U1MB with Side2 - ATR files not displaying at all

[chad5200]

Have a Ultimate 1 MB and Side2 with FJC 2.00 firmware on both.

 

Copied a bunch of XEX and ATR files from my PC, onto Compact Flash, and into Side2.

 

Boot to Side2 cart and can see the XEX files but the ATR files don't even show up. Do I have to do something special to get the ATR files to display?

 

[chad5200]

Never mind. I just RTFM'ed.

 

"Note that ‘ATR’ files will not appear if the PBI BIOS and/or Hard Disk are disabled in the ‘PBI BIOS Setup’ menu of the main BIOS setup utility."

 

All is well now.

[_The Doctor__]

Never noticed, aren't they that way as a default on programming/flashing completion?

[flashjazzcat]

Never noticed, aren't they that way as a default on programming/flashing completion?

 

No, because enabling the PBI HDD is only relevant if you have a SIDE/SIDE2 connected, and if the default was ON regardless of this, people would complain that cartridges don't work. And the firmware cannot auto-detect the SIDE cart, since even attempting to do so would render many flash cartridges unbootable.

[_The Doctor__]

interesting, as I've used the AVG in SIDE mode with a dual cartridge stack on a standard Atari(posted some pics and stuff elsewhere on AA), I will have to try it with a SIDE2 and then with the U1M... this info is helpful in that if carts fail with u1m/side2/pbi/hdd, toggling the hdd/pbi would gain the carts back but it sounds like I would lose the Hard drive etc...

Currently I use the AVG as my SIDE/HDD drive as part of my stacks ...

 

U1M takes the place of SDX cart and RTC (lose pass thru switching as roms don't stack no circuitry).. but I still use Express cart/RT8 for certain software and whatever OSS/OMS cart needed at the moment. I'll have to give this some thought.

 

Another experiment on the way I guess.

[flashjazzcat]

There's no mystery about it: behaviour is entirely predictable if you know the characteristics of the cartridge in question. If the cartridge isn't switched off by access to the upper reaches of CCTL, it will still work with the HDD enabled and the ATR swap button turned off, since read/write access to the SIDE registers won't affect the other cartridge. But if the other cart is - say - an 8Mbit AtariMax cart, the first access to the SIDE registers will turn the AtariMax cart off and make it invisible to the OS.

 

If the ATR swap button is enabled, meanwhile, the whole left cartridge ROM is turned off, regardless of what kind of cartridge is attached.

 

Obviously disabling the PBI HDD results in the PBI HDD being deactivated, but if you happen to be using a cartridge which isn't affected by CPU access to the SIDE registers, there's nothing to stop you from using both carts together with the HDD enabled as long as the ATR swap button is turned off. The only problem there is that disabling the ATR swap button also results in the SIDE cartridge ROM becoming visible, and this will commonly result in the external loader being booted instead of U1MB's internal SDX (since the loader disallows a disk boot). Little known fact: the build of SDX on the SIDE cart itself still boots SDX even if the external cart doesn't allow a disk boot (unlike all other builds, which will boot the cart). This is why SIDE boots SDX when used stand-alone with the switch on the SDX position (otherwise it would boot the loader regardless of which position the switch was in).

 

Anyway: the forthcoming firmware update is even more flexible, since it allows independent control of the SIDE cartridge ROM and the ATR swap button. This is ostensibly to allow the patched OSS cart ROMs to be run from the SIDE cart on U1MB machines with the PBI HDD turned on, but will also allow the SIDE cart to be used alongside another external cart via a dual-cart adapter without the external SIDE cart ROM making an unwelcome appearance just because the ATR swap button is turned off.

 

If that's confusing or apparently mysterious, there's nothing I can do about it. It's covered in the manuals and I've gone over it here umpteen times, and attempts to simplify the configuration tend to result in uncommon setups (such as IDE Plus and SIDE used together) not working correctly because some setting has been placed out of reach of the user.

Edited May 26, 2019 by flashjazzcat

[flashjazzcat]

Caveat to the above: in existing (released) versions of the firmware, enabling the PBI HDD always suppresses the external SIDE cartridge ROM, so turning off the ATR swap button will allow a suitable second cartridge to function without the SIDE ROM getting in the way. In the newer (unreleased) firmware, there are separate settings for the SIDE Cart ROM and the ATR swap button. At first, it appeared logical that the button and the ROM would be mutually exclusive, but owing to the fact there are scenarios (like the aforementioned SIDE/IDE Plus setup) in which one still might want both the button and the SIDE Cart ROM turned off, I kept them separate. However, when the ATR swap button is enabled, the SIDE Cart ROM setting is greyed out and the ROM silently suppressed. So, in the new firmware, the available options become:

1. SIDE ROM off, button off
2. SIDE ROM off, button on
3. SIDE ROM on, button off

Setting 1 will allow the use of secondary cartridges alongside the SIDE HDD. Setting 2 is the one most people use when running the SIDE cart as a hard disk. Setting 3 allows the OSS cart images on the SIDE ROM to be used alongside the PBI HDD.

[_The Doctor__]

the upcoming release sounds like it will be worth the wait

Edited May 26, 2019 by _The Doctor__

[Bikerbob]

Anyone know of a good CompactFlash Image to use with the Side2 in Altirra?  (or easiest way to create one?)

 

James

[+DrVenkman]

9 minutes ago, Bikerbob said:

Anyone know of a good CompactFlash Image to use with the Side2 in Altirra?  (or easiest way to create one?)

 

James

I'm going from memory here so apologies if I miss a step or misstate one, but here's the gist:

 

You can create one - add a Hard Disk as a device in the Altirra device tree. In the dialog that appears, create the image of whatever size you want and save the file. Boot SDX from either the emulated SIDE2 cart or the emulated U1MB, run FDISK on the image to create the partitions. If you create any APT partitions, you can then format them with the SDX FORMAT command. Once that's all done, in Windows you can mount the VHD file and then copy files to the FAT partition of the mounted VHD.