Side2 Cartridge and Basic XE?

[Gunstar]

@flashjazzcat Yes, but it's an all-in-one. And has the front end menu. But yes, theory of operation is the same. I'm looking forward to trying it out with my Incognito.

 

Maybe I'll finally get a chance to install it this month. But I have some other upgrades going in, get them all done at once, so the 800 will be down for a while and I want one operating Atari continuously, so I'm waiting until I finish trouble-shooting my 1200XL which is down right now with a low-level basic component issue I'm tracing along the circuit board. That has been on hold until after the holiday season, just no time before...

Edited December 27, 2019 by Gunstar

[flashjazzcat]

8 minutes ago, Gunstar said:

it's an all-in-one

All-in-two (U1MB and SIDE).  But yeah: I get the distinction; point I'm making is that the whole design ethic is that the thing works just like and externally connected PBI device (stock OS, etc), even if it actually isn't. BB, MIO, etc, also have setup menus on their firmware ROMs which you can call up with hotkeys, etc. The main technical distinction is that the U1MB setup menu isn't accessed though the 'Newdevice' mechanism of the OS (the setup menu ROM replaces the OS ROM instead).

[Gunstar]

Ok, All-in-two...for U1MB/Side, now the Incognito truly is all-in-one.

Edited December 27, 2019 by Gunstar

[Jeffrey Worley]

On 12/27/2019 at 8:09 AM, Gunstar said:

Too true. The way I do it isn't too far removed from a legacy set-up with Rambo extended memory, Black box/HDD and SpartaDOS X w/BXE cart piggybacked (in basic theory and operation) . Once you get into Side 2/U1MB or incognito, then you are drifting further away from a legacy set-up. But standard? Beyond cartridges and a floppy drive?

This touches on a conversation FlashJazzCat and I were having some time ago.  I made a distinction between legacy devices and these new fangled thingies that only work in conjunction with new tech, including Side2/U1MB in the legacy category.  By your reasoning, all of these new upgrades would violate the period-correctness of a machine.  It seems to me, for myself, that the distinction comes when an upgrade makes a completely new machine from the old, renders it no longer an Atari8bit.  The 65816 upgrades verge on this, but there are others that are possible that would be Frankenstienian.  PC Compatible Atari anyone?  Ugh.  I regard the Side2/U1MB and Incognito as Native Augments, to distinguish them from MIO or Black-Box type upgrades.  Atari meant the machine to be upgradable, with PBI or cartridge at any rate, and that makes a whole lot of room for expansion without violating any principles.  Does it plug in any work?  Well then, it is just an Atari peripheral, augment.  An example of the opposite character in this very device, the U1MB/Side2, is the inability of the loader to read Spartados formatted filesystems.  You can read into Fat16 and Fat32, but not into Spartados or Ataridos formatted disks.  This is the new paradigm.  In the past, there would have been little use for a Fat filesystem, while today it is indispensable.  The way we get information into our Ataris has changed and our PC's speak FAT.  There's limited space in the rom for filesystem code, so something had to give to make room for Fat.  It was a good decision, to delete a feature which today would be rarely used, in favor of Fat, which is not an Atari 8-bit filesystem, which will be used constantly.  Oh!  I would love to see a reimplementation of the MUX!

 

Jeff

[Jeffrey Worley]

On 12/27/2019 at 8:48 AM, flashjazzcat said:

All-in-two (U1MB and SIDE).  But yeah: I get the distinction; point I'm making is that the whole design ethic is that the thing works just like and externally connected PBI device (stock OS, etc), even if it actually isn't. BB, MIO, etc, also have setup menus on their firmware ROMs which you can call up with hotkeys, etc. The main technical distinction is that the U1MB setup menu isn't accessed though the 'Newdevice' mechanism of the OS (the setup menu ROM replaces the OS ROM instead).

Why when the U1MB is installed, are the Black Box's 'Big Red Buttons' not implemented?  I see why the SIde2 alone might not work, but the U1MB is a PBI device.  I'm clueless, remember.  I gather this is something of a feat, these buttons.

 

best,

 

Jeff

[flashjazzcat]

14 minutes ago, Jeffrey Worley said:

Why when the U1MB is installed, are the Black Box's 'Big Red Buttons' not implemented?

I don't know what the Big Red Buttons are. Is the colour important?

[Gunstar]

4 hours ago, Jeffrey Worley said:

This touches on a conversation FlashJazzCat and I were having some time ago.  I made a distinction between legacy devices and these new fangled thingies that only work in conjunction with new tech, including Side2/U1MB in the legacy category.  By your reasoning, all of these new upgrades would violate the period-correctness of a machine.  It seems to me, for myself, that the distinction comes when an upgrade makes a completely new machine from the old, renders it no longer an Atari8bit.  The 65816 upgrades verge on this, but there are others that are possible that would be Frankenstienian.  PC Compatible Atari anyone?  Ugh.  I regard the Side2/U1MB and Incognito as Native Augments, to distinguish them from MIO or Black-Box type upgrades.  Atari meant the machine to be upgradable, with PBI or cartridge at any rate, and that makes a whole lot of room for expansion without violating any principles.  Does it plug in any work?  Well then, it is just an Atari peripheral, augment.  An example of the opposite character in this very device, the U1MB/Side2, is the inability of the loader to read Spartados formatted filesystems.  You can read into Fat16 and Fat32, but not into Spartados or Ataridos formatted disks.  This is the new paradigm.  In the past, there would have been little use for a Fat filesystem, while today it is indispensable.  The way we get information into our Ataris has changed and our PC's speak FAT.  There's limited space in the rom for filesystem code, so something had to give to make room for Fat.  It was a good decision, to delete a feature which today would be rarely used, in favor of Fat, which is not an Atari 8-bit filesystem, which will be used constantly.  Oh!  I would love to see a reimplementation of the MUX!

 

Jeff

I wasn't attempting to make any distinction between legacy and modern upgrades, I was merely pointing out that my set-up uses a genuine SDX cartridge with another cartridge piggy-backing it, and the My IDE II is a replacement for the Black box, and that it works together similar to a SDX cart, OSS cart and BB (or MIO for that matter) and not integrated like U1MB. I have no preference or line in the sand as keeping things "legacy only" from the same era or attempting to do so on purpose. You've read an awful lot into what I said that isn't what I meant at all here, that's all I'll say instead of attempting to address everything else you said here. I also feel it is perfectly fine to do whatever upgrades and mods to an Atari you want, as long as the genuine article is still at the core (after all that's what I fell in love with and I wouldn't want to lose it or the rest is meaningless and I might as well just move onto another platform). I've no other principles to all of it.

Edited January 1, 2020 by Gunstar

[Jeffrey Worley]

27 minutes ago, Gunstar said:

I wasn't attempting to make any distinction between legacy and modern upgrades, I was merely pointing out that my set-up uses a genuine SDX cartridge with another cartridge piggy-backing it, and the My IDE II is a replacement for the Black box, and that it works together similar to a SDX cart, OSS cart and BB (or MIO for that matter) and not integrated like U1MB. I have no preference or line in the sand as keeping things "legacy only" from the same era or attempting to do so on purpose. You've read an awful lot into what I said that isn't what I meant at all here, that's all I'll say instead of attempting to address everything else you said here. I also feel it is perfectly fine to do whatever upgrades and mods to an Atari you want, as long as the genuine article is still at the core (after all that's what I fell in love with and I wouldn't want to lose it or the rest is meaningless and I might as well just move onto another platform). I've no other principles to all of it.

It honestly just reminded me is all.  No biggie.  It is an interesting topic.  What's live and what's Memorex.  Now we have Altirra, the lines are aren't just bent, they're busted.  I too am for having fun with these machines.

 

Jeff

[Bee]

Is it just me?  I don't yet have a U1mb upgrade.  I'm using the Side2 with FJC, and have the OSS Roms (from FJC site) on the Side2 on my 130XE.  I have Basic XE enabled on the Side2.  I can boot and go into Sparta Dos X 4.49 - all drive access is good.  Type CAR - Enter , I get to Basic XE, dir - list is all good.  If I Type DOS - I get a mem save error, proceed to DOS and I no longer can access the Drives on the Side2 in Sparta Dos I get error 170 on Dir command.  Did I miss a step I should be doing ?

 

Thank you

[flashjazzcat]

21 minutes ago, Bee said:

Did I miss a step I should be doing ?

You don't mention how much RAM is currently in the machine, but I assume BASIC XE is overwriting some part of DOS in memory. Unless SDX is using BANKED RAM, SIDE.SYS pushes MEMLO sufficiently high to cause problems.

 

The setup you describe certainly works well on a machine with extended memory (and SDX using banked RAM), but if you install U1MB on that machine you won't need SIDE.SYS anyway (since U1MB will drive the HDD).

[Bee]

Thank you for the explanation.  It's a stock 130XE.  I will be getting a U1mb soon.  Probably the beginning of February.  I've put a Bit -O cash in the A8's since I jumped back in.

 

Thx

Edited January 1, 2020 by Bee

[+Stephen]

51 minutes ago, Bee said:

Thank you for the explanation.  It's a stock 130XE.  I will be getting a U1mb soon.  Probably the beginning of February.  I've put a Bit -O cash in the A8's since I jumped back in.

 

Thx

This is how it (re)starts for all of us.  Suddenly, "I'll just do this one mod" turns into a roomful of cool new gadgets

[flashjazzcat]

58 minutes ago, Bee said:

It's a stock 130XE.

SDX and SIDE.SYS should already be running in extended memory in that case (since there's a customised CONFIG.SYS on CAR:), but perhaps BASIC XE is colliding with the SDX bank somehow on a 128K machine.

[Bee]

I suspected as much, but always will ask your advice.

 

[mkolodziejski]

Here, I will share the YouTube video where I show a way to select which OSS ROM will be treated as a cartridge using SIDE2 in the Altirra emulator. Thus - thanks to , @ebiguy, and the whole SpartaDOSX team, we can now enjoy programming with these great tools. Best productive combo - SIDE2, SpartaDOS X, and Action! (or any other selected OSS ROM).

 

 

[flashjazzcat]

Not forgetting the SIDE loader, which is responsible for booting the OSS carts.

[ebiguy]

Thank you for this video.

I am not sure if the OSS switch feature with SIDE2 is well known so your video puts more light on it.