SIDE 3 preorder

[flashjazzcat]

2 minutes ago, tsom said:

Thanks.

BTW: this might seem a huge PITA, but I've got several FAT partitions here and the partition names are coming up OK, so is it possible you could image the card you're having problems with, ZIP a copy, and send it over? With the same data set, I can very rapidly isolate any issue.

[tsom]

19 minutes ago, flashjazzcat said:

Just install it anyway: the revision date is two months later than what you're running. It comes with SIDE3.SYS pre-installed as well, and Trub has used the most recent version. I think you'll have a much better SDX experience right off the bat once that's flashed.

 

I did end up running the update, and it seemed to go Ok. I'm still not seeing anything when I try to do take a directory (same errors), but again, not sure if I'm using it wrong, or if there is supposed to be something on D1 that I'm not seeing.

[flashjazzcat]

2 minutes ago, tsom said:

not sure if I'm using it wrong, or if there is supposed to be something on D1 that I'm not seeing.

Did you set up any APT partitions, or do you have anything attached to D1:? I would not expect SDX to work with soft-loaded ATRs.

 

[tsom]

22 minutes ago, flashjazzcat said:

BTW: this might seem a huge PITA, but I've got several FAT partitions here and the partition names are coming up OK, so is it possible you could image the card you're having problems with, ZIP a copy, and send it over? With the same data set, I can very rapidly isolate any issue.

Hopefully this helps (it's a disk image of the sd card made on MacOS). It's one big "partition" - there's not much on it right now.

 

Generic MassStorageClass Media.dmg.zip

[tsom]

4 minutes ago, flashjazzcat said:

Did you set up any APT partitions, or do you have anything attached to D1:? I would not expect SDX to work with soft-loaded ATRs.

 

Uhhh, no. No APT partitions. (probably part of the problem of not knowing how to do that ) I have a FujiNet attached, but I tried disabling it.

 

Thanks for the help.

[flashjazzcat]

6 minutes ago, tsom said:

Hopefully this helps

Thank you!

4 minutes ago, tsom said:

No APT partitions.

OK - I figured this. There is a bit of a walk-through here:

 

https://atari8.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/APT-Software-Manual-7th-Edition.pdf

[candle]

64GB FAT32 partition? really?

windows won't let you do it - it was limited by largest fat table possible to 32GB instead, and formating such partition under windows will result in failure to do so

I guess for MacOSX you can do it, and it will be readable on Mac, but compatibility won't be there

can you size it down to 32GB? it will be then within Windows FAT32 limits, and it is and was Windows FAT32 specs we were following

 

 

[flashjazzcat]

Good spot: that saves time (although 'o' is still unexplained). Exact Microsoft implementation of FAT recognition is used, so I guess this explains why even the SIDE2 loader rejects the partition out of hand.

Edited December 5, 2020 by flashjazzcat

[+CharlieChaplin]

Hmmm,

afaik Windows refuses to format flash-media bigger in size than 32GB with FAT32. But there is third-party software available to do so, since FAT32 can work with up to 2 Terabytes.  I installed a FAT32 formatter under my Win XP, formatted my 64GB SDXC card with it and then the AVG cart. could use it without any problems.

 

Iow, Microsoft restricts FAT32 to max. 32GB in Windows, but FAT32 is not really restricted to 32GB. Once upon along ago, they also restricted RAM to max. 640kbytes...

 

[KPeter]

With SIDE3 I experienced the following:

 

1. Setup of U1MB: a) SpartaDOS: Disabled; b) PBI BIOS and HD: Enabled

    Cold Boot (by ATARI Switch) or from SIDE3 Loader starting CAR or ROM file, ATARI starts with:

     a) rolling "BOOT Error" on monitor; if D1: is defined from SIDE3 SD card

     b) One line on top of monitor: "SpartaDOS X not present"

         in case of a) and b) only SIDE3-Reset -> ATARI-Reset sequence will initialize the SpartaDOS 4.49e

     c) If D1: is SIO2SD/PC and the ATR file on it, any of ATARI DOS II V2.5 or MyDOS will start correctly from any type of Cold Starts,

         but DOS 2.x   (x<5) will not, the system crashes and only (ATARI Switch OFF/ON) Cold Start helps ( a), b), c) ) 

         To start ATR image file with DOS 2.0s correctly happened just once from many of tries to reboot system.

         Of course, the disk DOS 2.0s is visible from SpartaDOS, MyDOS or ATARI DOS II V2.5 on Dx: (x>1)

     d) All programs XEX, COM ... from ATR image file are working correctly 

         *)  (see bellow list of them)

    

     MEM /X shows:

     -------------------------------------------------------------------------

     Main: $1358, $1358, $0000

       Ext: $7294, $7294, $0000

       Use: Banked, PortB $0D

       Top: $9C1F ($BC1F), $7FFF

     Free :  35015 (43207), 3435

     64  banks total (1024KB)

       4  banks free

 

2.  Setup of U1MB: a) SpartaDOS: Disabled; b) PBI BIOS and HD: Disabled  

     Cold Boot (by ATARI Switch) or from SIDE3 Loader starting CAR or ROM file, ATARI starts correctly

     From all tested programs *) the Turbo BASIC XL 3.2q cannot start: Error 179 - Memory conflict

     Of course the memory occupation by SDX different is there:

 

     MEM /X shows:

     -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

     Main: $1958, $1958, $0000

       Ext: $7294, $7294, $0000

       Use: Banked, PortB $0D

       Top: $9C1F ($BC1F), $7FFF

     Free :  33479 (41671), 1194

     64  banks total (1024KB)

       4  banks free

    ===================================================

    Unfortunately with BIOS logo: "Boot" or "Power on" the boot drive selection is not working

    Selecting any from D2: - DO: results only boot from D1: (MyDOS, DOS 2.5), nothing else

    [L] selection is OK, going to SIDE3 Loader.

   

3. SIDE3 does not remember CONFIG file selection like SIDE2 does.

    ===================================================

    *) Tested programs loaded from ATR disk images:

     

        1. EASM

        2. CLSN Pascal

        3. Microsoft Basic 1.0 (includes all functions of MS Basic 2.0 from its Extension file!)

        4. LISP

        5. Analog Database

        6. Macro Assembler Editor

        7. ATARI Basic

        8. ATMAS II

        9. ACTION!  V3.7X build 30.06.2015 22:08

       10. Turbo Basic XL 3.2q  (see notes under 1. and 2.)

       11. FastBasic

 

Peter

 

[candle]

41 minutes ago, CharlieChaplin said:

Hmmm,

afaik Windows refuses to format flash-media bigger in size than 32GB with FAT32. But there is third-party software available to do so, since FAT32 can work with up to 2 Terabytes.  I installed a FAT32 formatter under my Win XP, formatted my 64GB SDXC card with it and then the AVG cart. could use it without any problems.

 

Iow, Microsoft restricts FAT32 to max. 32GB in Windows, but FAT32 is not really restricted to 32GB. Once upon along ago, they also restricted RAM to max. 640kbytes...

 

all true, but still, there might be something else in the process of handling these partitions not that straight forward - don't know about Jon, but when i was implementing it, i was basing it on microsoft provided documentation, so perhaps there was something specifics to these limits that infuences this behaviour

first step would be to limit it to 32gb, and if result will be the same, then it is not size related after all

 

[tsom]

1 hour ago, candle said:

64GB FAT32 partition? really?

windows won't let you do it - it was limited by largest fat table possible to 32GB instead, and formating such partition under windows will result in failure to do so

I guess for MacOSX you can do it, and it will be readable on Mac, but compatibility won't be there

can you size it down to 32GB? it will be then within Windows FAT32 limits, and it is and was Windows FAT32 specs we were following

 

 

Yeah it was a 64gb card I had. macOS formatted it just fine as fat32. I’ve been trying to partition it into smaller chunks, but I can’t get Disk Utility to do it.

[candle]

i belive mac os x being openbsd based still has command line ultilities like fdisk and such - could you try running fdisk /dev/sdX instead? (X is you sd card assigned letter - usually it would be sdd or sdc depending on how many drives you actually have, mount might tell you something)

 

[KPeter]

2 hours ago, tsom said:

Uhhh, no. No APT partitions. (probably part of the problem of not knowing how to do that ) I have a FujiNet attached, but I tried disabling it.

 

Thanks for the help.

I have also FujiNet with firmware from 2-3 weeks  (bought that time), but using it with SIDE2/3 is not really good. It has its own D1: drive in ROM and

it is conflicting with D1: drive of other units. The result is not complete list of files (any new DIR commands gives different listing of files). I temporary

disconnected FujiNet from SIO port because the attempt of updating of its firmware crashed on wrongly installed driver on W'7 or not installing on W'10.

So, I am not able to experiment with it. The main issue is despite of list of WiFi around me and strong signal from my own, it is not able to connect

to the net. ... Maybe the update will correct this issue and also the issue with co-existence with SIDE cartridges.

 

Peter

[Kamil]

On 12/5/2020 at 8:36 PM, Kamil said:

If I map the atr file as D1: in the Side3 loader, it should be as read-only or read-write?

To specify: "D1:" is read-only when run. The same case (after downgrading U1MB to version 3.10) to SIDE2 is read / write.

[flashjazzcat]

Loader update v.0.26:

 

SIDE3_Loader_0.26_071220.zip

 

Fixed:

• Cosmetic device/partition size unit conversion error caused by buggy speed optimisation (as is ever the way)
• FAT32 volume name error caused by switch to sector buffers for directory reads; boot sector was assumed to still be in buffer following attempt to read volume entry from root directory, but reading a directory now uses said buffer and thus overwrites existing content

Regarding FAT32 volume size, Windows 10 certainly refuses to format a 64GB VHD FAT32 under any circumstances, even via format, diskpart, etc. Third-party utilities will allow this, but eventually I just converted the DMG @tsom kindly shared to an IMG file so I could test it with Altirra, and the loader opened it just fine subject to the cosmetic issues mentioned above.

On 12/6/2020 at 12:17 AM, candle said:

don't know about Jon, but when i was implementing it, i was basing it on microsoft provided documentation, so perhaps there was something specifics to these limits that infuences this behaviour

As I wrote in my prior post: exact microsoft implementation is used, and now that I look at it, this imposes no arbitrary size limit on FAT32 partitions. Hopefully the loader is able to handle 128GB FAT32 partitions or beyond if anyone has the physcial media, necessary tools or free disk space to try it.

Edited December 7, 2020 by flashjazzcat

[flashjazzcat]

Loader update v.0.27:

 

https://atari8.co.uk/firmware/side3/

 

Direct link:

 

https://atari8.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/SIDE3_Loader_0.27_131220.zip

 

Fixes lock-up when pressing CTRL+H to go directly to the root folder of a FAT volume (caused by a JSR into a no-man's land after the re-introduction of inter-bank subroutine calls). Special thanks to Carløs on the Discord server for spotting that issue.

 

Hopefully I'll have time to work on rather more exciting improvements in the coming weeks.

[KPeter]

It works.

 

1. SIDE3 does not remember Config setup, from SPARTA.DOS folder, where are the XXXXX.CFG configuration files.

2. Cold start or starting CAR from SIDE3 needs to use SIDE3-RESET followed by ATARI-RESET to load SpartaDOS 4.49e from SIDE3.

    Otherwise ATARI is not starting.

 

Peter

 

[tsom]

I don't know what happened, but I can't get my SIDE3 to recognize my SD Card. yes I know it's a 64gb card - it was working just fine. I tried to partition it so it would be smaller (having a hard time doing that with the Disk Utility in MacOS Big Sur). But the SIDE 3 loader doesn't show any partitions or content no matter how I partition the card. Short of going and buying a small sd card, what's the magic I need to get this working? If the card is formatted using "GUID partition map" I cannot repartition the card. If I change it to "Master Boot Record" type, formatted with FAT, I can't even get into the partition function. I don't have a Windows PC to format the card. So I'm at a loss. Anyone?

 

Thanks!

[flashjazzcat]

Did you apply the latest updates? 64GB FAT32 partitions present no problems but there was some prior breakage of volume name recognition (now fixed). MBR is mandatory but there are no other known requirements. Make sure you're not using EXFAT, since that's not supported.

 

There'll be another update tomorrow since I just spent two hours tracking down a Loader bug (bank switching again, 0.26 and 0.27 affected) which can cause an instant crash on launch.

[tsom]

29 minutes ago, flashjazzcat said:

Did you apply the latest updates? 64GB FAT32 partitions present no problems but there was some prior breakage of volume name recognition (now fixed). MBR is mandatory but there are no other known requirements. Make sure you're not using EXFAT, since that's not supported.

 

There'll be another update tomorrow since I just spent two hours tracking down a Loader bug (bank switching again, 0.26 and 0.27 affected) which can cause an instant crash on launch.

Yes I did apply the latest update, but I still couldn't see files or cartridge images. I will try again and make sure I format it in MBR format.

[leech]

46 minutes ago, flashjazzcat said:

Did you apply the latest updates? 64GB FAT32 partitions present no problems but there was some prior breakage of volume name recognition (now fixed). MBR is mandatory but there are no other known requirements. Make sure you're not using EXFAT, since that's not supported.

 

There'll be another update tomorrow since I just spent two hours tracking down a Loader bug (bank switching again, 0.26 and 0.27 affected) which can cause an instant crash on launch.

I occasionally suspect exFAT was created just to annoy old computer / console enthusiasts.

[tsom]

2 hours ago, flashjazzcat said:

Did you apply the latest updates? 64GB FAT32 partitions present no problems but there was some prior breakage of volume name recognition (now fixed). MBR is mandatory but there are no other known requirements. Make sure you're not using EXFAT, since that's not supported.

 

There'll be another update tomorrow since I just spent two hours tracking down a Loader bug (bank switching again, 0.26 and 0.27 affected) which can cause an instant crash on launch.

That was it. Straight up MBR format got it working again. Thanks!

 

Quick question.. in the settings, what is “hard emulation”?

[flashjazzcat]

11 hours ago, tsom said:

Quick question.. in the settings, what is “hard emulation”?

It's a cartridge emulation mode which completely blocks access to the SIDE3 control registers in the $D5F0-FF area until the cart reset button is pressed. Basically the nuclear option for cartridges whose control registers extend into this region and which insist on writing to them (for example, an AtariMax cart which writes to $D5FF to disable the ROM).

[flashjazzcat]

SIDE3 Loader 0.28 released:

 

https://atari8.co.uk/firmware/side3/

 

Direct link:

 

https://atari8.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/SIDE3_Loader_0.28_181220.zip

 

Fixes:

• Out-of-spec FAT16 volume recognition
• Bank-switching issues
• Random RTC reset/clock reset message visibility

The RTC reset issue was a tricky one and I'd appreciate feedback from anyone who still experiences issues. Although the loader doesn't really USE the date and time for anything yet, you can set the RTC via the Options menu, pending FAT write support which will use the clock for file timestamps. The loader resets the clock when it senses that it's not running (for example, after a coin-cell battery swap or corruption of the RTC data); previously, two reads of the 1/100th of a second register separated by a 2 frame pause were used, but this method proved unreliable for reasons unknown (the register runs with perfect accuracy, but was somehow presenting identical values on both reads, assuming there is no secondary issue at play). This version of the loader uses the OSCRUN bit instead, polled 256 times and assumed to denote a stopped clock if all reads of the bit are zero. This seems more robust (indeed, it is yet to fail during tests) and still allows proper initialisation of the clock following a battery pull, but we will see.

 

The 'Clock reset' message wasn't even visible before, either; this is now fixed, so you'll know if the RTC was reset as soon as you start the loader. Note that management of the RTC by the loader is completely separate from but compatible with the on-board SDX's clock driver, which should be capable of the same initialisation functions.

 

The FAT16 issue concerned one user's 2GB SD card, whose FAT partition volume name was not displaying properly. As luck would have it, I had a 2GB card lying around with a FAT16 partition which exhibited the exact same issue, together with ponderously slow reads and all kinds of stuttering. Turns out the FAT16 volume had $FFFD clusters (beyond the theoretical $FFF5 cluster limit in the MS spec), and this was causing misidentification as FAT32. This explained the volume name problem and all the screwy IO. An additional check of the FAT16 sectors per FAT value (which is $0000 in FAT32) was enough to catch it after the FAT16 total clusters test failed.