bug fixes Ultimate 1MB, Incognito, 1088XEL/XLD and SIDE/SIDE2 Firmware Version 3.02 Released

[flashjazzcat]

Have you read the README? I don't know what your target platform is or what you want to flash. You have a 1088XEL or XLD? Do you want to update everything or just the firmware? I would recommend doing the full ROM.

[wildstar87]

I did read the README, hence my confusion.  I'm flashing a 1088XEL.  The Firmware.rom is the smallest, but looking at the Firmware.ATR, it is the biggest.  I want to do everything.  I was also wondering how to change the config.sys on the cartridge?  Also wondering about the Plugins folder, are these already integrated, or do I have to do that somehow?

[+DrVenkman]

3 minutes ago, wildstar87 said:

I was also wondering how to change the config.sys on the cartridge?

Do you have a CF-II/3 card interface in use? If so, the easiest and most flexible way to customize your CONFIG.SYS is to copy the one from CAR: to one of your APT partitions, then edit that one to specify your usual default preferences. In the U1MB BIOS, change the CONFIG.SYS entry to point to the drive where you just copied/created your new file.

[Kyle22]

1 hour ago, wildstar87 said:

I did read the README, hence my confusion.  I'm flashing a 1088XEL.  The Firmware.rom is the smallest, but looking at the Firmware.ATR, it is the biggest.  I want to do everything.  I was also wondering how to change the config.sys on the cartridge?  Also wondering about the Plugins folder, are these already integrated, or do I have to do that somehow?

 

I would flash the 512K firmware ROM file first, then use the SDX image tool here: http://sdx.atari8.info/index.php?show=download&file=sdx_files/SDXImageUser.zip

to edit the config.sys. After editing and replacing config.sys, you need to flash just the SDX ROM.

 

[wildstar87]

Great I'll give that a try. Thanks!

[gozar]

@flashjazzcat, @Stephen and I are have an issue with v.3.02, Altirra (3.20), and booting from a CF image. Stephen is trying to duplicate his 1088XLD set up, using the U1M and the XEL-CF3 while I'm just setting up a generic U1M/SIDE2 combo. 

 

The result is the same, the machines will not boot from the CF image. It starts up, and gets to a SDX prompt where we can access the CF image, but config.sys is ignored. On my setup, the autoexec.bat file is run, but my SPARTA.DOS folder was ignored.

 

Weird thing is that if I replace the U1M rom with ultimate.rom V.2 from July 2018, it works as expected. 

 

Any ideas?

[flashjazzcat]

1 minute ago, gozar said:

The result is the same, the machines will not boot from the CF image. It starts up, and gets to a SDX prompt where we can access the CF image, but config.sys is ignored. On my setup, the autoexec.bat file is run, but my SPARTA.DOS folder was ignored.

Have you set the 'CONFIG.SYS' setting to point to the drive of interest? I suspect this setting has been left at 'D1:' (although you don't say which logical drive contains CONFIG.SYS), and I think 'Boot drive' has been used instead. 'Boot drive' is meant to be entirely ignored when SDX is active, so although downgrading the firmware appears to accomplish what you want, it's actually because the more recent firmware lacks the quirks of the older revision. The CONFIG.SYS setting is guaranteed to work in v.3.02, since I have SDX booting from D3: 100 per cent of the time and I would immediately notice if it was broken. I've also tried running the config selector from D3: and that works fine too.

 

[gozar]

3 minutes ago, flashjazzcat said:

Have you set the 'CONFIG.SYS' setting to point to the drive of interest? I suspect this setting has been left at 'D1:' (although you don't say which logical drive contains CONFIG.SYS), and I think 'Boot drive' has been used instead. 'Boot drive' is meant to be entirely ignored when SDX is active, so although downgrading the firmware appears to accomplish what you want, it's actually because the more recent firmware lacks the quirks of the older revision. The CONFIG.SYS setting is guaranteed to work in v.3.02, since I have SDX booting from D3: 100 per cent of the time and I would immediately notice if it was broken. I've also tried running the config selector from D3: and that works fine too.

 

And that's what fixes it (although I could have sworn I tested that scenerio :-). I assumed Default meant to use the one on the boot drive.

 

I figured it was something simple. ? Thanks!

[flashjazzcat]

10 minutes ago, gozar said:

I assumed Default meant to use the one on the boot drive.

It's meant to imply the OS default, i.e. whatever is in DUNIT when the machine boots. This is '1' 99 per cent of the time, but the misunderstanding is... understandable.

 

Glad it was a nice easy fix, anyway.

[+Stephen]

3 hours ago, flashjazzcat said:

Have you set the 'CONFIG.SYS' setting to point to the drive of interest? I suspect this setting has been left at 'D1:' (although you don't say which logical drive contains CONFIG.SYS), and I think 'Boot drive' has been used instead. 'Boot drive' is meant to be entirely ignored when SDX is active, so although downgrading the firmware appears to accomplish what you want, it's actually because the more recent firmware lacks the quirks of the older revision. The CONFIG.SYS setting is guaranteed to work in v.3.02, since I have SDX booting from D3: 100 per cent of the time and I would immediately notice if it was broken. I've also tried running the config selector from D3: and that works fine too.

 

This does not work for me - I tried every combination of setting boot drive, drive redirect, config.sys to D9:.  I mirrored the setting for my real 1088XLD and still, I cannot get the config menu to work on anything but an SIO drive in drive 1.

 

FWIW - Windows 7, Altirra 3.9 test 11, U1MB 3.02 ROM specific to 1088XLD, XEL-CF3 hardware with an altirra created VHD.

 

Hmm - could it be, the BIOD says D9:, but SDK has it labelled as DI:?  That's the only possible thing I can think of, but it works fine on my real hardware.

 

Video showing the issue (drive A works, D9 fails, drive A works again):

 

[Roydea6]

I am having problems with the XEGS #4 slot not showing the full name of the rom in use and I can't rename it or flash bios with uflash.xex or save names to bios or SLOT.USD.

 

Atari 800 XL Bios 3.02

sdx449c  rom for ultimate 320 size

this is the first that I have noticed, but a quick change back to previous Bios has the same problems.

 

[flashjazzcat]

10 hours ago, Stephen said:

This does not work for me - I tried every combination of setting boot drive, drive redirect, config.sys to D9:.  I mirrored the setting for my real 1088XLD and still, I cannot get the config menu to work on anything but an SIO drive in drive 1.

Weird. I still have the same firmware installed on the 1088XEL and just tried it (and in the emulator); I used FDISK to change the drive number on my boot partition from C: to J:, put a SPARTA.DOS folder on it containing '1088.CFG', set 'CONFIG.SYS' to J: and SDX faithfully booted from the drive and opened the config selector. What happens if you change the partition's drive number in FDISK to D1: and set 'CONFIG.SYS' to 'Default'? Does SDX pick up CONFIG.SYS on that particular partition then?

 

It's clear that the BIOS is setting DUNIT to the correct value, since the command prompt comes up with D9: (or DI: - it's the same thing), and everything after that pretty much relies on SDX. In that sense the firmware has to do nothing but set DUNIT before DOS gets control, which it clearly does. DOS observes whatever value is already in DUNIT and searches for the config folder and CONFIG.SYS on the specified drive. There may be some other reason that DOS prefers to ignore what it finds.

7 hours ago, rdea6 said:

but a quick change back to previous Bios has the same problems.

Sounds like you have some hardware issues.

Edited October 5, 2019 by flashjazzcat

[Roydea6]

1 hour ago, flashjazzcat said:

Sounds like you have some hardware issues.

But the latest test 12 emulator does the same thing or if I select the 4 th slot to run game rom it shows item 3

[+Stephen]

4 hours ago, flashjazzcat said:

Weird. I still have the same firmware installed on the 1088XEL and just tried it (and in the emulator); I used FDISK to change the drive number on my boot partition from ? to J:, put a SPARTA.DOS folder on it containing '1088.CFG', set 'CONFIG.SYS' to J: and SDX faithfully booted from the drive and opened the config selector. What happens if you change the partition's drive number in FDISK to D1: and set 'CONFIG.SYS' to 'Default'? Does SDX pick up CONFIG.SYS on that particular partition then?

 

It's clear that the BIOS is setting DUNIT to the correct value, since the command prompt comes up with D9: (or DI: - it's the same thing), and everything after that pretty much relies on SDX. In that sense the firmware has to do nothing but set DUNIT before DOS gets control, which it clearly does. DOS observes whatever value is already in DUNIT and searches for the config folder and CONFIG.SYS on the specified drive. There may be some other reason that DOS prefers to ignore what it finds.

When setting the HDD to D1: and CONFIG.SYS to default (or D1:), SDX gives me the config selector.  However, altirra shows it reading from SIO drive 1.  BUT - when I get to the command prompt and type DIR, D1: shows me the contents of the HDD.

 

I tried changing everything from D9 to D3 and it acts the same, drive works, but no config selector.

[flashjazzcat]

47 minutes ago, Stephen said:

When setting the HDD to D1: and CONFIG.SYS to default (or D1:), SDX gives me the config selector. 

You know what's coming next: please - if you can - DD the entire RAW CF card, ZIP it up and send me a link. I'm intrigued by what's going on here. SDX appears to be issuing IO requests to the correct unit, but the firmware for some reason is not servicing IO requests on the corresponding partition. And yet it is by the time you run a DIR on it at the command prompt?

 

Are you using the stock XL/XE OS?

[flashjazzcat]

3 hours ago, rdea6 said:

But the latest test 12 emulator does the same thing or if I select the 4 th slot to run game rom it shows item 3

Do you mean 'Item 3' in quotes, i.e. literally? If so: that's why you see when slot 4 is untitled (i.e. there's a null string where the description resides in ROM). The items are numbered 0-3.

 

Give XEGS slot 4 a name in UFLASH. Maybe the slot numbers in the BIOS should run from 1-4 instead of 0-3 (I can change that), but that's not really the crux of your problem. The fact the item has no name is.

[+Stephen]

8 hours ago, flashjazzcat said:

You know what's coming next: please - if you can - DD the entire RAW CF card, ZIP it up and send me a link. I'm intrigued by what's going on here. SDX appears to be issuing IO requests to the correct unit, but the firmware for some reason is not servicing IO requests on the corresponding partition. And yet it is by the time you run a DIR on it at the command prompt?

 

Are you using the stock XL/XE OS?

Will try to get you the requested stuff by tomorrow.  Ended up working on a customer's car all day today after a 55 hour work week.  Far as I know I am using stock OS - that was my intention at least.

[flashjazzcat]

18 hours ago, Stephen said:

Will try to get you the requested stuff by tomorrow. 

That'll be great if you get time!  Thanks.

 

[+Stephen]

1 hour ago, flashjazzcat said:

That'll be great if you get time!  Thanks.

 

Sorry for the delay - went out to buy a new dishwasher and microwave today.  I take my truck to the store, choose the stuff, and they say "Oh - we don't stock anything in the store, it's in a warehouse 75 miles north.  We'll deliver it for free on the 14th".

 

Anyhow - sent the VHD file I am using and a few screenshots of the emulator settings.

[flashjazzcat]

28 minutes ago, Stephen said:

Anyhow - sent the VHD file I am using and a few screenshots of the emulator settings.

Thanks Stephen. Downloaded, tested (works OK), and responded. We will get to the bottom of it, I'm sure.

 

[flashjazzcat]

On 10/4/2019 at 10:48 PM, flashjazzcat said:

'Boot drive' is meant to be entirely ignored when SDX is active, so although downgrading the firmware appears to accomplish what you want, it's actually because the more recent firmware lacks the quirks of the older revision. The CONFIG.SYS setting is guaranteed to work in v.3.02, since I have SDX booting from D3: 100 per cent of the time and I would immediately notice if it was broken. I've also tried running the config selector from D3: and that works fine too.

I've decided to release a version of the firmware which simply fixes the XF551 high speed bug and a couple of other small issues, and while preparing the download I've discovered that what I wrote above is complete BS.  

On 10/4/2019 at 10:54 PM, gozar said:

I assumed Default meant to use the one on the boot drive.

Yes: this is how it worked until I was asked to address a completely different issue concerning boot drive management when jumping into SDX directly from the loader. I inadvertently broke the property of CONFIG.SYS falling back to the boot drive setting in version 3.02 and immediately fixed it pending the next update. So it will work exactly as you describe in the next update, which should be out tomorrow. Sorry about the confusion!

[+DrVenkman]

1 hour ago, flashjazzcat said:

... I've discovered that what I wrote above is complete BS.

Whoa, whoa, whoa!!! Someone on the internet admitting a mistake, apologizing for it and offering better/updated info? Careful man, you'll spoil some folks' view of how it's supposed to work on a forum.