U1M and Side 2, isn't the Side 2 a little overkill?

[gozar]

I'd like to upgrade another one of my machines to the U1M/Side2 configuration, which will cost about $140. Then I started looking at the SIde 2 and realized that once the U1M is installed, I don't use most of the features of the Side 2 (RTC, SDX, Side Loader). Could a cheaper Side 2 that only offered the CF interface be created? Would it be worth it?

 

What can I do with the 256K of cartridge space? Any way to get Action! or Mac/65 in there?

[Paul Westphal]

Um1 with stereo, and a myideII is good enough. I run .xex off the myideII, and .atr ( disk images ) off of a sio to Sd I put in a xm301 case.

[flashjazzcat]

I'm not sure if significant savings could be achieved by omitting the battery, DS1305 RTC, and 29F040 flash ROM. The SIDE2 is pretty good value already at 40GBP (according to Currency Converter) so I doubt something which just provides a buffered IDE connector would be massively cheaper.

 

The upper 256KB of ROM can be used for anything you like if you hack the banking in whatever you're going to put there. Bear in mind the external cart is turned off when the U1MB PBI is active, however. The reasons are TL;DR, but SIDE2 is a set of IDE registers and nothing else when the PBI is used.

 

Um1 with stereo, and a myideII is good enough. I run .xex off the myideII, and .atr ( disk images ) off of a sio to Sd I put in a xm301 case.

If the user already has Ultimate fitted and has not yet purchased MYIDE/SIDE, choosing MYIDE makes no sense at all from the point of view of running a hard disk, ATRs, etc. If MYIDE II's IDE registers were not obscured by the U1MB PBI IO RAM, things would be different.

Edited March 23, 2016 by flashjazzcat

[greblus]

Over time it turned out that the machine which I use the most is an unmodified 130XE, so no Side with SDX is not an overkill. You never know when you'll find it useful

 

Cheers,

W.

[+Larry]

"If MYIDE II's IDE registers were not obscured by the U1MB PBI IO RAM, things would be different."

 

Hi Jon-

 

Could you explain a bit more what you mean? I always leave the Side Hardware disabled, and the IDE of MyIDE-II works fine. Of course, it's with the MyBios OS. IIRC, the regular PBI drivers are also in the MyBios OS, but it may be necessary to use the R2 rom image to get them to work. I need to verify that they still work in recent versions.

 

BTW, MyIDE-II Beta 4.9.13-5 is available for download at the Atarimax site. Has both .BIN and Rom files in the zip.

 

My Side-II cart is great, but it really hasn't been out of the drawer for a long, long time, while I use the Ultimate nearly all the time.

 

-Larry

[flashjazzcat]

"If MYIDE II's IDE registers were not obscured by the U1MB PBI IO RAM, things would be different."

 

Hi Jon-

 

Could you explain a bit more what you mean? I always leave the Side Hardware disabled, and the IDE of MyIDE-II works fine. Of course, it's with the MyBios OS.

 

 

While SIDE/SIDE2 places the IDE registers at $D5F0-$D5F7 (disregarding other control registers which follow immediately afterwards), MyIDE II places the IDE address range at $D500-$D507, which is right underneath the IO RAM mapped in when $D1FF switches in the external device ROM and RAM. This makes it impossible to drive the MyIDE II from code inside the Ultimate 1MB's math pack overlay ROM, and that's why everything works quite nicely with MYBIOS if you leave the PBI disabled. In fact, I'm not sure MYBIOS even has the OS PBI code, so it would likely make no difference whether you enabled the PBI or not.

 

In any case, this is the main reason I advise purchase of SIDE2 if the user already has Ultimate 1MB installed, from the point of view of using hard disk partitions and ATRs. MYIDE II has plenty of virtues as a stand-alone solution, but Ultimate 1MB can provide a PBI, OS-compliant hard disk host adapter when used only in conjunction with SIDE2. U1MB+SIDE's R/W ATR handling is convenient (simply drop the images into a FAT partition), and the hard disk provided is - unlike MYBIOS - completely software compatible with IDE Plus 2.0.

 

Now, if MYIDE II's IDE registers were at $D5F0 and it left the rest of CCTL clear, you could drive the MYIDE II from the U1MB PBI BIOS. The only thing you'd miss is the ATR swap button. Whether the obstacles which prevent this are deliberate or accidental... who knows, but that's the long and short of it.

[+Larry]

Got it -- thanks!

 

-Larry