Getting Ultimate1MB to work under Altirra

[andyhants]

I appreciate much has been written about this under several threads on here & I have tried to follow these before posting this but have has no success.

 

I'm trying to get Ultimate1Mb running under Altirra but can't get past the initial flashing of the BIOS requirement. I have downloaded several set of ROMs including several from this Forum and have also downloaded the latest Firmware upgrade, Ultimate 1MB Firmware version 3.10 (April 2020), from flashjazzcat's atari.co.uk site. So I have folders with 60+ ROMs in them including 'Ultimate1Mb.rom' & 'Ultimate1MBv2_with_pbe_and_loader.rom'. I have tried doing the firmware binding thing, scanned all folders with the downloaded ROMs into Altirra, System > Configure System > Firmware > Firmware and now have something like 69 in there but it never seems to recognise any Ultimate1Mb ROMs. In the Firmware list I only ever have 'Altirra Ultimate 1MB Recovery OS (internal)' listed under the Ultimate 1MB ROMs section, whereas all the other sections have oodles of ROMs in them. I have also tried doing the flash upgrade,so when I get the 'Insert BIOS Flash disk, press key' message I select the 'fimrware.atr' file from jazzflashcats latest firmware update into D1: & hit a key & just get 'Error: No DOS'. 

 

So I think I'm making an effort & trying to do the right thing but can't get any further. Any assistance / guidance would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

Edit - sussed it - you need to manually 'Add' the Ultimate 1MB ROM images for some reason Scan just doesnt work. All up & running now.

 

Edited May 2, 2020 by andyhants
Sussed it

[flashjazzcat]

Just attach 'ULTIMATE.ROM' from the latest firmware ZIP; that's all you need. Add that as Ultimate 1MB firmware, 'Set as default', and don't forget to enable U1MB in the 'Memory' section of the 'Configure System' dialogue. There is no need to scan anything at all. You just need ULTIMATE.ROM.

 

[+DrVenkman]

The U1MB roms are not automatically recognized by Altirra. Go to Configure System and select Firmware. From that pane, select the Firmware Manager. Select Add, then from the file selector dialog, select the U1MB firmware you want. Once you have it selected, manually select Ultimate 1MB as the device type for the file. Once you close out that dialog, in the firmware manager, find the entries for the U1MB, select the one you just added and set it as the default. 

[phaeron]

The firmware scan will only detect well-known, specific ROM images that came with the original hardware based on signature. It won't detect newer custom updates like flashjazzcat's upgrade ROMs, if for no other reason than they were released after the emulator. You need to manually add the ROM image and set the type to Ultimate1MB when adding it.

 

As for the error when using the firmware upgrade disk image, you need to boot DOS before you can use that disk.

 

 

[andyhants]

Thanks for you prompt advice - sorted now.

 

If I'm allowed a brief follow-up - I was thinking of running a setup with both the Ultimate 1MB and a SIDE 2 Cart but reading about the latest 3.1 Ultimate firmware update it seems that the SIDE Loader function does what a seperate SIDE 2 Cart would anyway so the seperate SIDE 2 appears superflous? Is that a resonable assumption or am I missing something ? Thanks again.

[flashjazzcat]

2 minutes ago, andyhants said:

the latest 3.1 Ultimate firmware update it seems that the SIDE Loader function does what a seperate SIDE 2 Cart would anyway

The loader on the SIDE2's ROM is not needed in an U1MB/SIDE2 scenario, but you'll still need to attach the emulated SIDE2 cart and in turn attach a hard disk image (VHD, for example). If you don't attach the cartridge ROM image (SIDE2.ROM from the SIDE firmware update), Altirra will flag up 'missing firmware' in the device tree, but it won't affect operation with U1MB. It's good practice to attach the firmware ROMs for all emulated devices, however.

 

[SS]

1 hour ago, flashjazzcat said:

Just attach 'ULTIMATE.ROM' from the latest firmware ZIP; that's all you need. Add that as Ultimate 1MB firmware, 'Set as default', and don't forget to enable U1MB in the 'Memory' section of the 'Configure System' dialogue. There is no need to scan anything at all. You just need ULTIMATE.ROM.

 

Granted I have not done any of this yet but, if I wanted to change the U1MB settings in Altirra, would I still need to run a SpartaDOS X image and then run UFLASH with it in order to virtually flash the virtual U1MB?  Would the procedure be exactly the same as if I were flashing real hardware? 

[flashjazzcat]

6 minutes ago, SS said:

if I wanted to change the U1MB settings in Altirra, would I still need to run a SpartaDOS X image and then run UFLASH with it in order to virtually flash the virtual U1MB?

You mean if you wanted to update the firmware (you change the settings by jumping into the BIOS setup menu)? Yes: you can do so if you want (flashing is fully emulated), and it's a useful way of - say - just changing the contents of an OS ROM or BASIC slot or updating the firmware without disturbing the rest of the U1MB slots. I actually do this all the time (flash the emulated U1MB with UFLASH) during development, since it's quicker than using a hex editor to insert new content into ULTIMATE.ROM, especially if one holds down the F1 key during the flashing process. The process is absolutely identical to real hardware flashing.

[SS]

Thanks Jon.  I managed to get the U1MB firmware running in Altirra with a similar configuration setup to the one that I have on my 800XL.  With a little bit of experimentation I was able to save it as the default configuration too.  Very cool.