Coexistence of Altirra XF551 emulation and SpartaDOS 3.2, 3.3

[576XE]

Hello Friends!

 

Does anyone can stick together Altirra XF551 strikely emulated QD image with SpartaDOS 3.2 or 3.3 versions?

I still have No DOS error in the a.m. environments.

 

SDX obviously works.

 

Do anyone have working images?

And some explainations, Please!

 

Best wishes from Russia.

Now absolutely lacks of snow...

Edited January 22, 2020 by 576XE

[andymanone]

You could try the attached one.

 

Just generated with Altirra 3.10 & SpartaDOS 3.2.
I´ve mounted SpartaDOS in D1, attached an empty ATR in D2 (Note: you have to enable write permissions before),
than boot SpartaDOS -> Xinit -> choose "DOS" -> (Destination) Drive 2  -> choose 40trks/DS (-> select "5") than "Double Density" (-> select "2")
and fire up....

Thats all...

Gtx.,
andY

 

 

 

 

Sparta32_QuadDensity.atr

[576XE]

Thank you very much Andy!

Please check if your emulator has correct device(XF551) and BIOS XF551ROM.

Too sad but I have ony that picture with your atr. 

Yes I can understand that Altirra is not in perfect state...

But I'm lost.

zen

 

[andymanone]

Hmm,

the drive is correct (see, attached pic), and as BIOS I´ve used the AltirraOS for XL/XE/XEGS. 

 

Gtx.,

andY

 

 

[+CharlieChaplin]

Hmmmm,

 

SpartaDOS 2,x and 3.x do not like the XF551 floppy drive very much, you will therefore almost always get an error message like this with SpartaDOS 2.x/3.x and the XF551. There were two programs named Bootfix and XinitFix to get rid of that problem (and there were also several tools to make SpartaDOS work with XF551 highspeed)... never tried them, since I do not use SpartaDOS regularly.

 

Of course you can also just press Reset and boot again and the error message will not show up again or you may use the alternatives Bewe-DOS and Real-DOS which do work fine (afaik) with the XF551 drive out of the box...

 

Xinitfix.atr

[phaeron]

You will only see this issue if using XF551 full drive emulation. The problem is that the XF551 has broken density detection and requires a read of a non-boot sector in order to switch densities correctly. By default, a freshly SpartaDOS 3.x initialized DD/QD disk will boot sectors 1-3 and then sectors 32+. The XF551 thinks the disk is enhanced density and tries to read track 1, sector 6 for logical sector 32 instead of track 1, sector 14. This causes the boot code to fail with No DOS. However, the drive has switched densities correctly by this point -- so if you then reset only the computer with the Cold Reset (Computer Only) option, it will boot properly. I've verified this behavior with a real XF551 + 130XE.

 

The standard disk drive emulator doesn't emulate these density detection bugs in the XF551 mode. The exact conditions are a bit tricky, and most of the time it just makes the disk drive randomly not work in annoying ways, so I've not been motivated to replicate it. Full drive mode runs the actual XF551 firmware complete with its bugs, so you can't avoid it there.

 

[576XE]

Thank you, GOOD OLD FRIENDS!

You All are THE very responsive men! No Doubt!

 

Thank you Andreas for your not aethereal very helpful answer.
(I even created working atr image!)
You are The Great Guru of Atari SW!

 

Thank you Avery for your not breaking help for ALL Atari World.
I prefere full drive emulation because of poor state of my beloved XF551.
PAL Atari130XE and NTSC XF551 (Fully Worked) So sad!.
Thus i'm trying to emulate it first.
Thank you again for your detailed explaination of XF551 behaviour!
Really, I can say that you are The Pillar of ATARI related HW etc.

 

After all, I still can not to achive fast XF551 speed

Best wishes,
zen
 

[andymanone]

I'm not really 100% sure whether that was humor or serious praise 😉,

but I say "thank you"

 

Quote

Thank you Andreas for your not aethereal very helpful answer.

Btw.: "Andreas" is -> Charlie Chaplin 😉

 

Cheers,

andY (André)

[walter_J64bit]

I love it, I need try out Bootfix and XinitFix with my XF551.

[576XE]

@andymanone

Hello Andy, Sorry, but I use only "my own English" so I never can joke to my friends... (Cause they eat me one second after)

Thus it's a serious world!

 

Anyway you can see that another persone walter_J64bit connected to our conversation and could see that it's useful and good.

You, Andy, just say me Don't go there! and CharlieChaplin said Go here! And phaeron sain what's wrong.

zen