Faicuai Posted May 12, 2020 Share Posted May 12, 2020 FYI: Just thought you may want to know, but... "Boot Diagnostic Cart" seems inoperable, on both my Incognito and Ultimate/1MB setups. "MATR" tool worked as of 3.02 PBI version, but it is now inoperable on v3.10 PBI version. Never upgraded from 3.02, but since we now have new version of SDX as well, it was definitely the time to move fwd. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted May 12, 2020 Author Share Posted May 12, 2020 (edited) 4 hours ago, Faicuai said: "Boot Diagnostic Cart" seems inoperable, on both my Incognito and Ultimate/1MB setups. Seemed to work fine on U1MB when I tested it just now with Star Raiders. 4 hours ago, Faicuai said: "MATR" tool worked as of 3.02 PBI version, but it is now inoperable on v3.10 PBI version. If there's an issue, it will be caused by the DSTATS changes/checks in 3.10; if so, it's easily fixed and I'll update the toolkit disk later. Thanks. D'Oh... thought you were referring to one of the mounting tools on the toolkit ATR for a moment there. MATR has been deprecated and neglected for years, isn't part of the current toolkit, and I have no current plans to fix it if it happens to be broken by the recent changes to the mounting API. Edited May 12, 2020 by flashjazzcat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Faicuai Posted May 12, 2020 Share Posted May 12, 2020 (edited) 6 hours ago, flashjazzcat said: Seemed to work fine on U1MB when I tested it just now with Star Raiders. If there's an issue, it will be caused by the DSTATS changes/checks in 3.10; if so, it's easily fixed and I'll update the toolkit disk later. Thanks. D'Oh... thought you were referring to one of the mounting tools on the toolkit ATR for a moment there. MATR has been deprecated and neglected for years, isn't part of the current toolkit, and I have no current plans to fix it if it happens to be broken by the recent changes to the mounting API. Confirming: 1. Atari SuperSalt CPS Diag. Cart will not boot on either my U1MB or Incognito. 2. No diags-class cart. boots on Incognito (of any kind). 3. Atari Star Raiders and Atari XE Diag. carts. are booting on Ultimate. (suggests there may also be a bus-contention problem). In lieu of MATR, then going to LOADER is the final substitute? Edited May 12, 2020 by Faicuai Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted May 12, 2020 Author Share Posted May 12, 2020 1 minute ago, Faicuai said: Atari SuperSalt CPS Diag. Cart will not boot on either my U1MB or Incognito. I ought to point out that the 'Boot diagnostic cart' (which AFAIK has not been put to practical use yet by any living human being) is intended for an U1MB/Incognito diagnostic tool after Phaeron speculated he might write such a thing four and a half years ago. No such tool yet exists, and attempting to run any generic diagnostic cart is not guaranteed to be successful, since completely non-standard interrupt vectors are in place, PORTB does not work in the expected manner (since the configuration is unlocked), to name but two factors. Star Raiders worked when I tested it, but since the facility is fundamentally useless at this point, it is still there only because I haven't yet been obliged to use the space it occupies for something more important. I don't own a SuperSalt CPS Diagnostic Cart, nor any other diagnostic cart. I once tested Star Raiders flashed to an AtariMax flash cart some years ago on my Incognito machine; it worked at the time. 8 minutes ago, Faicuai said: Atari Star Raiders and Atari XE Diag. carts. are booting on Ultimate. Perhaps; as I say - until there is a compelling reason to worry about the situation, I am not. 9 minutes ago, Faicuai said: In lieu of MATR, then going to LOADER is the final substitute? The Loader is not a substitute for anything. Just the reverse: MATR was intended to compensate for the fact Candle's loader had no partition mounting capabilities whatsoever, and for the fact it unmounted any already mounted disk images every time it was run. My loader does everything MATR used to do, with the unfortunate requirement that running it requires an OS restart. Since the FAT and partition handling facilities in my loader are distant but direct descendants of the code in MATR, back-porting four years of improvements and bug fixes implemented in the loader back to its spiritual ancestor would be a miserable undertaking. I might produce an XEX version of the loader at some point; I am not sure. The SIDE3 loader will hopefully be accessible without a destructive OS restart, not that this is especially relevant to Incognito systems. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Faicuai Posted May 12, 2020 Share Posted May 12, 2020 (edited) 1 hour ago, flashjazzcat said: I ought to point out that the 'Boot diagnostic cart' (which AFAIK has not been put to practical use yet by any living human being) is intended for an U1MB/Incognito diagnostic tool after Phaeron speculated he might write such a thing four and a half years ago. No such tool yet exists, and attempting to run any generic diagnostic cart is not guaranteed to be successful (...) Ok, so my take is: 1. Partially works on U!MB. 2. Remains inoperable on Incognito (nothing diags. is booting there). 3. Only way to mount .ATRs from SDX will be to go back to Loader. Correct? Having the option to boot Diags. cart from BIOS is, indeed, a pretty good idea (and easy to put to good use, BTW). Edited May 12, 2020 by Faicuai Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted May 12, 2020 Author Share Posted May 12, 2020 35 minutes ago, Faicuai said: Partially works on U1MB. Well, it algorithmically works; if it doesn't behave as desired with your chosen cart, I don't know what to say. You haven't yet said what the symptom of it not working actually is. Does it report 'Diagnostic cart not present', or does it jump into the cart and crash, or what? 37 minutes ago, Faicuai said: Only way to mount .ATRs from SDX will be to go back to Loader. Far from it. There is a tool called 'ATRMNT' on the toolkit disk which allows mounting of ATRs direct from the SDX command line. 38 minutes ago, Faicuai said: Having the option to boot Diags. cart from BIOS is, indeed, a pretty good idea (and easy to put to good use, BTW). Yes: it was a good idea of Avery's, but since the facility has existed for four years and has not yet been exploited once, I have to wonder how useful it actually is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted May 12, 2020 Author Share Posted May 12, 2020 (edited) I had a look at Star Raiders on the Incognito and the reason it doesn't run is that the Incognito mounts the loader as an external cartridge until the config is locked or until the loader ROM is disabled in software. The loader cart blocks access to external carts at $A000-$BFFF. Turning the loader ROM off in software allows Star Raiders to be launched via 'Boot diagnostic cart' (albeit with corrupted graphics), but the gotcha here is that there is no known way of re-enabling the loader ROM once it is disabled, short of resetting the machine and unlocking the config again (this is why jumping through DOSVEC from an XEX launched straight from the loader on the Incognito does not bring the loader back up as it does on the U1MB). Therefore, if 'Boot diagnostic cart' turns off the loader ROM in order to check for a diagnostic cart and finds no diagnostic cart there (and reports same before returning control to the user), any subsequent attempt to start the loader from the setup menu will fail (plunging the screen into blackness). Perhaps the time has come to ask Candle if the loader can be re-enabled in software (which I expect it cannot); otherwise the Diagnostic Cart option on the Incognito is useless and may be safely ignored. Edited May 12, 2020 by flashjazzcat 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Faicuai Posted May 12, 2020 Share Posted May 12, 2020 (edited) 15 minutes ago, flashjazzcat said: I had a look at Star Raiders on the Incognito and the reason it doesn't run is that the Incognito mounts the loader as an external cartridge until the config is locked or until the loader ROM is disabled in software. The loader cart blocks access to external carts at $A000-$BFFF. Turning the loader ROM off in software allows Star Raiders to be launched via 'Boot diagnostic cart' (albeit with corrupted graphics), but the gotcha here is that there is no known way of re-enabling the loader ROM once it is disabled, short of resetting the machine and unlocking the config again (this is why jumping through DOSVEC from an XEX launched straight from the loader on the Incognito does not bring the loader back up as it does on the U1MB). Therefore, if 'Boot diagnostic cart' turns off the loader ROM in order to check for a diagnostic cart and finds no diagnostic cart there (and reports same before returning control to the user), any attempt to start the loader from the setup menu will fail (plunging the screen into blackness). Perhaps the time has come to ask Candle if the loader can be re-enabled in software (which I expect it cannot); otherwise the Diagnostic Cart option on the Incognito is useless and may be safely ignored. Thanks. That's pretty useful. Quick comments / suggestions: Re-enabling loader after disabling it when launching a Diags. cart would not be a major issue, mainly because most Diags. cart are a one-way ticket and require full system reset / reboot to get out of them, anyway. As a fall-back route, the 800's architecture provides the ability to boot anything from $8000-$9FFF (right-cart) space. As long as such address space is available when landing on BIOS screen, there would be ways to use it, even if the OS code does not specifically check for executive-privilege on that space, during early boot. For now clear reasons, the message I get is "Diag. Cart not present". As for MATR / ATRMNT: ATRMNT is not ideal, because a) requires FATFS.SYS, and b) also requires low-level formatting / partitioning of CF card for this purpose, none of which were ever needed with wonderful MATR.COM. In fact, it would be great to have MATR-like tool, to which only a FAT32 path+file name is passed on SDX command prompt, and mounts .ATR image immediately, without going to a mount-menu, etc. My 0.02c Edited May 12, 2020 by Faicuai Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted May 12, 2020 Author Share Posted May 12, 2020 1 minute ago, Faicuai said: Re-enabling loader after disabling it when launching a Diags. cart would not be a major issue, mainly because most Diags. cart are a one-way ticket and require full system reset / reboot to get out of them, anyway. Not really; the point I am trying to make is that once we disable the loader, we may discover there is no cartridge at all, or that there is a cartridge, but it has no diagnostic bit set in the option byte. We then have to bail out, and with the ability to start the loader temporarily lost. I do not consider jumping blindly into cartridge space, meanwhile, an option. It should either work as intended or be written off entirely. 5 minutes ago, Faicuai said: As a fall-back route, the 800's architecture provides the ability to boot anything from $8000-$9FFF (right-cart) space. As long as such address space is available when landing on BIOS screen, there would be ways to use it, even if the OS code does not specifically check for executive-privilege on that space, during early boot. Possible, yes. I have asked Candle to verify if there is any means of re-enabling the loader ROM, anyway. 7 minutes ago, Faicuai said: For now clear reasons, the message I get is "Diag. Cart not present". Yes: as expected; same here. 7 minutes ago, Faicuai said: ATRMNT is not seem ideal, because a) requires FATFS.SYS, and b) also requires low-level formatting / partitioning of CF card for this purpose, none of which were ever needed with wonderful MATR.COM. Well, nothing in life is perfect, I suppose. If you are already at the SDX prompt and in a position to obliterate the contents of base memory by launching MATR, you are by definition not in the middle of running an application, so I don't think starting the loader is too much of a leap beyond that point. ATRMNT may not be ideal, but if the only objections are that it requires file system access to the FAT partition and preparation of the card, the obstacles to use are not insurmountable. 12 minutes ago, Faicuai said: In fact, it would be great to have MATR-like tool, to which only a FAT32 path+file name is passed on SDX command prompt, and mounts .ATR image immediately, without going to a mount-menu, etc. ATRMNT allows you to pass a FAT16 8.3 ATR filename as an argument at the SDX command prompt, and mounts the ATR image immediately, without going to a mount menu, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted May 12, 2020 Author Share Posted May 12, 2020 It's as I thought: the loader on the Incognito cannot be reactivated in software once disabled (system reset is the only way to bring it back). So the actuality of the 'Boot diagnostic cart' option may be considered an Easter Egg for the moment (at no extra charge). 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMontezuma Posted May 13, 2020 Share Posted May 13, 2020 I'm just wondering which versions of the OS ROMs are embedded in the INCOG.ROM file: NTSC or PAL ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted May 13, 2020 Author Share Posted May 13, 2020 (edited) 1 hour ago, TheMontezuma said: I'm just wondering which versions of the OS ROMs are embedded in the INCOG.ROM file: NTSC or PAL ? I think all the 400/800 operating system ROMs on the Incognito are NTSC. Of course, I should really gather together a full collection of PAL/NTSC Colleen ROMs and offer the image in PAL/NTSC flavours. Are you aiming to produce SIO2BT patched 400/800 OS ROMs for Incognito? Edited May 13, 2020 by flashjazzcat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMontezuma Posted May 13, 2020 Share Posted May 13, 2020 (edited) 3 hours ago, flashjazzcat said: Are you aiming to produce SIO2BT patched 400/800 OS ROMs for Incognito? Yes. I have actually done it some time ago I developed the patcher before U1MB got the SIO Driver and it can also patch 400/800 OS ROMs: https://github.com/TheMontezuma/SIO2BT_OS_Patcher Relatively new is the possibility to patch a ROM with the high-speed patch from @HiassofT : https://github.com/HiassofT/highspeed-sio You can use patchrom tool with -b flag for patching an OS ROM for SIO2BT. However if you patch 10KB 400/800 ROM with highspeed, you will get a 16KB file, since the hispeed code is located at $CC00 (in place of the international character set which was not available in 400/800). I guess it was meant to have high speed patched 400/800 OS ROM in the XL machine. Anyway, while testing patched ROMs I realized that Incognito provides only 10KB slots for OS ROMs for the "Colleen" hardware, which is correct, but you can't use highspeed patches ROMs in this mode. It is not a big issue, because you can easily change the profile to the XL/XE. Or you can use SIO2BT OS Patcher and patch only SIO timeouts for SIO2BT. I did it and flashed a 10KB patched ROM (400/800 B NTSC) to one of the slots. This way I could use SIO2BT with the standard speed. In my collection I have one Atari 400 with the RAM-Card 48/52 KB and external OS-ROM switch (from @tf_hh). And it supports 16KB ROMs. I will update it with this "hybrid" 16KB ROM and test the 400/800 OS with SIO2BT at 3xSIO tomorrow Edited May 13, 2020 by TheMontezuma link corrections 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted May 13, 2020 Author Share Posted May 13, 2020 Ah - that sucks about the 400/800 OS and high-speed. For some reason I assumed it was already possible to add the high speed patch to the 400/800 OS, which would be useful in Colleen mode on the Incognito since the PBI BIOS is obviously totally inaccessible then. I knew the patcher existed for a long time already; I just wasn't sure if you were aiming to put together a patched collection of 400/800 operating systems for Incognito. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wrathchild Posted May 13, 2020 Share Posted May 13, 2020 @flashjazzcat I'm fairly sure when you did tf_hh's SCCC and RAM-card on my 400 we put the patched OS in as at the same time I got 2xSIO2BT devices from Marcin. And a lovely thing it is too: 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMontezuma Posted May 14, 2020 Share Posted May 14, 2020 13 hours ago, TheMontezuma said: In my collection I have one Atari 400 with the RAM-Card 48/52 KB and external OS-ROM switch (from @tf_hh). And it supports 16KB ROMs. I will update it with this "hybrid" 16KB ROM and test the 400/800 OS with SIO2BT at 3xSIO tomorrow Didn't work... @tf_hh Jürgen, are only the last 10 KB (of 16KB) of the OS ROM accessible? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+tf_hh Posted May 16, 2020 Share Posted May 16, 2020 On 5/14/2020 at 11:55 AM, TheMontezuma said: @tf_hh Jürgen, are only the last 10 KB (of 16KB) of the OS ROM accessible? Only if memory mode is set to 52 KByte. When 52 KB memory mode is enabled, then $C000-$CFFF is used for RAM. If 48 KB memory mode is enabled (default), then $C000-$CFFF contains the first 4 KByte of the 16 KB ROM slot - if EPROM usage is enabled, of course ? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMontezuma Posted May 16, 2020 Share Posted May 16, 2020 11 hours ago, tf_hh said: Only if memory mode is set to 52 KByte. When 52 KB memory mode is enabled, then $C000-$CFFF is used for RAM. If 48 KB memory mode is enabled (default), then $C000-$CFFF contains the first 4 KByte of the 16 KB ROM slot - if EPROM usage is enabled, of course ? I"m sorry... Now that you've already answered my question I realized this info is in the manual. Anyway, just wanted to confirm, that everything works. It is probably the only one Atari 400 in the world with the High Speed OS from Hias adapted to support SIO2BT ? 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wrathchild Posted May 16, 2020 Share Posted May 16, 2020 1 hour ago, TheMontezuma said: adapted to support SIO2BT How does this differ from your setup in Aug 2018 when you advised me that the SIO splitter was a solution for leaving the SIO2BT powered (and hence remaining connected) during powerup? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMontezuma Posted May 16, 2020 Share Posted May 16, 2020 The only difference is the OS. I burned an EPROM with 400/800 B NTSC OS, which I patched for High Speed with SIO2BT support. Because the high speed code does not fit in the 10k along with the OS, I had to use 16K ROM and give up 4K RAM (I configured RAM CARD for 48K instead of 52K). The sound in the video is very bad, so you have to believe me, that it goes with 3xSIO speed. As long as you are OK with the standard speed, no need to change anything. I still use the SIO hub. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wrathchild Posted May 17, 2020 Share Posted May 17, 2020 Ah ok, so back then the OS/B patch was just for SIO2BT (mine default is the 52K option) and so now there's a option to replace that with one high-speed I/O support, nice ? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
telengard Posted June 2, 2020 Share Posted June 2, 2020 Thanks for the continued development for the Incognito! I attempted an update last night and UFLASH.XEX was hanging on me (let it sit for quite a while). I'm following the instructions in the manual and using an sio2sd for accessing FIRMWARE.ATR. I must be missing a step somewhere, see below... Here's what I've done: 1) Ensured no carts 2) FIRMWARE.ATR mounted on D1 of the sio2sd 3) Enable XL/XE mode, 1088K and SpartaDOS X in the Incognito BIOS. 4) Disabled ‘PBI BIOS’. 5) Ensure extended memory is set at ‘1088K RAMBO’. <--- this is the step I feel I am missing, but I can't find where to set this if it is different than the 1088K in step 3) 6) Saved the settings and rebooted to SpartaDos X 7) Eventually get the D1 prompt, DIR works, executing UFLASH.XEX seems to hang What am I doing wrong? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted June 2, 2020 Author Share Posted June 2, 2020 21 minutes ago, telengard said: What am I doing wrong? Nothing as far as I can tell. The second RAM direction is just a reiteration of the first. At what point does UFLASH hang? Does it manage to identify the hardware? I have observed strange UFLASH behaviour on my own Super Colour CPU Card equipped 800 when testing two different Incognito boards belonging to other people. No such issues using my own Incognito board, and no reports of the same Incognito boards misbehaving on their host machines. But timing problems with CPU, flash ROMs, etc, can create all kinds of mysterious issues for the unlucky few. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
telengard Posted June 2, 2020 Share Posted June 2, 2020 Just now, flashjazzcat said: Nothing as far as I can tell. The second RAM direction is just a reiteration of the first. At what point does UFLASH hang? Does it manage to identify the hardware? I have observed strange UFLASH behaviour on my own Super Colour CPU Card equipped 800 when testing two different Incognito boards belonging to other people. No such issues using my own Incognito board, and no reports of the same Incognito boards misbehaving on their host machines. But timing problems with CPU, flash ROMs, etc, can create all kinds of mysterious issues for the unlucky few. Nothing shows up, no messages. I wonder if something is up w/ my sio2sd (or its settings). It took quite a while to get the D1: prompt. Also a DIR took a while as well (but it did finish). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted June 3, 2020 Author Share Posted June 3, 2020 10 hours ago, telengard said: It took quite a while to get the D1: prompt. Also a DIR took a while as well (but it did finish). Increase the divisor on your SIO2SD. Perhaps it's too fast (low) for the SDX SIO driver. It sounds like high-speed IO is repeatedly dropping back to stock speed after failed attempts at high-speed transfers. Once you have the new firmware installed, you can enable the PBI BIOS HSIO driver and hopefully enjoy 126KB/s (divisor 0) without issue. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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