Incognito - Now's your chance!

[Faicuai]

2 hours ago, flashjazzcat said:

No: the 'memory protection' bug Kyle refers to is not currently fixed. I asked Candle about a possible fix this morning by email (via Lotharek), and Candle replied with the Polish word for "I'll see".

 

THANKS!!!!

 

Maybe it is time for a little push with Lotharek, as well, so CPLD gets updated, including final registers for Joystick 3 and 4, as well...

 

I am sure there will be TON of supporters ready to step in, here, for such motion...

[_The Doctor__]

The joystick thing could be found, re-discovered, or who knows on a quieter day a recollection of it could occur and a chance to re do it.

as for the memory protection, try some language / utility carts and make sure you have floppies to save your work to if it nails you.

 

Most people never run into it. If your like kyle, or you muck about in obscure stuff like I do you might see it. Maybe it's because we both mess around with BBS stuff, spinning disks, and actually use some really old things

 

You simply can't go wrong buying one. In that you can trust!

Edited August 9, 2019 by _The Doctor__

[Gunstar]

Can a link or explanation be posted regarding these joystick and memory issues for those of us who haven't been following Incognito issues/fixes/etc. since there was no point in keeping up and knowing about such things when no Incognitos were available for those of us who missed the first runs? Thanks!

[Gunstar]

2 hours ago, Tempest said:

Everyone just chill for a moment.  There was no deliberate attempt to spread false information, just a mistake.  Why is everyone so testy these days?  We're ready to bring out the pitchforks and torches at at a drop of a hat.  

 

I'll edit the posts to remove the offending comment and clean up the thread, but come on guys, we're better than this.

Thank you. The entire exchange had a familiar ring to it to me, and then I finally recalled 'Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy' and this excerpt below:

 

Mr. Prosser said, "You are quite entitled to make any suggestions or protests at the appropriate time, you know."

"Appropriate time?" hooted Arthur. "Appropriate time? The first I new about it was when a workman arrived at my home yesterday. I asked him if he'd come to clean the windows and he said no, he'd come to demolish the house. He didn't tell me straight away of course. Oh no. First he wiped a couple of windows and charged me a fiver. Then he told me."

But Mr. Dent, the plans have been available in the local planning office for the last nine months."

"Oh yes, well, as soon as I heard I went straight round to see them, yesterday afternoon. You hadn't exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them, had you? I mean, like actually telling anybody or anything."

"But the plans were on display..."

"On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them."

"That's the display department."

"With a flashlight."

"Ah, well, the lights had probably gone."

"So had the stairs."

"But look, you found the notice didn't you?"

"Yes," said Arthur, "yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying  beware of the Leopard."

 

 

[flashjazzcat]

Yeah: you have to deliberately scroll all the way to the top of the page to read 'FJC FIRMWARE' in large capital letters, deliberately written in black so as to merge in with the white background. The red text lower down is even harder to make out. I edited post #31 as promised, anyway. Sorry for any confusion. 

 

[Gunstar]

13 minutes ago, flashjazzcat said:

Yeah: you have to deliberately scroll all the way to the top of the page to read 'FJC FIRMWARE' in large capital letters, deliberately written in black so as to merge in with the white background. The red text lower down is even harder to make out. I edited post #31 as promised, anyway. Sorry for any confusion. 

 

The point is that maybe, just maybe, an official pre-order thread with all the details, facts and options would have been nice, instead of a thread/link from a third party and the following confusion because I missed something by not scrolling or whatever.  Sometimes it helps if you know there is more to know, so you know to look, but whatever...  At least NOW, the first post in this thread has been edited to let everyone know what wasn't told to us at first: two versions to choose from.

 

Anyway, thanks for your work and I'm looking forward to using it. I'll probably send along a donation long before I even get the Incognito in my hands.

Edited August 9, 2019 by Gunstar

[Jeffrey Worley]

On 8/9/2019 at 9:14 AM, orpheuswaking said:

Agreed, that's what I am doing. The amount of time Jon has put into updating and improving this firmware is insane, I liken it to paying a premium for the added functionality and ease of use (plus support) rather than a cost of the actual flashing. 

 

Indeed part of the price difference goes directly to Jon from Lotharek 

I gotta hand it to Jon for the new firmware for U1M.  OMG it does EVERYTHING and is not nearly so obtrusive as the first version I saw on a friend's board.  He must have gotten the first revision.

 

This version is feature-packed and basically invisible unless you call on it, like a Black Box but WAY prettier and more functional.

 

I LOVE THE IO NOISE!  I LOVE IT!.  I thought that was Bob Puff's genius to put that in the Black Box and I missed it with the Side2 cart, but now with U1M I've got hdd io noise.  WOOOT!

 

** TNM **

 

[+DrVenkman]

19 minutes ago, Technoid Mutant said:

I LOVE THE IO NOISE!  I LOVE IT!. 

As one of the beta testers who encouraged Jon to keep that feature in after he added it and was ambivalent, you’re welcome.  

[jnharmon]

Does anyone know if the Bit-3 80 column card for the 800 will work with Incognito installed?

[Jeffrey Worley]

IO noise and the Atari 8-bit are synonymous.  I have listened for so long I can tell you what device is talking, what bitrate, more or less, and even, what KIND of data, if the bitrate is slow enough.  Even 'quiet' date on the Atari has io noise, like rs232 data.  You can TELL it is random stuff like machine code, or if it is all blank or the same blocks...  It isn't just beeps, it's the actual data.  I suspect that, Tempest-like, you could reconstruct the actual transmission from the io noise channel.

 

** TNM **

 

[_The Doctor__]

I like the quiet mode where you can hear the hissy/scatchy noise which is more like the data modulation rather than the beep beep beep tones myself... I seriously want that applied to the 850/P:R: interface drivers...

If you don't know what I am saying boot up any number of EA games that kill the beep and give the scratchy modulation like sound.

[Jeffrey Worley]

I bricked a U1M yesterday.  I flashed my own with the latest firmware and all went well.  The older one had very old firmware and another flash chip brand.  On Uflash load, the program said 'unidentified hardware'.  I manually selected the U1M and flashed.  The machine gives just a dark screen.  I have a burner on order that ought to arrive any day now, and I went ahead and ordered the adapter for this chip, which will arrive quite a bit later, but I'd like to know what I did wrong...  Why oh why?  Is there any way to re-program this outside of pulling the flash rom and burning it the way I'm planning to?  Any pitfalls I should look out for?  Information is appreciated.

 

Best,

 

** TNM **

 

[Jeffrey Worley]

31 minutes ago, _The Doctor__ said:

I like the quiet mode where you can hear the hissy/scatchy noise which is more like the data modulation rather than the beep beep beep tones myself... I seriously want that applied to the 850/P:R: interface drivers...

If you don't know what I am saying boot up any number of EA games that kill the beep and give the scratchy modulation like sound.

You CAN hear, on the 850 and P:R: connection, if you turn the volume up, the data scratching by.

In unquiet mode, the beeps are over top of the data scratch.  The data is still there and you can hear it.

 

** TNM **

Edited August 12, 2019 by Technoid Mutant

[+orpheuswaking]

56 minutes ago, Technoid Mutant said:

I bricked a U1M yesterday.  I flashed my own with the latest firmware and all went well.  The older one had very old firmware and another flash chip brand.  On Uflash load, the program said 'unidentified hardware'.  I manually selected the U1M and flashed.  The machine gives just a dark screen.  I have a burner on order that ought to arrive any day now, and I went ahead and ordered the adapter for this chip, which will arrive quite a bit later, but I'd like to know what I did wrong...  Why oh why?  Is there any way to re-program this outside of pulling the flash rom and burning it the way I'm planning to?  Any pitfalls I should look out for?  Information is appreciated.

 

Best,

 

** TNM **

 

Did this u1Mb happen to be a black board? 

[Jeffrey Worley]

2 minutes ago, orpheuswaking said:

Did this u1Mb happen to be a black board? 

Yep.  How did you guess?  I'm encouraged that you know something!  Thanks!

[_The Doctor__]

that's a version 1 board, it requires an update before the flash method will work, it also requires resistors to be added during install... when we here this sort of thing it's what immediately pops into our minds.

The procedures and fixes are posted, so quick search using the improved search function of AtariAge should get you all the info to do both :)

Edited August 12, 2019 by _The Doctor__

[flashjazzcat]

16 minutes ago, Technoid Mutant said:

Yep.  How did you guess?  I'm encouraged that you know something!  Thanks!

This turned out to be the most common mishap after I released my firmware, which is why I added this immediately below the firmware link on the download page:

 

 

1 hour ago, _The Doctor__ said:

I like the quiet mode where you can hear the hissy/scatchy noise which is more like the data modulation rather than the beep beep beep tones myself

I kind of like that too. I can't actually remember whether the desire for 'silent SIO mode' or 'noisy HDD mode' was the initial reason for adding SIO noise control to the firmware.

[Jeffrey Worley]

24 minutes ago, flashjazzcat said:

This turned out to be the most common mishap after I released my firmware, which is why I added this immediately below the firmware link on the download page:

 

 

I kind of like that too. I can't actually remember whether the desire for 'silent SIO mode' or 'noisy HDD mode' was the initial reason for adding SIO noise control to the firmware.

Err., What code do I flash this rom with then?  Obviously not the rev I bricked it with?  Can I d/l a version that will unbrick it?  I suspect I'll have to use a burner to recode the flash rom.  That's on the way, but where is firmware that will run on it?  And how do I upgrade to the current JED? What is JED?  It is not defined.  Sorry to have all these questions.

 

Best,

 

Jeff

Edited August 12, 2019 by Technoid Mutant

[flashjazzcat]

To run my ROM, you need this JED from this post flashed to the CPLD. To do that, you'll need a Xilinx Platform cable or parallel Xilinx cable. There have been many discussions of the procedure on the forum, and one of them surrounds the post linked above. There's another one here.

 

While you wait for a Xilinx platform cable (or in case you don't want one), here's the original ROM you can use with the EPROM programmer:

 

Ultimate1MBv2.zip

 

That should get you up and running again without updating the CPLD.

 

EDIT (in response to edits): The JED file contains the code which runs on the CPLD (the 'Xilinx' chip). This code defines the logical behaviour of the hardware. The logical behaviour of your board is currently not to have 'IORAM' at $D1xx and $D5xx. Both are unfortunately required by my firmware... hence the conspicuous warning.

Edited August 12, 2019 by flashjazzcat

[Faicuai]

10 minutes ago, flashjazzcat said:

To run my ROM, you need this JED from this post flashed to the CPLD. To do that, you'll need a Xilinx Platform cable or parallel Xilinx cable. There have been many discussions of the procedure on the forum, and one of them surrounds the post linked above. There's another one here.

 

While you wait for a Xilinx platform cable (or in case you don't want one), here's the original ROM you can use with the EPROM programmer:

 

Ultimate1MBv2.zip 173.2 kB · 1 download

 

That should get you up and running again without updating the CPLD.

 

EDIT (in response to edits): The JED file contains the code which runs on the CPLD (the 'Xilinx' chip). This code defines the logical behaviour of the hardware. The logical behaviour of your board is currently not to have 'IORAM' at $D1xx and $D5xx. Both are unfortunately required by my firmware... hence the conspicuous warning.

Jon:

 

Is the JTAG pin-out diagram on the Ulimate-1MB the same as Incognito? I pre-wired my Xilinx programmer from my last Ultimate-1MB upgrade, but I simply can't find a solid answer...

 

A BIG thanks, in advance!!!

[flashjazzcat]

7 minutes ago, Faicuai said:

Is the JTAG pin-out diagram on the Ulimate-1MB the same as Incognito?

Yes. SIDE2, U1MB and Incognito use the exact same pinout.

 

EDIT: And Rapidus, as it happens.

Edited August 12, 2019 by flashjazzcat

[Faicuai]

2 minutes ago, flashjazzcat said:

Yes. SIDE2, U1MB and Incognito use the exact same pinout.

 

EDIT: And Rapidus, as it happens.

THANKS, that's perfect!!!

[+orpheuswaking]

1 hour ago, Technoid Mutant said:

Yep.  How did you guess?  I'm encouraged that you know something!  Thanks!

Jon has already replied with detailed information. I had to update my JED before I could flash the FJC firmware. 

 

 

[Jeffrey Worley]

57 minutes ago, flashjazzcat said:

To run my ROM, you need this JED from this post flashed to the CPLD. To do that, you'll need a Xilinx Platform cable or parallel Xilinx cable. There have been many discussions of the procedure on the forum, and one of them surrounds the post linked above. There's another one here.

 

While you wait for a Xilinx platform cable (or in case you don't want one), here's the original ROM you can use with the EPROM programmer:

 

Ultimate1MBv2.zip 173.2 kB · 1 download

 

That should get you up and running again without updating the CPLD.

 

EDIT (in response to edits): The JED file contains the code which runs on the CPLD (the 'Xilinx' chip). This code defines the logical behaviour of the hardware. The logical behaviour of your board is currently not to have 'IORAM' at $D1xx and $D5xx. Both are unfortunately required by my firmware... hence the conspicuous warning.

Oh wow,  THANK YOU!!!!  I am getting the Xilinix programmer too, but it will be nice to get the machine up while I wait for it.

 

[irich2]

6 hours ago, DrVenkman said:

As one of the beta testers who encouraged Jon to keep that feature in after he added it and was ambivalent, you’re welcome.  

+1 thanks to you DrVenkman, for suggesting to keep the IO noise!