Sio2Sd stalling

[moonlight_mile]

Guys,

 

I have an Sio2sd (from lotherek) I got it probably 2 years ago. On certain .atr disk images it stalls while booting. This has happened since I got it and just thought they are bad disk images or something. But recently, I got a floppy drive and was writing files to a blank disk image and it will stall while writing and reading (I am using Sparta 3.2d). Now if I hit the break key it will finish reading or writing the file, sometimes I have to hit the break key multiple times. This trick does not work when it stalls booting an image. (Most of the images I have tried to boot are various versions of Spartados)

 

I went into Altirra recently to see if all those spartados disk images that stall are truly bad or there is something going on with my Sio2sd. Well, they all seem to boot up no problem.

 

I am guessing maybe my setting are goofed up. I have top drive off and device Id at 0. Could there be other settings that are causing this issue?

 

I did try to update the firmware with the latest from http://sio2sd-dev.gucio.pl/but when I try to update the firmware it says no firmware on the sd card.

 

I am using a stock 130xe.

 

Any thoughts or suggestions?

[+kheller2]

Just random thoughts....

 

Disable all high speed mods/drivers and try again with said ATR

The firmware, I believe, needs to be in the root directory, not the ATARI directory.

[_The Doctor__]

set sio2sd to divisor 5 or 8, and try again... Sparta's filter can't handle it any faster....

 

If a game doesn't like hsio turn it off completely...

[FifthPlayer]

recent versions of SDX do not work with SIO2SD at all. I have to disable SDX serial I/O support and revert to the Atari ROM SIO in order to make it work. otherwise, I get the stalling problems you describe.

 

I haven't tried older SpartaDOS versions, but it is likely the same issue.

[_The Doctor__]

I have been sticking with 4.47 or lower, problems with mixed drives and ape happen for me otherwise...and you are correct the later versions don't like my sio2sd's either.... I was always a fan of SpartaDos and enjoyed SpartaDosX's continual progress including 4.47.. I am not sure what's up with later date 4.48 or 4.49... I have not had success with them... I of course use standard 130XE, a rambo XL as well as a peterson 320XE...

 

If the idea has become to insist on accelerated or very large memory machines, and or specific drive type.. I'll have to pass...

Edited June 8, 2017 by _The Doctor__

[moonlight_mile]

I did give divisor 5 and 8 a shot neither worked. Neither did turning high speed off. So I just started going through each divisor option. Finally "0A" seemed to work. I still have to test it with writing to a real floppy but copying from the sd to a ram drive seemed to work flawlessly, it stalled doing that prior as well.

 

Thanks for the help!

[_The Doctor__]

hhmmmm last thing to check is to make sure the sio caps are removed on the read send lines.... as documented for us doublers and xf's

[Kyle22]

This could also be a firmware bug causing marginal timing. A similar thing happened while I was debugging some Z80 high speed code, with both my SIO2CP/M utility and work I was doing with SDX's INDUS.SYS and the RAMCharger.

 

It would freeze until BREAK was pressed (until I fixed it).

[dakidski]

Get the one from zp_manchester on eBay. (I had the one from Lotharek before.)

[Stormtrooper of Death]

What are the difrences between the zp_manchester version and the Lotharek version ? Other firmware or other hardware inside ?