HELP! I "bricked" my THE!CART

[Gunstar]

Well, I finally found some time to sit down with THE!CART in my Atari, and the Studio workbook app on my PC and learn to make a workbook and re-program THE!CART with what I want. So I was about to start a thread asking why I keep getting error messages when I try to export my workbook to ATR format to use with my SIO2PC and AspQT, which I still need an answer too.

 

But in the mean time I thought I'd use THE!CART's on-board flasher program you get to from THE!CART menu by pressing [esc], to erase the pre-programmed work book that My THE!CART came with that included the extended memory test, Ms. Pac-man and Galaxian.

 

To prepare for a full reprogram, not incremental. It never occured to me that using the "erase cartridge/flash" option in the flasher program would completely erase EVERYTHING including THE!CART menu and the flasher program!

 

I had turned off my Atari, leaving the flasher program I was running from THE!CART when I was interrupted, only to return later and find that THE!CART will no longer load up and I go straight to SELF TEST mode on my Atari when I turn it on, with THE!CART plugged in since I erased THE!CART with the flasher program!

 

What do I do now? I do have an Atarimax programming cartridge I can use if need be to recover.

 

Also, is there an updated version of THE!CART Studio app manual/guide? I thought I downloaded a PDF but I can't find in on my PC or searching on Google. All I found was this page below that seems to be for an older version of the software, from the looks of the example desktop window pictures anyway: http://www.wudsn.com/productions/atari800/thecartstudio/help/TheCartStudio.html

Edited October 9, 2018 by Gunstar

[Gunstar]

Ok, continuing to look through the manual I have linked above, I did find this bit:

 

Important: If The!Cart does not start anymore after flashing

In very rare cases, for example when I/O errors corrupt the first few banks of The!Cart, (or in my case complete stupidity in choosing to the erase option in the flasher program?) you may not be able to enter the menus or the built-in flasher anymore from The!Cart itself. Then you have the following options:

• Download latest disk version of the flasher from Atari flashing software .
• Insert the "thecart.atr" from the download archive in disk drive 1.
• Hold down the OPTION key during power-on. You will then either end up in the simple menu and can try from there. Or the cartridge disable itself completely and the computer will boot from disk.
• If even holding down OPTION alone does not disable The!Cart and the computer hangs, try pressing RESET on the computer again.
• If even this does not disable The!Cart, you need a Turbo-Freezer or similar monitor program, so you can disable The!Cart during power-on by writing the value $00 to address $D5A6. If you have a Turbo-Freezer, hold down the freezer button and power-on the computer. Enter the debugger by pressing "D" and enter "CD5A6<00". Then press RESET to let the computer boot.
• If all this fails, you can try the strictly not recommended way and hot-plug The!Cart. This may damage your cartridge and you computer. First boot the flash from disk without The!Cart inserted. You are prompted to press the RESET button on The!Cart. Insert the cartridge carefully and completely. Press the RESET button on the cartridge and then press RETURN on the computer. The flasher will report if and which cartridge was detected.
• You can flash the cartridge as described in the previous section. If the problem remains, try flashing again and answer the question "incremental update" with "n".
• Now your The!Cart works again. If not, feel free to contacts us

Is this what I need to do in my circumstance too?

 

EDIT: Yet another issue, I was trying to make a floppy disk out of the ATR image in the link above with Prosystem and it aborts with: Drive 2 aborted[bad frame checksum], so does anyone have another ATR image for the flashing software that will work? EDIT: well I got the ATR image to load via Aspeqt, though it did stutter loading. But at this point I'm putting this on hold until I get some verification or direction from other's replies. Thanks in advance for all helo!

Edited October 9, 2018 by Gunstar

[+JAC!]

Hi Gunstar,

 

>Is this what I need to do in my circumstance too?

Yes. The ATR download is fine here. It is a 180k double density disk, so maybe your physical drive is not DD capable. It should work fine with AspeQt.

 

So what happens currently if you hold down "OPTION" during Power-Up with The!Cart plugged in?

 

Regards, Peter.

[Gunstar]

Hi Gunstar, >Is this what I need to do in my circumstance too? Yes. The ATR download is fine here. It is a 180k double density disk, so maybe your physical drive is not DD capable. It should work fine with AspeQt. So what happens currently if you hold down "OPTION" during Power-Up with The!Cart plugged in? Regards, Peter.

Thanks JAC! Currently, with THE!CART inserted, it goes to SELF TEST on my Atari if I hold OPTION or not. I have successfully booted the flashing software using AspeQT (my drive is Happy DD 180K though, so I don't know why I'd get the bad checksum when I tried making a disk twice) with THE!CART inserted and the flashing software says it detects THE!CART on the main menu. I have done nothing more than that at this point.

Edited October 10, 2018 by Gunstar

[_The Doctor__]

sounds like you are ready to flash....

[Gunstar]

So I don't need to do anything else at this point? Just flash the exported workbook? I don't have to add a menu or flash program files into the workbook to recover them? Are they automatically re-flashed?

[_The Doctor__]

If you do a complete flash it should replace everything....

answer the question "incremental update" with "n".

 

2017 version of the software... if you have issue with atr. perhaps try different unzip program.... I use two, 7 zip and IZarc2go sometimes a thing does not work with one so I choose the other... both report no errors and success but sometimes the archive makes a mess up during extraction anyway... so I just try with the other and often everything is fine. Sometimes it's just like that.

Edited October 10, 2018 by _The Doctor__

[Gunstar]

Thanks! I have 7 zip that I always use for everything, I'll give IZarc2go a try...now I just have to successfully export my workbook...keep getting errors with files that are supposed to be ready-made for THE!CART, like PCM44 files among others. I'll be back with pictures and whatnot if I don't figure it out. I can mix different .xex, .bin, car. file formats in the same flash, right? I use the ATR export option for AspQT&SIO2PC right?

[Gunstar]

Well, my THE!CART is currently being flashed and everything seems ok so far. It's going to be a while though. I was having problems with high-speed SIO setting and 3xSIO settings getting it to start, so I lowered it to 19.2Kbps 1x speed and it still geve back an error, then I realized I had my 1050 set as D1: as well as AspeQT image mounted in D1:. I switch 1050 to D2: and everything starts, but now I'm stuck with 1X SIO speed for this first flashing.

 

The reason I don't just shut off the 1050 is that my SIO2PC is built-in to my 1050 and get's it's power from the 1050 and uses the 1050's SIO ports. So I mounted a D1:/D2: switch on the front.

Edited October 11, 2018 by Gunstar

[+JAC!]

Great. The "good" thing actually is your erased the cart instead of selecting the wrong flash option (e.g. "raw image") which sometimes people did accidentially. Because the cart was completely blank, the OS did not detect it as a ROM but as missing memory and skiped the start.

Highspeed should also not be an issue when using D2:. It could be though, that the flasher program probes the drive speed for D1: only upon start.

[Gunstar]

Great. The "good" thing actually is your erased the cart instead of selecting the wrong flash option (e.g. "raw image") which sometimes people did accidentially. Because the cart was completely blank, the OS did not detect it as a ROM but as missing memory and skiped the start.

Highspeed should also not be an issue when using D2:. It could be though, that the flasher program probes the drive speed for D1: only upon start.

Thanks for your direction. Everything flashed OK and I have a working THE!CART. My only issue was I had to remove files/images/roms (whatever they are) for the PCM 4+4 music that were supposedly formatted specifically for THE!CART but it would not allow me to export to an ATR with them there.

 

Nothing wrong with my D2: except I had it set as D1: and AspeQT D1: mounted too, so there was a conflict, that's all.

[+JAC!]

Regarding the PCM stuff: If you refer to these

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/279232-fujiconvert-01/page-1

then the answer is that these files are complete The!Cart images themselves and not files that you can put on The!Cart.

Means you need one The!Cart for one such files. It's the way the PCM player is are programmed.

 

I once flashed such a PCM to a real The!Cart and files the following requests to Xuel, so others can do that more easily.

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/279232-fujiconvert-01/?p=4081580

[Mclaneinc]

Another happy ending thanks to the community...