AVGCART

[_The Doctor__]

we are never that quick to respond with bugs, maybe speak in the next 3 weeks or forever hold our piece?

[woj]

8 hours ago, tmp said:

i'm unable to reproduce this, shift-2 on atr and then shift-s boots to basic (so no atr in d1:),  shift-2 on atr and booting to sdx via s2sdx3.car shows atr only in d2:

Well, the SDX was the U1MB one, and I think I posted pics of the result. I will try again to confirm this, also without SDX, can't do it very quick though.

[woj]

13 hours ago, tmp said:

i'm unable to reproduce this, shift-2 on atr and then shift-s boots to basic (so no atr in d1:),  shift-2 on atr and booting to sdx via s2sdx3.car shows atr only in d2:

So I did more tests, and I had exactly the same behaviour as you describe. I dug in more, the problem is of a slightly different nature, and also requires fixing IMO. Why I had the same ATR mounted twice in D1: and D2: was because I did:

 

Shift-2 to mount the ATR in D2:

Return to boot the machine with the mounted image.

 

Now, obviously what Return did was to mount the same ATR also in D1: and then reboot. EDIT: with the U1MB SDX turned on, I can get into the said SDX with two drives mounted after resetting into U1MB's menu and doing a cold boot.

 

With the U1MB SDX enabled (which is more or less the whole point), the problem now is how to do the same boot as Return does but not mounting D1: on the fly. The "De Re AVGCart" documentation suggests that pressing Space should do the trick, but it does not, Space does reboot, but into a void - there is burping SIO sound, a bit prolonged I think, and then the screen stays with the cursor on it, no Basic, no Self Test, no SDX from U1MB, nothing. Different attempt, mount the ATR with Shift-2, press Shift-S to reboot, this route totally fails to boot the SDX from U1MB, it proceeds directly to the "regular" OS boot. Following this, resetting with Help to go into U1MB menu and cold boot from there to SDX gets into SDX that does not have the D2: mounted at all.

 

So, what I need is a key to do what Return does but without mounting the highlighted file on the way, or know what the key is as the documentation does not seem to list it. The alternative is that Return checks if the highlighted file is already assigned to a slot and not mounted again to the default slot.

 

EDIT: (apart from the above about the route to get into SDX with SIO drives mounted). It seems that the problem boils down to "Space" not recognizing the difference between SIO and non-SIO ATR mounting mode? I concluded this from observing that Space ends up in the same kind of "void" boot as does Shift-Return.

 

EDIT2: One other thing I am totally unable to do, perhaps this is intentional, is to boot SDX with both SIDE2 emulated hard drive visible *and* SIO mounted drive. Shift-S or any other way... Actually, the whole Shift-S booting route seems to be pointless, I can only get into AVG cart menu by disabling SDX on boot, then Shift-S will never ever boot me back into SDX, I need to go through the Help-Reset/C route, but then the hard drive emulation disappears. The only way to have SDX from U1MB see the hard drive is to boot with SIDE2 on AVG permanently enabled, or with the second button pressed, both of ways prohibit me from mounting drives. What a mess...

Edited March 17 by woj

[tmp]

58 minutes ago, woj said:

The "De Re AVGCart" documentation suggests that pressing Space should do the trick, but it does not, Space does reboot, but into a void - there is burping SIO sound, a bit prolonged I think, and then the screen stays with the cursor on it, no Basic, no Self Test, no SDX from U1MB, nothing.

do you have sio cable connected and detected (inverse in about ('?') screen)?

i can replicate this behavior (stuck at cursor) when atr is in d2: and selector is exited via space but only if sio is disconnected (so the emulation goes via pbi), works fine with d1:

 

58 minutes ago, woj said:

Following this, resetting with Help to go into U1MB menu and cold boot from there to SDX gets into SDX that does not have the D2: mounted at all.

it's most likely caused by autoenable feature (reset will reenable selector), you can try to disable it in settings to confirm

 

58 minutes ago, woj said:

So, what I need is a key to do what Return does but without mounting the highlighted file on the way, or know what the key is as the documentation does not seem to list it. The alternative is that Return checks if the highlighted file is already assigned to a slot and not mounted again to the default slot.

space should do what you're describing

[woj]

44 minutes ago, tmp said:

do you have sio cable connected and detected (inverse in about ('?') screen)?

i can replicate this behavior (stuck at cursor) when atr is in d2: and selector is exited via space but only if sio is disconnected (so the emulation goes via pbi), works fine with d1:

Yes, and it shows as detected in ?, Space goes into boot hang on mounting D2: only. And so it does also on mounting D1: only! Can't boot an ATR from SIO through Space at all.

45 minutes ago, tmp said:

it's most likely caused by autoenable feature (reset will reenable selector), you can try to disable it in settings to confirm

This did not change anything. 

[tmp]

what fw version are you running?

[woj]

Not at the computer for some more hours, but it is 29 with some letters I think (?) from August 2023 (quite sure here, will check when back home). In any case, whatever was sold to me recently (when I started my AVG saga in this thread).

[tmp]

there were "space" related changes/fixes in the current beta cycle so if you're on 29, you might be seeing what you're seeing

you can either try the latest beta or wait for the final 0030

[woj]

12 minutes ago, tmp said:

there were "space" related changes/fixes in the current beta cycle so if you're on 29, you might be seeing what you're seeing

you can either try the latest beta or wait for the final 0030

I see, will try that, paradoxically the post with the beta is just above my first entry in this topic.

[woj]

5 hours ago, tmp said:

there were "space" related changes/fixes in the current beta cycle so if you're on 29, you might be seeing what you're seeing

you can either try the latest beta or wait for the final 0030

So the version I had was 0029e, I installed the beta, this resolved the problem with the space triggered boot. What I still cannot do is to boot everything with both SIO drive mounted and the SIDE2 hard disk visible to the U1MB's SDX. It seems that once I enter the selector (regardless of the way and the SIDE setting in AVG, I even tried pressing the button and saying CAR in SDX), the hard disk visibility is gone (even with not mounting any SIO disks), even if I get out of the selector with Shift-S (I tried with both Autoenable on and off, I also tried Ctrl-Space, no difference) and hop into SDX cold boot through Help/Reset/C in U1MB, the hard disk is not there. EDIT: In fact, exiting the selector with Shift-S looses the mounted SIO drives too. Interestingly, if I get to the U1MB's loader the Shift-S route, the SD card is visible and accessible there as if SIDE2 emulation is working, but the hard disk is gone.

Edited March 17 by woj

[tmp]

4 hours ago, woj said:

So the version I had was 0029e, I installed the beta, this resolved the problem with the space triggered boot. What I still cannot do is to boot everything with both SIO drive mounted and the SIDE2 hard disk visible to the U1MB's SDX. It seems that once I enter the selector (regardless of the way and the SIDE setting in AVG, I even tried pressing the button and saying CAR in SDX), the hard disk visibility is gone (even with not mounting any SIO disks), even if I get out of the selector with Shift-S (I tried with both Autoenable on and off, I also tried Ctrl-Space, no difference) and hop into SDX cold boot through Help/Reset/C in U1MB, the hard disk is not there. EDIT: In fact, exiting the selector with Shift-S looses the mounted SIO drives too. Interestingly, if I get to the U1MB's loader the Shift-S route, the SD card is visible and accessible there as if SIDE2 emulation is working, but the hard disk is gone.

i vaguely remember there was some key combo to force u1mb to reload partition table, you might try that in scenario where ide emulation is enabled but you still don't see the partitions

 

the bigger problem is that i just realized that doing shift-s does not set up any other emulation (like atr), i should change it to behave like "space with ide enabled"

 

just out of curiosity, does mounting atr, launching s2sdx3.car (to enable ide emulation), forcing u1mb to refresh partition table and then running sdx from u1mb menu (with autoenable disabled so avgcart ignores all those reset keypresses) get you there?

[woj]

7 hours ago, tmp said:

i vaguely remember there was some key combo to force u1mb to reload partition table, you might try that in scenario where ide emulation is enabled but you still don't see the partitions

Indeed, one needs to turn on the HDD Refresh option in U1MB and then Reset with Shift does the trick. So with getting out of AVG selector with Shift-S I did manage to get back to U1MB's SDX with the hard disk visible, though this required a sequence of Reset-s with different keys (one cannot do Shift+Help at the same time when Resetting, but this is a complaint to Jon @flashjazzcat  ). 

 

7 hours ago, tmp said:

the bigger problem is that i just realized that doing shift-s does not set up any other emulation (like atr), i should change it to behave like "space with ide enabled"

 

Yes it should, now I am at the exclusive situation when in the AVG selector - I can get out with HDD on and no ATRs mounted (Shift-S), or with no HDD and ATRs mounted (Space). Would be so sweet to be able to do Shift-S with retaining all ATRs and CARs (see below too ;)).

 

7 hours ago, tmp said:

just out of curiosity, does mounting atr, launching s2sdx3.car (to enable ide emulation), forcing u1mb to refresh partition table and then running sdx from u1mb menu (with autoenable disabled so avgcart ignores all those reset keypresses) get you there?

Did not have time to check this today, it will probably work, with the small caveat that this route prevents me from having my own CAR file mounted at the same time, doesn't it? So this is not a long term solution.

 

[tmp]

19 minutes ago, woj said:

Did not have time to check this today, it will probably work, with the small caveat that this route prevents me from having my own CAR file mounted at the same time, doesn't it? So this is not a long term solution.

yes, i was just wondering whether it works or another unexpected issue pops up

[flashjazzcat]

1 hour ago, woj said:

though this required a sequence of Reset-s with different keys (one cannot do Shift+Help at the same time when Resetting, but this is a complaint to Jon @flashjazzcat  ). 

Please spell out what your complaint is because I struggle to understand what you're trying to accomplish.

[woj]

51 minutes ago, flashjazzcat said:

Please spell out what your complaint is because I struggle to understand what you're trying to accomplish.

Nothing that serious, and probably a total pain to fix  With the SIDE2 emulation one ends up in the situation where a restart to U1MB bios menu is required with Help/Reset to get back to the option of cold booting SDX with C, but before that a Shift/Reset is required for the Bios to re-read the partition table / hard drive information (because for some reason it is lost due to the AVG selector being active for some time). I was just thinking that a Shift/Help/Reset combo might work as an all-in-one keystroke for this, but it does not (I can very well imagine why not).

[flashjazzcat]

37 minutes ago, woj said:

Nothing that serious, and probably a total pain to fix  With the SIDE2 emulation one ends up in the situation where a restart to U1MB bios menu is required with Help/Reset to get back to the option of cold booting SDX with C, but before that a Shift/Reset is required for the Bios to re-read the partition table / hard drive information (because for some reason it is lost due to the AVG selector being active for some time). I was just thinking that a Shift/Help/Reset combo might work as an all-in-one keystroke for this, but it does not (I can very well imagine why not).

Thanks. That's clear now, although I'm slightly reluctant to implement something which won't be required during normal operation (it might be preferable to address the problem of the partition table in RAM being lost for reasons unknown when the AVG selector is active). It's kind of odd, actutally, since the partition map is stored in the U1MB 'IORAM' at $D1xx/$D5xx, so why or how it is lost in these circumstances is a complete mystery to me.

[woj]

38 minutes ago, flashjazzcat said:

It's kind of odd, actutally, since the partition map is stored in the U1MB 'IORAM' at $D1xx/$D5xx, so why or how it is lost in these circumstances is a complete mystery to me.

Might be that it is not there in the first place? To get to the selector I need to press X on the Bios screen to let the AVG start... (Though I had the same behaviour when I got there through saying CAR in SDX, prior to that pressing the cart button).

[flashjazzcat]

10 minutes ago, woj said:

Might be that it is not there in the first place? To get to the selector I need to press X on the Bios screen to let the AVG start... (Though I had the same behaviour when I got there through saying CAR in SDX, prior to that pressing the cart button).

The partition table is read from the APT on the card right at the start of the OS boot process, well before carts are initialised. The SIDE loader itself runs as a cart which disallows a disk boot, but the PBI BIOS still initialises beforehand and the partition table in RAM is present and correct by the time the UI comes up.

[woj]

16 hours ago, tmp said:

just out of curiosity, does mounting atr, launching s2sdx3.car (to enable ide emulation), forcing u1mb to refresh partition table and then running sdx from u1mb menu (with autoenable disabled so avgcart ignores all those reset keypresses) get you there?

So yes, this does work, I got into the U1MB's SDX this way with both the HDD and the ATR mounted (reloading HDD with Shift-Reset was necessary). And the s2sdx3.car remained mounted too, I could even say CAR in U1MB's SDX, this started initializing the CAR SDX on top of the U1MB SDX, I was anxious if this could actually work, but eventually it shited itself  (probably partly because the host SDX was running VBXE CON: 80 mode...). 

 

In any case, the essence of this discussion is that it is highly desirable for Shift-S to do what Space does in terms of leaving the mounts in place. The different story is why the partition table is wiped out from U1MB's RAM somewhere on the way, see the discussion with Jon. But since getting back to U1MB SDX does required Help/Reset/C combination and cannot be avoided (we concluded that much earlier), pressing Shift-Reset prior to that is no big deal. 

 

Also, all this might be worth documenting at some point, the De Re Avgcart does not really detail the fine ins and outs of working with the U1MB SDX and AVGCart, it assumes one would use the s2sdx3.car version, but this one is burdened with about ~4K of extra driver code raising MEMLO considerably.  

[+DjayBee]

1 hour ago, woj said:

Also, all this might be worth documenting at some point, the De Re Avgcart does not really detail the fine ins and outs of working with the U1MB SDX and AVGCart, it assumes one would use the s2sdx3.car version, but this one is burdened with about ~4K of extra driver code raising MEMLO considerably.  

@Mr Robot might help here.

[Mr Robot]

I’m planning to rewrite de re when my sub cart arrives. 
 

if anyone wants to help with proofreading and technical corrections/ readability improvements etc I’d appreciate it. 

[+Stephen]

1 hour ago, Mr Robot said:

I’m planning to rewrite de re when my sub cart arrives. 
 

if anyone wants to help with proofreading and technical corrections/ readability improvements etc I’d appreciate it. 

I will gladly go over the document and proofread it, check spelling/grammar but I do not have a sub cart.  Shouldn't matter for most of the proofing though.