a chance that the XEX loader has a retry-routine in case of bad data, which isn't perhaps not available in the ATR handling-routine?

 

I think Candle is the one who can answer this...

Is that part of the ultimate bios open source or not?

[AtariGeezer]

@Larry

 

Just to clarify the v1 to v2 update, besides the Bios/PBI flash updates, did you also update the CPLD with your xilinx cable/soft?

[flashjazzcat]

It's not open source. I'm pretty sure the XEX loader issues multi-sector reads (it reads whole clusters at a time), so it'll be spending less time waiting for DRQ etc. On the other hand it may check DRQ every byte... I don't recall. The PBI BIOS does it by the book, and uses loop unrolling extensively. It also checks DRQ just before and after the last byte of a sector is transferred, and this will catch many missed or double read situations. If an error is detected, four more attempts are made to properly transfer the sector.

 

So both have retry logic, but the XEX loader can afford to be a little slower about it.

[Marius]

@Larry

 

Just to clarify the v1 to v2 update, besides the Bios/PBI flash updates, did you also update the CPLD with your xilinx cable/soft?

 

That is indeed important, but since he wrote that he also checked the newer Lotharek U1MB and he had the same issues, I guess that is not the issue.

[+Larry]

I'll give the new CF a try tomorrow, but I'm not optimistic. I have a nice XE that is totally socketed that would be a good candidate for the Ultimate transplant. But it does have 320K ram expansion in it (Peterson). Can anyone tell me what (minimum) I need to disconnect in the expansion so that it will not interfere with the Ultimate? I'd like to be able to reverse it easily if (shudder) the Ultimate doesn't work properly in the XE.

 

@Jay- yes, I did the XilinX programming on the V1.

 

@Marius- I haven't tried a really big XEX files, so I'll try to load a demo, but thus far, I've had zero XEX failures. I'll look for a big demo to load. Presume that the XEX load because they do not require PBI services. (?)

 

-Larry

[flashjazzcat]

I'm curious to know whether setting the advanced power management and DMA transfer modes makes a jot of difference with these flaky cards. Here's a PBI BIOS which sends the exact same ATA "Set Features" commands to the device as the XEX loader sends:

 

ultpbi11.zip

 

Use UFlash to flash the ROM to the PBI BIOS slot:

 

http://www.atari8.co.uk/uflash/uflash_v.1.0.zip

 

[+Larry]

Hi Jon-

 

Thanks, but the results are the same.

 

Here is the AspeQt Log of the attempted load.

 

Serial port speed set to 52400.
Serial port speed set to 19200.
[Disk 1] command: $53, aux: $0000 ignored. [x27]
[Device $4f] command: $40, aux: $4f4f ignored. [x28]
[Device $4f] command: $40, aux: $0000 ignored. [x28]
Emulation stopped.
Serial port speed set to 19200.
Emulation started through standard serial port backend on 'COM3' with RI handshaking

 

-Larry

[flashjazzcat]

Yeah - that's the OS just doing its boot stuff. Thanks for the feedback, though. This suggests to me that the additional CF Set Features commands are unnecessary. Differences in "tolerance" between the PBI BIOS and XEX loader are purely circumstantial.

Edited January 6, 2015 by flashjazzcat

[+Roydea6]

Also another note to this problem... On several of my CF cards if I pull the CF card up from the SIDE2 enough to break connection and the push it back down to connect the CF card will be recognized by the software----machine--side2--any way it will work good until the next boot..

 

BUT just reinserting the CF card and It works again..

 

On the 800xl this is easy to do, But the 130xe is more difficult to pull and push back in..

[flashjazzcat]

That's because it's hot-swappable and reinserting the device resets the IDE controller.

[+Larry]

New Sandisk Ultra 4 GB card came today. Formatted, files copied to Fat32 partition -- "FAT32 Partition Not Found." Sigh...

 

@ Roy - could you list the brands/models of the cards that do work good for you?

 

Thanks,

Larry

[flashjazzcat]

I rather suspect we're barking up the wrong tree now.

[+Larry]

I rather suspect we're barking up the wrong tree now.

 

Yes, I do, also. So today is "moving day." Actually, I'm going to leave this Ultimate in the current 800XL. It works flawlessly in every other way, with all functions (including ATR's) using the MyIDE-II and IDE+2. So I can't complain...too much. The new Lotharek V2 will go into that socketed 130XE today. That will also leave this 800XL intact for further testing (LS08, etc.).

 

Edit: A related question -- if I use the IDE+2 with the APT, then I should be able to load ATR's that way, shouldn't I?

 

-Larry

[flashjazzcat]

A related question -- if I use the IDE+2 with the APT, then I should be able to load ATR's that way, shouldn't I?

 

 

Yes, but not straight from the FAT partition: you have to copy them into an SDFS (SpartaDOS File System) formatted partition first.

 

BTW: You may have already told me (apologies if you have), but do FDISK'ed partitions work? I mean: are you able to set up an APT on the CF card, and format the partitions using the SDX formatter? For that matter, are you able to make a bootable MyDOS partition? If not, I would seriously question the CPLD update.

Edited January 7, 2015 by flashjazzcat

[+Larry]

I presume that you mean MyDos using the IDE+2? Yes, no problems with that at all. If you mean a MyDos partition on the SIDE, I didn't know that I could do that? I thought that the only way that I could use MyDos with the SIDE was to use an ATR HD image. (?) If that's not correct, can you tell me how or where to look! That's 95% of why I want to be able to use the ATR feature.

 

And SDX works fine from the SIDE. If I use the Ultimate SDX (no SIDE SDX), then so long as I have the PBI "on" or an SIO D1: then that works fine, also. AFAIK, the only problem is the ATR's.

 

-Larry

[flashjazzcat]

If you mean a MyDos partition on the SIDE, I didn't know that I could do that? I thought that the only way that I could use MyDos with the SIDE was to use an ATR HD image. (?) If that's not correct, can you tell me how or where to look!

Yes - I meant a MyDOS partition on Ultimate/SIDE using the PBI HDD. I hope I described everything in the docs:

 

http://atari8.co.uk/apt/docs/

 

Also look at the text files bundled with the APT Toolkit. It's a common misconception that APT is somehow tied to SDX: this is not the case. You can use any DOS you like, and the APT tools are all standard DOS binaries (which you can find on the APT toolkit disk). Even the command-line tools detect non-command line DOSes and behave accordingly.

 

Put simply: if you enable SIDE hardware in the Ultimate BIOS and FDISK 4.5 can't find the hard disk - you have a problem.

 

If I use the Ultimate SDX (no SIDE SDX), then so long as I have the PBI "on" or an SIO D1: then that works fine, also. AFAIK, the only problem is the ATR's.

I take this to mean that APT partitions work properly, then. But try partitioning the HDD as per the documentation. Also try the RWCRC test on an APT partition as I suggested earlier. If RWCRC passes without error and you still can't boot ATRs and are following the set-up procedure correctly, then we can assume something is comprehensively broken. I would not expect flaky CF cards to result in a system which is 100 per cent non-functional 100 per-cent of the time.