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Ultimate 1MB, Incognito, SIDE, 1088XEL/XLD U1MB Firmware 3.10 Released


flashjazzcat

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  • 4 months later...

Just a note: this is wonderful!  I had been stuck at v 1.20 on my Incognito because for whatever reason it just wouldn't flash right, but as things were working well enough, I just left it alone.

I was really looking for the latest update to SDX though and I don't know what changes you might have made to uflash,running it from the mounted ATR and flashing the entire 512k image worked perfectly last night!

 

 

 

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  • 5 weeks later...
46 minutes ago, TheMontezuma said:

Yesterday I realized that my 1088XEL with the U1MB Firmware 3.02 does not recognize external cartridges.

 

I wondered if there is any known issue (related to 1088XEL) or any Firmware setting that I need to change?

 

This is...erm..."funny". I've just finished my 1088XEL yesterday and set it up in his H80 case. Everything is still working great - except cartridges. Tested Qix and Centipede, both without shell but working at XL/XE, but XEL turns black and hangs after powering on.

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9 minutes ago, flashjazzcat said:

Yes: this was a convenience exploit of the PBI button feature which is otherwise totally redundant on the 1088 (since it uses a different CF adapter with its own button protocol). Enable '8K Cart ROM' on the front page of the settings.

 

And to help explain a good use case for the feature: I have a tiny little UNO Cart which I usually keep installed inside my 1088XLD. It’s slender enough and short enough that it JUUUUST fits inside the case. But since it’s inside and installed semi-permanently and cannot be removed without opening the case, being able to disable it via firmware is quite useful. 

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1 hour ago, flashjazzcat said:

Enable '8K Cart ROM' on the front page of the settings.

 

I'm assuming that despite of it's title that it's possible to use bigger cartridges, i.e. Chop Suey (64kb), Commando (128kb) or a sic!cart!?

But my XEL keeps black and hangs when using the mentioned (8kb) cartridges. Keyboard initializes 2 times as normal then nothing. No Bios, no loader, no cartridge. Will check connector and clean it's contacts the next weeks when installing P-Covox.

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5 minutes ago, larryleffaovell said:

I'm assuming that despite of it's title that it's possible to use bigger cartridges, i.e. Chop Suey (64kb), Commando (128kb) or a sic!cart!?

Yes; '8K' refers to the cartridge ROM address space, which is simply a window onto a bigger ROM with banked cartridges (i.e. no cartridge can access more than 16K of physical address space). Beware that the facility will only disable the $A000-$BFFF area, however, so will not properly disable a cartridge which also occupies the $8000-$9FFF area.

 

It sounds like your 1088XEL isn't working yet, however.

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22 hours ago, flashjazzcat said:

Yes: this was a convenience exploit of the PBI button feature which is otherwise totally redundant on the 1088 (since it uses a different CF adapter with its own button protocol). Enable '8K Cart ROM' on the front page of the settings.

Thank you Jon. That helped :)
I wondered
why I disabled it... Is there any other use case on 1088XEL, beside the one mentioned by @DrVenkman ?

 

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Just found out why all my carts weren't working...the cartridges without shell had oxidized contacts, which I've cleaned now and they're working at last.

The other carts can't work as the heads of the screws which are holding the slot tunnel are some molecules too high, so it feels like the cartridge fits in, but it doesn't.

Small things, big problems :) But all is good and working.

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  • 4 weeks later...

This is an oddly low-key teaser since it actually doesn't show what's coming:

 

IMG_20201223_194321.thumb.jpg.11e435028c1227680e3fdce4fab1f1b8.jpg

 

What you see here is a new build of the Incognito BIOS which supports 'plugins'. This relies on the self-test bit in the PORTB register being able to bank in ROM at $5000-57FF while the configuration is unlocked (which the U1MB can do, but the Incognito cannot). Hopefully a CPLD update will allow this to work, providing 2KB of ROM space for plugin code to support Sophia 2, PokeyMAX, SimpleStereo v4, and whatever else. The U1MB build has also been modified for the enlarged plugins at the same address, and this is one of the reasons why the Sophia 2 and PokeyMAX plugins are still not available for general consumption. But they will be soon.

 

The machine pictured has the stock Incognito CPLD code, but in order to provide a safe upgrade path, the Incognito version tests the functionality of the self-test bit and simply bypasses the plugin (as shown in the photo) if it doesn't work.

 

Still lots of work to do (plugins to update, UI elements to perfect, changes to the loader, etc), but this should be complete around New Year time if everything works out.

 

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 12/23/2020 at 2:52 PM, flashjazzcat said:

This is an oddly low-key teaser since it actually doesn't show what's coming:

 

IMG_20201223_194321.thumb.jpg.11e435028c1227680e3fdce4fab1f1b8.jpg

 

What you see here is a new build of the Incognito BIOS which supports 'plugins'. This relies on the self-test bit in the PORTB register being able to bank in ROM at $5000-57FF while the configuration is unlocked (which the U1MB can do, but the Incognito cannot). Hopefully a CPLD update will allow this to work, providing 2KB of ROM space for plugin code to support Sophia 2, PokeyMAX, SimpleStereo v4, and whatever else. The U1MB build has also been modified for the enlarged plugins at the same address, and this is one of the reasons why the Sophia 2 and PokeyMAX plugins are still not available for general consumption. But they will be soon.

 

The machine pictured has the stock Incognito CPLD code, but in order to provide a safe upgrade path, the Incognito version tests the functionality of the self-test bit and simply bypasses the plugin (as shown in the photo) if it doesn't work.

 

Still lots of work to do (plugins to update, UI elements to perfect, changes to the loader, etc), but this should be complete around New Year time if everything works out.

 

Sick !!!!

 

If that CPLD update happens, it would also a wonderful time to fix floating-bus data on $D013, a couple of known extended-memory (registers) incompatibilities, Slot-3 compatibility with Bit3 80-cols. card, and possibly, user-selectable support of 4-joysticks in XL/XE mode... Just 2021-wishing, of course... ??

 

Bring it on!

 

????

Edited by Faicuai
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  • 4 weeks later...
On 12/23/2020 at 2:52 PM, flashjazzcat said:

This is an oddly low-key teaser since it actually doesn't show what's coming:

 

IMG_20201223_194321.thumb.jpg.11e435028c1227680e3fdce4fab1f1b8.jpg

 

What you see here is a new build of the Incognito BIOS which supports 'plugins'. This relies on the self-test bit in the PORTB register being able to bank in ROM at $5000-57FF while the configuration is unlocked (which the U1MB can do, but the Incognito cannot). Hopefully a CPLD update will allow this to work, providing 2KB of ROM space for plugin code to support Sophia 2, PokeyMAX, SimpleStereo v4, and whatever else. The U1MB build has also been modified for the enlarged plugins at the same address, and this is one of the reasons why the Sophia 2 and PokeyMAX plugins are still not available for general consumption. But they will be soon.

 

The machine pictured has the stock Incognito CPLD code, but in order to provide a safe upgrade path, the Incognito version tests the functionality of the self-test bit and simply bypasses the plugin (as shown in the photo) if it doesn't work.

 

Still lots of work to do (plugins to update, UI elements to perfect, changes to the loader, etc), but this should be complete around New Year time if everything works out.

 

How’s this project going? 
 

Frankie

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36 minutes ago, Roydea6 said:

@flashjazzcat the uflash.xex that I am using does not recognize type spartados x 449e for the ultimate hardware.

In what sense does it not recognize it? Make sure you pick the correct sized SDX ROM; there are three offered in the DLT archive: 192K, 256K and 320K. UFLASH will accept only the one which matches the size you specified in 'SDX ROM Size' on the Options menu:

uflash.thumb.png.5ebcec031a16756b93f083d51418a415.png

 

Without further details of the problem, I can only assume you chose a ROM which didn't match the specified SDX size. There is no reason why it would not work, otherwise. The SDX ROM on the 449e flasher ATR is 256K in size, and it's highly likely that you have the size set to 192K or 320K.

 

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22 minutes ago, flashjazzcat said:

The SDX ROM on the 449e flasher ATR is 256K in size, and it's highly likely that you have the size set to 192K or 320K.

I know all about rom sizes and have the correct rom and size in the atr and also the bare rom copied from my pclink drive.  the about dialogue says version 3.10 in the uflash.xex program.  The flash stopped about 1/4 of the way through reading in the rom saying hardware not recognized.  And a cold reset rebooted okay.

 

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10 minutes ago, Roydea6 said:

the about dialogue says version 3.10 in the uflash.xex program.  The flash stopped about 1/4 of the way through reading in the rom saying hardware not recognized.  And a cold reset rebooted okay.

Just tested here using UFLASH 3.10 and the 192K SDX 449e ROM and it worked perfectly. So it appears you experienced a random hardware glitch rather than an endemic compatibility issue. No hardware tests are performed while reading the ROM into extended memory, and if you saw such a message appearing while the program is merely reading chunks of the file into one memory bank after another, I'm afraid we are not dealing with deterministic hardware behaviour.

 

Edited by flashjazzcat
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Sorry that this doesn't help with your issue @Roydea6, but just yesterday, I used John's UFLASH.XEX to write the new 4.49e SDX 192kB ROM to my U1MB.  I had to catch myself - I initially chose the 256kB ROM which would not work, since I have the GOS installed.  I was using APE to pull the ROM over SIO.

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1 hour ago, Stephen said:

Sorry that this doesn't help with your issue @Roydea6, but just yesterday, I used John's UFLASH.XEX to write the new 4.49e SDX 192kB ROM to my U1MB.  I had to catch myself - I initially chose the 256kB ROM which would not work, since I have the GOS installed.  I was using APE to pull the ROM over SIO.

-nevermind-

Edited by Frankie
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