FDISK and SIDE2

[mdivancic]

I’m trying to run FDISK on my 800XL so I can set up a flash card. I keep getting the ‘158 Out of memory’ error. Haven’t been able to get around this.  

[_The Doctor__]

post you SpartaDos configs, startups, .sys etc

[flashjazzcat]

20 minutes ago, mdivancic said:

I’m trying to run FDISK on my 800XL so I can set up a flash card. I keep getting the ‘158 Out of memory’ error. Haven’t been able to get around this.  

You are using the SIDE.SYS SDX driver and MEMLO is too high for FDISK owing to the lack of extended memory on the machine. SDX will be almost totally unusable with the HDD in this configuration even with a pre-partitioned card since MEMLO will be too high for most applications to even run.

 

Please use a machine with extended PORTB RAM so that SDX can 'USE BANKED' memory.

[mdivancic]

5 hours ago, flashjazzcat said:

You are using the SIDE.SYS SDX driver and MEMLO is too high for FDISK owing to the lack of extended memory on the machine. SDX will be almost totally unusable with the HDD in this configuration even with a pre-partitioned card since MEMLO will be too high for most applications to even run.

 

Please use a machine with extended PORTB RAM so that SDX can 'USE BANKED' memory.

I figured someone was going to tell me this. Oh well I was going to be getting a U1MB sooner or later.

[Sugarland]

There is a modified fdisk to work on 64K machine + AVGCart when emulating SIDE2:

If you have this cart...

[flashjazzcat]

4 hours ago, Sugarland said:

There is a modified fdisk to work on 64K machine + AVGCart when emulating SIDE2:

It's a modified CONFIG.SYS which loads fewer drivers and thus allows FDISK to start.

[mdivancic]

4 hours ago, flashjazzcat said:

It's a modified CONFIG.SYS which loads fewer drivers and thus allows FDISK to start.

I can achieve the same using rage shift key and a cold boot while running SIDE2 correct? However it still doesn’t free up enough memory. 

[flashjazzcat]

6 minutes ago, mdivancic said:

I can achieve the same using rage shift key and a cold boot while running SIDE2 correct?

This will prevent the SIDE driver from loading, but means you will have no access to the HDD.

7 minutes ago, mdivancic said:

However it still doesn’t free up enough memory.

Yes: MEMLO appears to still be above $2000 in these circumstances, even with no SIDE driver present at all. You can recover some RAM by placing the DOS buffers under the OS (see the SDX manual for details of how to do this using CONFIG.SYS), but things are hardly likely to be usable with SIDE.SYS regardless.

 

SIDE.SYS (like many SDX drivers) attempts to place the majority of its code in the DOS EXTENDED RAM bank, but when no such extended RAM is available, main memory is fulled up rather quickly. APT has become rather a complex API, meanwhile, which is probably why you don't see any patched operating systems which support it, and this is why the driver's footprint cannot reasonably be made any smaller. If you propose to purchase U1MB anyway, these problems will go away and you'll no longer need SIDE.SYS at all.

[mdivancic]

2 hours ago, flashjazzcat said:

If you propose to purchase U1MB anyway, these problems will go away and you'll no longer need SIDE.SYS at all.

Ordered this morning...

[mdivancic]

On 7/13/2020 at 9:22 AM, flashjazzcat said:

If you propose to purchase U1MB anyway, these problems will go away and you'll no longer need SIDE.SYS at all.

Ok, I got the U1M installed and was able to update the SIDE2. Not sure I will ever need this but ain’t fell better knowing it’s updated. The last time I used an 800XL was about 1992, very different today.

[RockLobster]

On 7/12/2020 at 1:58 PM, flashjazzcat said:

You are using the SIDE.SYS SDX driver and MEMLO is too high for FDISK owing to the lack of extended memory on the machine. SDX will be almost totally unusable with the HDD in this configuration even with a pre-partitioned card since MEMLO will be too high for most applications to even run.

 

Please use a machine with extended PORTB RAM so that SDX can 'USE BANKED' memory.

I have a SIDE2 with the latest firmware on a stock 64kb machine.   

 

What are other ways I can create/edit APT partitions on my SIDE2 CF card other than having U1M installed?   Can I manipulate these partitions and files on a diff computer than the 64kb atari computer?

 

 

[flashjazzcat]

Sure. Anything with extended memory or even an emulator.

[RockLobster]

On 1/6/2023 at 2:52 AM, flashjazzcat said:

Sure. Anything with extended memory or even an emulator.

Thank you.   I'm new to the A8 platform.   

 

Do the most popular emulators support creating/modifying APT partitions?   If so, would they simply read the APT off the CF card I have or is it a write to a virtual image file first and then block level write it to the CF card?   Any guidance would be appreciated.

[spicyjack]

On 1/7/2023 at 8:09 AM, RockLobster said:

Do the most popular emulators support creating/modifying APT partitions?   If so, would they simply read the APT off the CF card I have or is it a write to a virtual image file first and then block level write it to the CF card?   Any guidance would be appreciated.

All of the emulators I know of work only with virtual files.

 

You would have to partition a virtual image file first, then copy that partition to the CF card without breaking the existing partition scheme on the card.  I did mention using Sys-Check as a quick RAM expansion in the other thread you created.

 

For what it's worth, here is the partition table from a 1GB card I have for my SIDE2, as seen from Linux fdisk:

 

Disk /dev/sdb: 971.59 MiB, 1018773504 bytes, 1989792 sectors

Device     Boot   Start     End Sectors   Size Id Type
/dev/sdb1            63 1371326 1371264 669.6M  e W95 FAT16 (LBA)
/dev/sdb2       1371327 1989791  618465   302M 7f unknown

 

[RockLobster]

On 1/9/2023 at 1:53 PM, spicyjack said:

All of the emulators I know of work only with virtual files.

 

You would have to partition a virtual image file first, then copy that partition to the CF card without breaking the existing partition scheme on the card.  I did mention using Sys-Check as a quick RAM expansion in the other thread you created.

 

For what it's worth, here is the partition table from a 1GB card I have for my SIDE2, as seen from Linux fdisk:

 

Disk /dev/sdb: 971.59 MiB, 1018773504 bytes, 1989792 sectors

Device     Boot   Start     End Sectors   Size Id Type
/dev/sdb1            63 1371326 1371264 669.6M  e W95 FAT16 (LBA)
/dev/sdb2       1371327 1989791  618465   302M 7f unknown

 

 

I eventually created a FAT16 and APT partition split almost 50/50 on a 4gb card via Atirra by converting the VHD to an ISO and then imaging that onto a real CF card. 

 

Here's the partitions outside of the Atari.   Screenshot is from the Atari from Altirra.

 

/dev/disk7 (external, physical):

   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER

   0:     FDisk_partition_scheme                        *4.0 GB     disk7

   1:             Windows_FAT_16 SIDE2                   2.1 GB     disk7s1

   2:                       0x7F                         1.9 GB     disk7s2