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Weird interaction between Happy 1050 and Indus GT


gamer-stu

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Running on a u1mb expanded 800XL, I've noticed that the Happy 1050 (drive 1) doesn't want to play nice with the Indus GT (drive 2) if the Indus GT is turned on first. When the Indus GT is turned on before the 1050, the 1050 will essentially stop working. In this scenario, the 1050 busy light doesn't even cycle when I put a disk in drive. Turning everything off and then on again won't remove the 1050 from this zombie state. I have to completely unplug/replug the 1050 in order to get it to work again. Swapping around the SIOs doesn't alter this behavior, nor does expansion status or SpartaDOS on/off.

 

None of this happens an when I turn on the 1050 first, and then the Indus GT. Granted, I could just live with following that as a procedure, but I'm pretty sure this isn't normal and I'd like to get to the bottom of it. Thoughts?

 

 

 

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I'll see if I can duplicate your results...

 

What OS are you using in the Ultimate, and which Sparta Dos are you running (disk or SDX)? And do you by chance have a hard drive that is D1: (also)? Or is it a floppy-only system?

 

-Larry

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I'll see if I can duplicate your results...

 

What OS are you using in the Ultimate, and which Sparta Dos are you running (disk or SDX)? And do you by chance have a hard drive that is D1: (also)? Or is it a floppy-only system?

 

-Larry

 

Hi Larry, thanks for replying. I am running Stock XE on a floppy only system using SDX 4.47.

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Hi-

 

They both work perfectly whether I turn on the Happy or the Indus first. (You are turning on both the drives before the computer?) I have three suggestions:

 

1) Take a pen or very small screw driver and move both sets of dip switches on the drive up and down and then back to the correct positions "just in case."

 

2) If that has no effect, make sure that your Ultimate settings are all correct, then boot with a disk-based Dos (your choice) and see if the behavior is the same.

 

3) Run "UNHAPPY" (to de-activate the Happy track buffer) from the Happy software disk and see if the behavior is the same.

 

-Larry

 

Edit: An after-thought -- are you sure that you don't have both dip switches set on the same drive? If you turn on only one drive at a time, do they both respond as they should to D1: and D2: respectively?

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Thanks for testing things out on your system Larry. I have confirmed that both drives are set to the expected drive number. Upon the further testing that you have suggested--flipping dips, running in happy/unhappy etc, I can't get the behavior to change. To clarify I always turn the drives on prior to the computer.

 

But, I'm going to retract my initial assessment that the 1050 wants to be on first. I have found that it doesn't like to be flipped on within 10 seconds of the Indus being turned on. If I either turn on the 1050 before the Indus, or wait maybe 10 seconds after (the period during which the Indus spins up and seeks, counter goes from 00 to 39), all is good. If, however, I turn the 1050 on during this period, it enters that "zombie" state and SpartaDOS will spit out error 138, Device does not respond. Either unplugging the 1050 or keeping it off for minute or so will reset its status and get it back to normal. Similar behavior would occur using DOS 2.5.

 

I'm going to go OT on myself for a second though... during the testing process, when I was verifying Indus operation on its own as Drive 1, I couldn't get DOS 2.5 to boot on the Indus at all (it would boot on the 1050)-- is that normal? If so, I never knew that. Anyway, DOS XL works on the Indus just fine.

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That depends on how the DOS disk was formatted, maybe, as I'm not sure if the Indus can read ED.

 

Here is a thought: What happens with the 1050 as D1 and powered off, the Indus as D2 and your turn the computer on during those first 10 seconds?

Repeat again, with the 1050 removed from the chain.

And what order to you have the devices chained?

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Thinking out loud... From the behavior you describe, I wonder what the Indus is doing in the way of power-on tests? Maybe doing something that interferes with the 1050 startup, especially on a Happy drive. I'll try the 10 second startup. But seems like that is an easy workaround.

Larry

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That depends on how the DOS disk was formatted, maybe, as I'm not sure if the Indus can read ED.

 

Here is a thought: What happens with the 1050 as D1 and powered off, the Indus as D2 and your turn the computer on during those first 10 seconds?

Repeat again, with the 1050 removed from the chain.

And what order to you have the devices chained?

 

Okay, I tried this...

 

Scenario 1: 1050 D1 powered off, Indus D2 powered on, SDX on - computer turned on in first 10 seconds - Sparta DOS loads normally. D1: not present, Indus recognized as D2:

Scenario 2: as above, with SDX off: boots to Ready prompt

 

The above tests (along with all prior) used the following SIO chain. 800XL <---> 1050 <--> Indus GT

 

Removing the 1050 from the chain....

 

Scenario 3: Indus as D2 - behaves as above.

Scenario 4: Indus as D1 - recognized as D1 in SDX. With SDX off it boots stuff just fine.

 

I tried the above with the Indus in between the 800XL and the 1050 and the PROBLEM DID NOT RECUR. So this may be the key. The Happy 1050 (D1) did not experience this problem when it was after the Indus (D2) in the SIO chain

 

 

Incidentally, DOS 2.5 wasn't loading in the Indus because I had the double density dip set. Flipping that back to 0 allowed DOS 2.5 to load.

 

My next test will be using a non-happy 1050 in-line with the Indus to see if I get the same results.

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Well, I can't make mine fail with anything I've tried. Happy slow mode, fast mode, turned on simultaneously (as close as possible), Indus a half-second before. It's all good. Sorry I can't confirm some kind of inherent interference.

 

These Indus are sure nice quiet drives! And it also gave me a "nudge" to get the Ultimate updated to SDX 4.47 for testing. :-)

 

-Larry

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Well, I can't make mine fail with anything I've tried. Happy slow mode, fast mode, turned on simultaneously (as close as possible), Indus a half-second before. It's all good. Sorry I can't confirm some kind of inherent interference.

 

These Indus are sure nice quiet drives! And it also gave me a "nudge" to get the Ultimate updated to SDX 4.47 for testing. :-)

 

-Larry

 

Thanks Larry for all your efforts. :)

 

I think my next step, after testing with another 1050, is to open up my Happy 1050 and check out the SIO ports with a multimeter, inspect solder joints, etc.

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Incidentally, DOS 2.5 wasn't loading in the Indus because I had the double density dip set. Flipping that back to 0 allowed DOS 2.5 to load.

 

Just curious... on an Indus GT, you have to manually chose via a DIP switch whether the drive supports either double density OR enhanced density?

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Two peripherals shouldn't be aware of each other at all. The only things I can think of are:

 

1. There's an SIO driver issues where one device isn't fully releasing one of the lines and it's messing up the bus.

 

2. There's a malfunction where one of the drives is on the bus when it shouldn't be.

 

3. The computer has a weak SIO issue and the two drives are too much of a load.

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Just curious... on an Indus GT, you have to manually chose via a DIP switch whether the drive supports either double density OR enhanced density?

No. that dip switch is the default density the drive sets it self to at turn on, either single or double. It should set it self to the density of the inserted disk once it starts reading the disk. Note that earlier versions of the indus rom had trouble with enhanced density. Latest is V 1.2 There is a so called 1.4 hanging around but it is actually a 1.2.

 

James

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I did a new test with my non-Happy 1050 and was not able to duplicate the issue. So whatever the problem is, it seems to be localized to my Happy 1050 drive and not the Indus. It's pretty clear that the problem is independent of the Happy upgrade, since Larry was not able to duplicate the issue either.

 

Anyway, thank you all for helping me think through this one.

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