Ultimate Cart (SD multicart) info & bits

[_The Doctor__]

Robin says modify FJC exe loader and FJC says see Robin.... It's a circle.. if I spin it fast enough I might get Jon and Robin to tackle it together!

 

Typical stack is super sparta x with one other stacked cart plus ultimate sd on top..

Some times it's Sparta and rtime8(rtime8 is suppose to be transparent) and one other stacked cart like express an then the ultimate sd, popping in and out using whatever option is needed at the time....I have to keep ini on ramdisk d1: for sparta's without a reset to turn the cart back on if a program is not friendly but it all works that way...With the xex loader working in the stack I might not need any other storage solution running at that point....

 

Who knows maybe an Ultra SD cart will come along that can internally stack up carts and contains it's own RT clock with xex loading pass thru... or even atr mounting.. the insanity that would be...

 

But until then adjust the loader so as not to accidentally toggle the stacked carts would be cool as it gets...

Edited January 10, 2018 by _The Doctor__

[flashjazzcat]

I may be mis-remembering how the thing works, but what exactly did Robin say? I understand your problem is mapping of the CCTL region ($D5xx) being in conflict with the SDX cart. Quite how I would fix this on the 6502 side, I am not sure.

[_The Doctor__]

Robin postulated...

The XEX loader on the cartridge is using the $D5xx window to spool bytes from the XEX file to the XEX loader on the Atari itself. So while the XEX loader is running, the atari will be reading from the entire $D5xx range, and writing to $D500+$D501 to request the next file chunk.

 

Since Sparta dos also reacts to reads in $D5xx, its probably getting enabled/disabled by the XEX loader on the atari. ... its possible that FJC can add more...?

 

One solution might be to recode the XEX loader on the ultimate cart to only use half (parts) of the $D500 range - that would keep it free of the range used by spata dos (stacked carts).

---

 

your response at one time was it should be doable but also said in a post super sparta might use SIDE2 banking $D5E1 requiring some info from the Super Sparta peeps.. it am not sure but you might have also mentioned it might make the xex loader ever so slightly slower....

 

This would such a great thing to have work..

Edited January 10, 2018 by _The Doctor__

[flashjazzcat]

The MCU firmware on the cartridge would require corresponding changes to reduce the size of the buffer. No point in the loader avoiding issuing reads from the upper half of the buffer and thereby discarding half of the file.

[SS]

Not what I am getting at.... the ultimate cart is plugged in to the top of the stack to save space I use the combined super sparta cart on some of the Atari's as it's time clock is built in, I then have whatever I want on top of that....I switch in and out of the ultimate sd cart on top of that stack

 

 

I think that I'd like to see a picture of this stack.

[_The Doctor__]

I've posted it and I even have all the carts naked in another thread, or in pm's for shell design. I'm currently re-casing some of them with COREi64's shells. A modification had to be made for protector release tab holes, I'm expecting the last revision soon. In any event check out some of mine here http://atariage.com/forums/topic/274114-atari-spartados-x-case/?p=3931539

and likewise http://atariage.com/forums/topic/274568-new-icd-r-time-8-case-for-macrories-drop-in-replacement/?p=3940561

and maybe his store http://corei64.com/store/index.php?cPath=16

I've got one Ultimate in a shell made by COREi64 and since the rest were part of the prototype/development process, once I've recovered fully from my fall, I'll be finishing up my modification and casing process.

His current offerings on the site are correct and work well. In fact they're pretty d*mn nice.

Edited February 6, 2018 by _The Doctor__