Thomas Jentzsch Posted June 20, 2019 Share Posted June 20, 2019 After reading a blog entry about using a WiFi SD card in the Harmony cart, I wonder if I should buy myself one too. It would definitely save some time during development. Has anyone else some experience with this setup? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flojomojo Posted June 20, 2019 Share Posted June 20, 2019 That’s an interesting thought. I always figured those existed to push photos from a camera to a computer, and it never occurred to me that it probably has its own little file server so you could remotely put files on it, too. If it works, I agree it should save you from a lot of sneakernet swapping. They seem to have mixed reviews but are also cheap enough that an experiment shouldn’t break the bank. Sorry I don’t have any experience to share, just the comment that I want to hear how it works! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted June 20, 2019 Author Share Posted June 20, 2019 Here is the blog entry I am referring too. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flojomojo Posted June 20, 2019 Share Posted June 20, 2019 I was wondering about that, thanks for posting cos I couldn’t find it on my own. As the blog author says, it sounds like a pain in the ass, but also feasible if you have patience and skill. https://www.flashair-developers.com/en/documents/tutorials/advanced/2/ I anticipate that you could do it but I could not, as I lack patience and skill. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted June 20, 2019 Author Share Posted June 20, 2019 It doesn't sound too complicated. And as soon as one person has done it, one could provide step-by-step instructions and maybe even a simple user interface for uploading. At the moment I am checking the web if cheaper alternatives (e.g. EZ Share or one of the many SD card WiFi adapters offered) can be used too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+ZeroPage Homebrew Posted June 21, 2019 Share Posted June 21, 2019 I've definitely been tempted to buy a Wifi SD card for my Harmony Cart. I should put it on my to-buy list next time I'm shopping for tech! I wonder what's the smallest size you can get. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted June 21, 2019 Author Share Posted June 21, 2019 I got a 32GB for ~$25 because that's the cheapest one available where I know it is working. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+SpiceWare Posted June 21, 2019 Share Posted June 21, 2019 That sounds quite slick - did you contact him to see if he'd post a followup on how he did it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted June 21, 2019 Author Share Posted June 21, 2019 Nope. But It looked up the web. Doesn't seem to be overly complicated. I will report back in a week or so. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+ZeroPage Homebrew Posted June 21, 2019 Share Posted June 21, 2019 I've been doing some research into the features and availability of Wifi SD Cards this morning. The main feature I'm looking for is that the SD card will be able to connect to my existing wireless network which luckily most of them have. - Hereta looks like it has the ability to connect to a wireless network in Station Mode but there are no reviews and hardly any information on the Internet about them. - VOORCA looks like it has the ability to connect to a wireless network in STA mode but reviews have been very poor, their website doesn't appear to be functional so there is no support for it. - Eye-Fi has the ability to connect to a wireless network but they seem to be discontinued or only able to be bought in bulk? - Transcend has the ability to connect to a wireless network built in but they seem to be discontinued ($5000 a card??) ? - Toshiba FlashAir has the ability but you have to manually edit config files and here's a 4 hour video of someone trying to make it work.... - EZ SHARE only has wifi hotspot capabilities None of them seem ideal as there is little to no information about the product or it's discontinued. I think that Eye-Fi might be the best bet if I can find a place to sell just one to me? Had anybody come up with better information than what I've found? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted June 21, 2019 Author Share Posted June 21, 2019 (edited) Toshiba FlashAir: https://flashair-developers.com/en/ https://github.com/DrLex0/FlashAirUI https://github.com/luc-github/Flashair-FM https://hackaday.io/project/5558-reverse-engineering-toshiba-flashair-wifi-sd-card https://virantha.com/2014/01/09/hacking-together-a-wifi-photo-frame-with-a-toshiba-flashair-sd-card-wireless-photo-uploads/ Edited June 21, 2019 by Thomas Jentzsch 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+ZeroPage Homebrew Posted June 21, 2019 Share Posted June 21, 2019 Thanks so much Thomas! The github page makes it sound pretty easy to get going. That seals the deal on which one to get. ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
azure Posted June 22, 2019 Share Posted June 22, 2019 Can the Harmony or UNO carts create and delete files on the SD card? I'm wondering if a message passing system could be constructed using a Wi-Fi enabled SD card. Messages would be passed as files on the SD card. If the ARM CPU could do message passing to a server, it might be able to relay those messages to a running game on the 2600 by updating RAM variables. The server and ARM CPU would have to periodically poll for message files. The game would periodically read/write RAM variables. If any of that's possible, then I'm thinking a game could do a few things: Trigger a bankswitch that loads a bank with server supplied ROM data to produce longer games. Use server generated content on the fly for playfields, sprites, and game maps. Load the next chapter of a game while maintaining game state variables. Upload high scores and game state to a server. Personalized graphics. How feasible is this with a Harmony or UNO card? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted June 22, 2019 Author Share Posted June 22, 2019 Interesting ideas. Since I am no expert, I don't know how feasible they are. But currently (AFAIK), after loading a game, the ARM is fully occupied by the game. Also only loading from card is supported. For making your ideas work, there would have to be a 2nd thread running, independently from the game. Which not only requires CPU but also its own memory. And something like an OS which handles that. Sounds pretty complicated and I am not sure if it is feasible at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+ZeroPage Homebrew Posted June 25, 2019 Share Posted June 25, 2019 UPDATE: I purchased the Toshiba W-04 32GB card and I've so far been able to set it up to connect to my wireless network while in my Atari 2600! Next up is to install the browser support so I can transfer files over to it! Thanks for your help again Thomas! 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted June 29, 2019 Author Share Posted June 29, 2019 Got my Toshiba FlashAir (W-03) today. And with this tool and instructions I was able to set it up running in access point (AP) mode within some minutes. If one is able to read and handle a text editor, this is no big deal. No luck so far with client mode though, still trying to figure out the problem. I tested creating a folder and uploading some ROMs. Limitations: The tool's simple web interface will only allow uploading one file at a time, but you can upload multiple ones in a row. Also the author mentions restrictions about number of files and number of subfolders for the tool. AP is working quite slow, but fortunately Atari 2600 ROMs are really tiny. Last not least: After uploading files, Harmony will not show them immediately. I tried with navigating, but this causes Harmony to display a "file not found error", where you have to press fire to continue. Then you are back in the root directory and much worse, the FlashAir cannot be accessed via WiFi anymore. You have to remove and reinsert the card to get WiFi going again. The last points is IMO a major issue. I am not sure what is causing the problem. Maybe it becomes better in client mode or via other access methods, but for not I can only guess. Note: Instead of using the simple web interface, you can use browser functionality directly and even WebDav. But I haven't tested these yet. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted June 29, 2019 Author Share Posted June 29, 2019 (edited) Next step: I found another source (German) which contains a config which allows client mode and WebDav. CIPATH=/DCIM/100__TSB/FA000001.JPG UPLOAD=1 APPMODE=5 APPAUTOTIME=0 APPNAME=cbm1 APPSSID=YOURSSID APPNETWORKKEY=YOURPASSWORD COMMAND=wlan 11n 1 VERSION=FA9CAW3AW3.00.00 CID=02544d535730384731c1fdc57900ec01 PRODUCT=FlashAir VENDOR=TOSHIBA MASTERCODE=0123456789AB LOCK=1 WEBDAV=2 TIMEZONE=8 Installation is even easier than in my post above. Just replace the hidden config file with the one above (after adapting APPSSID and APPNETWORKKEY of course). Then boot and connect the FlashAir as a new network drive (http://cbm1). Now you can access the card using your favorite file browser. Edited June 29, 2019 by Thomas Jentzsch 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dionoid Posted December 18, 2019 Share Posted December 18, 2019 (edited) It seems that Toshiba has discontinued the FlashAir SD cards ? Also their developers website https://www.flashair-developers.com has been closed. Still I think that a FlashAir card - supporting WebDAV - is great for homebrew development, so I recently bought a FlashAir 64GB W-04 for ~$40. 64GB is way too much for me, but the 16GB and 32GB FlashAir cards seem to be out of stock everywhere (Edit: I just found that Amazon.de has the 32GB FlashAir in stock for €30) After more than 2 hours of trial-and-error, I finally got WebDAV working on my FlashAir... It was not a simple set up at all and it's not 100% stable, as sometimes the card is not responsive and takes a few seconds to wake up. Things I did to get it working: Updated the FlashAir card to the latest version (F15DBW3BW4.00.04) using the FlashAir W-04 Software Update Tool Formatted the card to FAT32 using FAT32 Format Initialized the card again using the FlashAir Configuration Software Changed my Router's DHCP range from 10.0.x.x to 192.168.x.x (not sure if this was really needed, but I tried a lot of things to get the WebDAV working) On my router, I added a DHCP reservation for my FlashAir card, using the card's MAC address, so my FlashAir will have a static local IP address. Modified the card's configuration file SD_WLAN/CONFIG to support WebDAV like this: [WLANSD] DHCP_Enabled=YES [Vendor] CIPATH=/DCIM/100__TSB/FA000001.JPG APPMODE=5 VERSION=F15DBW3BW4.00.04 CID=[YOUR FLASHAIR CARD CID HERE] PRODUCT=FlashAir VENDOR=TOSHIBA APPSSID=[YOUR WIFI ACCESSPOINT ID HERE] APPNETWORKKEY=[YOUR WIFI PASSWORD HERE] APPAUTOTIME=0 STA_RETRY_CT=0 LOCK=1 DNSMODE=1 NOISE_CANCEL=2 UPLOAD=1 UPDIR=/ WEBDAV=2 MASTERCODE=[YOUR FLASHAIR CARD MAC ADDRESS HERE (see back of card)] APPNAME=FlashAir Then on Windows I mapped my Z: drive to my FlashAir's WebDAV endpoint at http://192.168.0.5 (which is the static IP address for my FlashAir that I configured in my router's DHCP settings). Hope this helps someone to set up WebDAV on their FlashAir W-04 SD card! Edited December 18, 2019 by Dionoid 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dionoid Posted December 18, 2019 Share Posted December 18, 2019 (edited) This is what the mapped WebDAV drive looks like in the File Explorer: So whenever I have an updated rom of my game which I want to test on my Harmony cart, I'll just copy it to the Z: drive. Then I need to switch my '2600 off & on to be able to select it from the Harmony menu. B.t.w. documentation on the CONFIG settings of the FlashAir is still available via WayBackMachine here: https://web.archive.org/web/20170816194335/https://www.flashair-developers.com/en/documents/api/config/ Edited December 18, 2019 by Dionoid 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrZarniwoop Posted January 26, 2021 Share Posted January 26, 2021 KIOXIA bought FlashAir from Toshiba, and has support for the Toshiba FlashAir W-04 on their Legacy Products page under SD Memory Card with Wireless LAN. In December, they added support for Windows 10 Version 2004/20H2 and macOS 11 Big Sur. It seems to me from playing with the FlashAir Configuration Software that it's all point-and-click with no manual configuration, it took me just a few minutes to access the card at http://flashair.local/. I'll try to load a new file while it's in a Harmony or Concerto card, I imagine the Atari console needs to be power-cycled to recognize new files. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+batari Posted January 26, 2021 Share Posted January 26, 2021 50 minutes ago, MrZarniwoop said: KIOXIA bought FlashAir from Toshiba, and has support for the Toshiba FlashAir W-04 on their Legacy Products page under SD Memory Card with Wireless LAN. In December, they added support for Windows 10 Version 2004/20H2 and macOS 11 Big Sur. It seems to me from playing with the FlashAir Configuration Software that it's all point-and-click with no manual configuration, it took me just a few minutes to access the card at http://flashair.local/. I'll try to load a new file while it's in a Harmony or Concerto card, I imagine the Atari console needs to be power-cycled to recognize new files. If you select the credits screen on Harmony then exit, it should reload the card contents without a power cycle. Same for the wrench menu on Concerto. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amiman99 Posted January 26, 2021 Share Posted January 26, 2021 It's funny how this post was resurrected when I was looking and buying this SD-WIFI adapter for an Amiga experiment. https://www.fysetc.com/products/fysetc-sd-wifi-with-card-reader-module-run-espwebdev-onboard-usb-to-serial-chip-wireless-transmission-module-for-s6-f6-turbo?variant=37578391027887 Maybe this adapter will work for your purpose. I don't have a Harmony cart, so I can't test it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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