flashjazzcat Posted July 27, 2020 Share Posted July 27, 2020 Just now, Mr Robot said: so I'm making an edumacated guess Sounded like a confident assertion, but in any case I'll tell you now: some of the second 1MB of RAM is already used for other things. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Robot Posted July 27, 2020 Share Posted July 27, 2020 Just now, flashjazzcat said: some of the second 1MB of RAM is already used for other things. Do tell... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted July 27, 2020 Share Posted July 27, 2020 29 minutes ago, NISMOPC said: I believe all new shipments of the AVG Cart already have (or will have) the connector soldered in place. If true that's good to hear but its still needs a lead unless Mr Robot plans on mass producing Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted July 27, 2020 Share Posted July 27, 2020 (edited) 8 minutes ago, Mr Robot said: Do tell... The loader now stores the entire FAT directory in up to 64KB of SRAM, for starters (allowing up to 1,000 files per folder without paging), as well as the pointer array for said file list. Stand-alone ATR support (which of course uses a RAM-based OS) uses much of the rest of the SRAM (I am still implementing this, but four 180K images, say, will just about fill everything). Note that once mounted, a cartridge image will (optionally) remain active and in SRAM until you un-mount it (regardless of repeatedly going in and out of the loader), hence the loader doesn't use those same areas of SRAM for its own purposes. That's not to say third parties can't exploit things in any way they wish. I think video playback from a non-contiguous FAT file would be possible using DMA and perhaps utilising the entirety of SRAM as a read-ahead cache, for example. Edited July 27, 2020 by flashjazzcat 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Robot Posted July 27, 2020 Share Posted July 27, 2020 3 hours ago, bfollowell said: For me, I wanted the best compatibility with the most cartridge types and, from my research at the time that I bought my Ultimate Cart, the UC won. Also, I knew I planned to build a 1088XEL with the CF3 installed, so I really wouldn't need the HD emulation of the SIDE2, or the SIDE3. Just an FYI, the UC supports the most common cart formats so it covers a great number of carts, the AVG support a bunch more, SIDE 2 only supports 8K carts, SIDE 3 looks like it will support at least the same formats as the AVG. Ultimate Cart got left behind due to lack of software updates or continued development. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DrVenkman Posted July 27, 2020 Share Posted July 27, 2020 3 minutes ago, Mr Robot said: Ultimate Cart got left behind due to lack of software updates or continued development. Which is a damned shame because it is, as you pointed out, completely open-source. https://github.com/robinhedwards/UltimateCart Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Robot Posted July 27, 2020 Share Posted July 27, 2020 3 hours ago, Larry said: Watching your videos and owning a SIDE2 + U1MB. Not trying to offend you -- that's just how I see it. Setting up a hard drive is unavoidably complicated (on SIDE2, AVGCART and I expect SIDE3). Running stuff from Jon's SIDE loader is as simple as it gets; fast search, MAP files for multi disk software etc. it's just awesome. For 'running stuff' I'd say AVGCART is more complicated, the available options are not on screen as an aide memoire, you have to know what button does what. I've written some docs to help with that. @tmp feels it's better to have more lines of available files on screen over window chrome. I feel there may be some space between those two opinions but that's just me, I'm not developing either of them. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bfollowell Posted July 27, 2020 Share Posted July 27, 2020 12 minutes ago, Mr Robot said: Just an FYI, the UC supports the most common cart formats so it covers a great number of carts, the AVG support a bunch more, SIDE 2 only supports 8K carts, SIDE 3 looks like it will support at least the same formats as the AVG. Ultimate Cart got left behind due to lack of software updates or continued development. True, but as I said, at the time I ordered my UC, about a year-and-a-half ago, AVG development was very early and it was nowhere near the UC in terms of compatibility. It has definitely met and even surpassed it since that time though. Ah, hindsight is always 20/20. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Robot Posted July 27, 2020 Share Posted July 27, 2020 26 minutes ago, Mclaneinc said: If true that's good to hear It's true, @tmp had me add that to the docs last night. You're right about the cables, and I have no intention of making any more of those ?, it's all on the user and whether tmp wants to start making them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Larry Posted July 27, 2020 Author Share Posted July 27, 2020 3 minutes ago, bfollowell said: True, but as I said, at the time I ordered my UC, about a year-and-a-half ago, AVG development was very early and it was nowhere near the UC in terms of compatibility. It has definitely met and even surpassed it since that time though. Ah, hindsight is always 20/20. Yes, when I got my Ultimate Cartridge, I really thought it was the "ultimate." Innovation marches on, doesn't it? When I bought my first 800, I believed that was "as good as it gets" for a home computer. Then the IBM PC juggernaut was unleashed followed by Windows and here we are at 4GHz multi-core with Windows 10. And the beat goes on. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Robot Posted July 27, 2020 Share Posted July 27, 2020 19 minutes ago, DrVenkman said: Which is a damned shame because it is, as you pointed out, completely open-source. https://github.com/robinhedwards/UltimateCart It is! I tried to install the dev environment just to have a go at it but it's a nightmare to even get it installed and set up correctly. Such a shame. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Robot Posted July 27, 2020 Share Posted July 27, 2020 13 minutes ago, bfollowell said: True, but as I said, at the time I ordered my UC, about a year-and-a-half ago, AVG development was very early and it was nowhere near the UC in terms of compatibility. It has definitely met and even surpassed it since that time though. Ah, hindsight is always 20/20. I have an almost unused UC in my collection for exactly those reasons too Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Larry Posted July 27, 2020 Author Share Posted July 27, 2020 3 hours ago, Larry said: Sorry, removed duplicate post. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted July 27, 2020 Share Posted July 27, 2020 30 minutes ago, Mr Robot said: It's true, @tmp had me add that to the docs last night. You're right about the cables, and I have no intention of making any more of those ?, it's all on the user and whether tmp wants to start making them. To be fair, the cables are not exactly hard to do, mounting the mini connector on the pcb is more daunting for those that have not soldered before, bridging the connector pins isn't easy but looks like it might be.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMontezuma Posted July 27, 2020 Share Posted July 27, 2020 1 : 1 You need both, although the AVG cart is better ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted July 27, 2020 Share Posted July 27, 2020 Has anyone participating in this thread apart from myself and Candle ever used a SIDE3? Asking for a friend. 1 10 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMontezuma Posted July 27, 2020 Share Posted July 27, 2020 12 minutes ago, flashjazzcat said: Has anyone participating in this thread apart from myself and Candle ever used a SIDE3? Asking for a friend. You make too good evaluation videos ? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted July 27, 2020 Share Posted July 27, 2020 5 minutes ago, TheMontezuma said: You make too good evaluation videos ? Thank you very much, but please bear in mind that the last video was made a month ago and the firmware is still being finished. So one is evaluating a device based on WIP previews which are rather out of date, and with the benefit of no first hand experience whatsoever. Just to be clear: I have owned an AVG cart for a year or more, and I helped its designer when he was implementing IDE emulation. Only last weekend, I fitted the SIO cable to a customer device and was quite impressed with the result. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xxl Posted July 27, 2020 Share Posted July 27, 2020 can every ATR be loaded from SIDE3? or only some, as it was with SIDE2? AVG loads them all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted July 27, 2020 Share Posted July 27, 2020 It is hard to compare the two properly as its still being finished, in truth both devices are still evolving firmware wise at this point.. I don't know how far Jon is from finishing the firmware, the last video hinted at a LOT of coding to do. As for if it will all ATR's jon has already answered that with Quote It should work with anything which does not attempt to directly drive serial IO by bypassing the operating system. There are some such ATRs and XEXs, of course, which have no hope of being loaded from a cartridge or PIO solution 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted July 27, 2020 Share Posted July 27, 2020 5 minutes ago, xxl said: can every ATR be loaded from SIDE3? or only some, as it was with SIDE2? SIDE2 had no stand-alone provision for ATR loading whatsoever, so I can only assume you're talking about ATR support in concert with your nemesis the Ultimate 1MB. And I'm sure that as a seasoned developer you're well aware that any PBI hosted ATR which chooses to bypass SIOV and communicate directly with the serial bus will not work in such circumstances. Those that do (i.e. the vast majority), however, work without issue and at speeds many times higher than the fastest available SIO baud rates. If you bother to read the thread, you'll see I already acknowledged that direct SIO support is the most 'compatible' solution: 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StickJock Posted July 27, 2020 Share Posted July 27, 2020 To modify the question a bit, which cartridge if you do NOT have the Ultimate 1MB upgrade? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted July 27, 2020 Share Posted July 27, 2020 Just now, StickJock said: To modify the question a bit, which cartridge if you do NOT have the Ultimate 1MB upgrade? If you want to run ATRs without U1MB and without any SIO2PC or other SIO2xxx device, AVG will probably suit you well. If the pros and cons of stand-alone ATR support are not a concern, however, you can base your decision on price, availability, design, user interface, etc. Both devices run cartridges and XEX files on stock machines without U1MB. SIDE3's battery-backed real time clock may sway you in SIDE3's direction if you are a SpartaDOS X fan. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillC Posted July 27, 2020 Share Posted July 27, 2020 1 hour ago, xxl said: can every ATR be loaded from SIDE3? or only some, as it was with SIDE2? FJC mentioned in post# 29 that 4-180kb ATRs would almost fill the available RAM, so approximately 720kb maximum. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted July 28, 2020 Share Posted July 28, 2020 so long as the RTC can be polled from all DOS, just like any other. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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