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Atari compatible hardware eclaireXL, in mini form.


santosp

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13 hours ago, toddtmw said:

I have a question. 

 

Is is it possible to create disks using the sd card?  In other words, can you use this to sector copy real disks to .atr files?

I don't see why not. As far as I know, there's no way to create an empty disk image on the EclaireXL, you'll need to create one and place on the SD card manually. (or just copy another .atr file and format it into a blank in the program of your choice) I've sector copied real disks to an SD2SIO previously and it works just fine, this should be even simpler, if anything.

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1 hour ago, P1r said:

I don't see why not. As far as I know, there's no way to create an empty disk image on the EclaireXL, you'll need to create one and place on the SD card manually. (or just copy another .atr file and format it into a blank in the program of your choice) I've sector copied real disks to an SD2SIO previously and it works just fine, this should be even simpler, if anything.

Yeah. That's not really a good option. Plus, if I did that, how would I save the data? How would I right protect a disk?

 

I think this functionality might be missing entirely.

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1 hour ago, toddtmw said:

Yeah. That's not really a good option. Plus, if I did that, how would I save the data? How would I right protect a disk?

 

I think this functionality might be missing entirely.

I don’t think I quite understand what you are trying to do. What kind of data do you want to save and where? Is it the .atr file you want to have write protected?

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If I place an empty .atr file on the SD card and the ECXL lets me write to it, what's to keep it from overwriting other .atr files? How does it know which disks are okay to write to and which disks aren't?

 

The use case is, I wanted to copy some floppies from real disks to .atr files. I was like, I can just use ECXL, but the File menu on ECXL seems to be missing the ability to create empty .atr files and also to say whether to make them writable or not, and also as a bonus, when it's okay to actually write the changes.

 

If I have 10 disks I want to copy, I have to create 10 blank .atr files (copy the file 10 times) on the SD card and then put that in the Eclaire?

 

Then what? Mount one and sector copy to it?

 

Just feels like a missing piece of utility. I ended up using my SIO2USB device because my SDM has not (yet) been modified to coexist with other SIO devices.

 

It's not exactly necessary, there are other ways to do it, it would just be a nice bonus feature.

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It is meant to support both the write protect flag on the atr file and the write protect tab on the sd card. I think it adds a letter to the mounted image iirc.

 

It’s correct that file creation is not supported. This needs a more complete fat filesystem and I didn’t have space. On the Eclaire I could increase the rom size.

I used this:

http://elm-chan.org/fsw/ff/00index_p.html

I could use this but yes quite a bit bigger:

http://elm-chan.org/fsw/ff/00index_e.html

So fairly significant changes for file creation.

 

It would be easy to allow toggling the atr write protect flag as a new feature.

 

Writes to sectors are almost direct, sd cards have 512 byte sectors which complicates it a bit. A full disk write back cache could potentially be written to sdram I guess.

 

Any coders fancy improving my c code? :)

http://www.64kib.com/atarixlfpga_svn/trunk/atari_800xl/firmware_eclairexl/

Edited by foft
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14 hours ago, toddtmw said:

If I place an empty .atr file on the SD card and the ECXL lets me write to it, what's to keep it from overwriting other .atr files? How does it know which disks are okay to write to and which disks aren't?

 

The use case is, I wanted to copy some floppies from real disks to .atr files. I was like, I can just use ECXL, but the File menu on ECXL seems to be missing the ability to create empty .atr files and also to say whether to make them writable or not, and also as a bonus, when it's okay to actually write the changes.

 

If I have 10 disks I want to copy, I have to create 10 blank .atr files (copy the file 10 times) on the SD card and then put that in the Eclaire?

 

Then what? Mount one and sector copy to it?

 

Just feels like a missing piece of utility. I ended up using my SIO2USB device because my SDM has not (yet) been modified to coexist with other SIO devices.

 

It's not exactly necessary, there are other ways to do it, it would just be a nice bonus feature.

Ok, yeah that is the way it has to be done at the moment, yes. I guess it could be one or two steps simpler if there was a disk creation tool in the Eclaire. A write protect toggle would be nice as well, I’ve never actually thought about it since I’ve always wanted to write to the .atr files I have. I keep a couple of backups on my computer so I don’t have to be afraid of losing anything.

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Your site seems to be down at the moment, @foft. I've noticed that my EclaireXL doesn't remember what ROM I used when it's been switched off. I guess this is because I don't have a "special settings file" that is mentioned in the documentation. Is there an example of such a file somewhere? (I know I could download the complete card image when your site is back up, but I'd prefer just the settings file)

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2 hours ago, P1r said:

 I've noticed that my EclaireXL doesn't remember what ROM I used when it's been switched off. 

For some reason the device is tight tied with XL OS rom.  So a way for me to overtake this is to do as follows.
From the settings menu choose your preferred OS rom. After save this to flash rom, not to SD card. Remove your SD card place it on your PC and delete every OS rom from the "rom" folder.
Then place again the SD card on your eclaireXL and power up the device.  From now on with or without SD card the device boot using the preferred OS.


I hope Mark in the future give us a way to save and boot at alternative  OS.

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There are four profiles stored on the flash, each contains os rom, basic rom, system and video settings. Profile 1 is loaded on start up. The settings can be changed temporarily, but are only stored using ‘save to flash’. So to change the rom in slot 1 load an os rom with the file selector then ‘save to flash’.

 

The sd card can also contain a profile. This is stored in pieces in the atari800/rom folder: atarixl.rom, ataribas.rom and settings. These, if present, are loaded on startup with higher priority than the flash. Only the video/ system settings are stored to sd with ‘save to sd’ in the settings file (if it exists).

 

Generally I keep the rom folder empty on the sd card, then I can use the flash settings. However you could use it how you like - eg an sd card per system config.

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7 hours ago, foft said:

There are four profiles stored on the flash, each contains os rom, basic rom, system and video settings. Profile 1 is loaded on start up. The settings can be changed temporarily, but are only stored using ‘save to flash’. So to change the rom in slot 1 load an os rom with the file selector then ‘save to flash’.

 

The sd card can also contain a profile. This is stored in pieces in the atari800/rom folder: atarixl.rom, ataribas.rom and settings. These, if present, are loaded on startup with higher priority than the flash. Only the video/ system settings are stored to sd with ‘save to sd’ in the settings file (if it exists).

 

Generally I keep the rom folder empty on the sd card, then I can use the flash settings. However you could use it how you like - eg an sd card per system config.

Aha, ok, I get it. But if I change one of the profiles to us an OS ROM from the SD card, then save to flash, it defaults back to the standard OS ROM on the next restart. Is there a way for me to put my custom ROM on the flash in parallell to the others?

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5 hours ago, P1r said:

But if I change one of the profiles to us an OS ROM from the SD card, then save to flash, it defaults back to the standard OS ROM on the next restart. Is there a way for me to put my custom ROM on the flash in parallell to the others?

Yes after you have put 1 to 4 OS in the respectively profiles of the flash rom, delete the OS's from SD card.

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The process is:

i) load rom from from sd card using file selector (new rom is immediately available)

ii) save to flash

iii) on restart the new rom is loaded 

Nb: make sure there is no atari800/rom/atarixl.rom file, this will be loaded in preference to the one in flash

 

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9 hours ago, foft said:

The process is:

i) load rom from from sd card using file selector (new rom is immediately available)

ii) save to flash

iii) on restart the new rom is loaded 

Nb: make sure there is no atari800/rom/atarixl.rom file, this will be loaded in preference to the one in flash

 

Got it! And if I'd like to have different ROMs on different profiles? One of which being the standard AtariXL?

 

Edit: Saw Santosp's answer after I wrote this. Excellent, will try as soon as the tv is free. ?

Edited by P1r
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  • 2 months later...
On 8/16/2019 at 4:16 PM, P1r said:

I put together this little fan box art tonight. Such a fantastic little board, love it! Thanks again @foft and @santosp! Now just wish we had injection molded cases, proper boxes and manuals and stuff. ;)

 

eclairexl_box_front.thumb.jpg.f0f1f3ff0b41f0b58886f1386e83e915.jpg

eclairexl_box_front.pdf 850.99 kB · 21 downloads

Love the box art!  Very cool!!  One minor thing to fix though to make it perfect: the word "Periferals" should be "Peripherals".  But great job overall!!

 

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On 11/14/2019 at 8:06 AM, irich2 said:

Love the box art!  Very cool!!  One minor thing to fix though to make it perfect: the word "Periferals" should be "Peripherals".  But great job overall!!

 

?
Glad you liked it! Fixed version here.

eclairexl_box_191116.jpg

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  • 2 months later...
17 minutes ago, P1r said:

Ok, so one of @wt808s excellently designed EclaireXL cases should be in the mail and on its way to me now. I've been toying with some ideas for a badge (to be printed on silver foil adhesives). Which one would you guys go with?

Skärmavbild 2020-01-16 kl. 23.23.11.png

I like #5 best.

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