Which to buy: Side3 vs AVG Cart?

[Marius]

2 hours ago, xxl said:

I am not interested in the popularity of some solutions or the conversation about human impressions to which some here are trying to reduce the conversation.

 

As I wrote, pointing out the flaws is not politically correct ? Is something I wrote not a fact? Specifically what ?

1. The device is not yet on the market. What you do is pretty unethical. Read again my response about you using the word "some".

 

2. You take one aspect of AVG and compare that with SIDE3. You enlarge that part and meanwhile you leave out all the good things of side3. That is not pointing out the flaws, that is an unfair way of acting.

 

3. You seem to make a habit of bashing products that candle was/is involved in. That is a very questionable reputation you built yourself. You can expect people will fight back, due to this. You destroy the reputation of devices, add-ons, upgrades in a way that is unfair and sick. 

 

4. The a8 community is served by people like @flashjazzcat and @candle. Sure you are free to like or dislike these people. But your crusade against them or their product is sad and pathetic. Your way of acting does not fit a community where people try to keep the a8 alive. Stop all the bashing and the hate and make a choice: appreciate it, or cooperate. You could offer your help to test stuff or make things better in stead of grabbing a microscope and look for flaws.

 

 

[Wrathchild]

5. By completely ignoring posts 45 and 46 and citing two disks you know to exploit serial timings and custom SIO code you make a nonsense point. FJC (and others) have not claimed that the SIDE3 can run all disk images, from what I can see it hasn't set out with that objective. For someone who purposely excludes 400/800 users from running their productions you're speaking from very loose foundations. Someone wants to play an ATX then they have the option of one of the DjayBee/Farb or existing cracks and in the case of The Eidolon a cartridge image.  

[xxl]

1: I only refer to published material. Of course, you may consider it unethical: D I understand that when it comes to the market, these deficiencies will disappear.

 

2: Yes, I took the FIRST aspect of these two cards, to the next we'll come ...

 

3: I already said that I am not commenting on the impressions of snowflakes people

 

4: we talk about the device, not people, as if you didn't notice ...

 

[+Stephen]

You have nothing to contribute.  On ignore you go.

[mimo]

21 minutes ago, Stephen said:

You have nothing to contribute.  On ignore you go.

Done the same.

[Level42]

On 7/28/2020 at 5:38 PM, mytek said:

... Maybe it's better not to ask which is better to buy, but instead just pose the question of which multicart (in general) provides the simplest UI to learn and use...

 

That price still goes to The!cart IMHO. 
But getting the files ON that one is another story sadly....

Side3 looks to be very close in user friendliness, and simply copying files to an SDcard is sooooo much easier than programming a cart through the A8 itself...
 

.....maybe some options of SIDE3 could be disabled "permanently" if you don't need it ? I for one, have never felt the need for harddisk access on the A8.

Since I am a big fan of the U1MB I'll probably be getting a SIDE3 soon.

Edited January 4, 2021 by Level42

[Mclaneinc]

Both AVG and Side3 are incredibly good carts, if you want to interface more with the U1mb then the Side3 might be the better choice as Jon writes firmware for both, if you want an all around player with the best compatibility then its the AVG. To be fair there's so many great choices of carts on the Atari you can't really go wrong..

[_The Doctor__]

Stand Alone the AVG has been a brilliant device, and it helps that it works well with u1m etc.

SIDE3 isn't in most people's hand yet so not much to talk about there as such.

I will reserve judgement and which is best until we have things in our hands and see the stability/longevity/usefulness of them in real use.

AVG's SIDE emulation works a treat though.

For now I use AVG carts for their shear flexibility across ALL of my 8 bit machines in varying configurations. It's a swiss army knife in that regard.

as with most Atari 8 add on devices, there will be best for me not for thee and vice versa based on each persons specific use.

Edited January 12, 2021 by _The Doctor__

[Dmitry]

 

Quote

which multicart (in general) provides the simplest UI to learn and use...

 

Ugh, learning multicart loader ui sounds like homework to me.  I guess that's why I always am on the "outside" on this particular aspect of the hobby.  I just don't get any nostalgia from organizing files and needing a loader to load them.

 

Since the functions of the cart I would use would only be spartados x, and the removal sd card, would allow me to place the sd card in the mac and transfer files - either card would be acceptable and exactly the same. 

 

I bought a side 2.  It was a few dollars cheaper, I already have a CF card, so the older flash is OK.

 

I would ideally go with a SpartaDosX pass thru card to supply SDX, and get a 10502PC for Mac to Atari transfers.

And the reason for that, in that configuration they aren't "multifunction" devices, and for that reason they can't accidentally be set on the wrong setting, which only serves the purpose of being a point of failure.

 

What I end up valuing a lot is just the dealer service that sells me the product.

 

And that's another example why.  The SpartaDosX pass thru card, would really require going through a project of backordering it from one place, and buying a case from another - pass.

 

And 10502PC is almost a unicorn product.  I've bought it 3 times over the past 4 years, and lost my investment 3 times.   That used to be more of a common thing in this community, where someone would take orders and go missing.  Really it happens way less now, you can order products from some really rock solid dealers now.  But ugh, the last order I made for the 10502PC, was November of last year, I'm losing hope.....

 

OK, rambling, in conclusion, if I were buying something, I'd buy from my favorite dealer, and go with the product they stocked.  Unless they carried both, I wouldn't worry about anything else.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Mr Robot]

I think I was probably a fairly average British Atari 800XL owner. I wasn't into piracy (due to lack of opportunity not desire), I never used SpartaDOS, I used DOS 3 and then DOS 2.5, I played games (initially mostly from cart or disk but toward the end only budget titles on tape), I drew pictures in AtariArtist, I wrote and printed stuff in AtariWriter, typed in listings from magazines (Atari User & Page 6), got PD software from the Page 6 PD library, and did some simple database type programming in the built in BASIC.

 

Things I never did but wish I had (ie the stuff I still want to do with my Atari's now), program in Assembly language, get online to visit those BBS things I read about in Page 6 and Atari User, get into the demoscene, make a game and become a millionaire.

 

At no point did I feel the need for a hard disk, cpm, spartados or any of that stuff. 

 

Nowadays I still don't really have any interest in any of those things, it's nice to be able to play with it and show it off to friends but I don't really use it at all. My use case is still the same as it was in the 80's and the things I wanted to do are still on my list. 

 

With all of that in mind I have to say the best cart for me is the AVGCART it's the only cart that (because of its SIO cable) can load everything*. I can use it for SDX and APT and all that clever stuff if I want to show it off but for 99% of my time, loading everything is the AVGCART's killer feature for me. I think it's such a great cart I just ordered my 2nd one, it's going to go in my NUC+

 

Plug a Fujinet into the Atari for Printer and Modem emulation Add an AVGCART and it's a pretty complete solution for almost all 'normal' Atari users.

 

SIDE3 has a great UI but it excels at doing all the things I just don't care about. AVGCART is pretty fugly though, functional but fugly

 

EDIT: As a side comment, all of you who use SDX and hard disks and all that stuff, what do you do with it? I've got it all set up on my 1088XEL, have a VBXE as well for 80 column text, all the toys, can't find a good use for it!

 

[MrFSL]

1 hour ago, Mr Robot said:

I think I was probably a fairly average Atari 800XL owner. I wasn't into piracy (due to lack of opportunity not desire), I never used SpartaDOS, I used DOS 3 and then DOS 2.5, I played games (initially mostly from cart or disk but toward the end only budget titles on tape), I drew pictures in AtariArtist, I wrote and printed stuff in AtariWriter, typed in listings from magazines (Atri User & Page 6), got PD software from the Page 6 PD library, and did some simple database type programming in the built in BASIC.

 

Things I never did but wish I had (ie the stuff I still want to do with my Atari's now), program in Assembly language, get online to visit those BBS things I read about in Page 6 and Atari User, get into the demoscene, make a game and become a millionaire.

 

At no point did I feel the need for a hard disk, cpm, spartados or any of that stuff. 

So much of this rings true for me as well --- and then we diverge. I was aware of some of these other things and simply never had the resources. Now upgrading the old Atari - every upgrade is a childhood dream come true. I've said it before; it is a mighty fine thing to make a few of the inner-child's dreams come true.

 

1 hour ago, Mr Robot said:

With all of that in mind I have to say the best cart for me is the AVGCART it's the only cart that (because of its SIO cable) can load everything*. I can use it for SDX and APT and all that clever stuff if I want to show it off

Admittedly it is a nice piece of hardware that I wouldn't mind owning. For me I see the SIDE3 as being an extension or add-on of U1MB. I know it can be run on its own but it is rarely mentioned without marketing the U1MB along with it. If I had the later I most certainly would own the former; but I never wanted to hard wire solutions into a single Atari computer. That works for some, but it hasn't been my desire. I would rather use components between multiple machines and so I went with external RAM upgrades, external OS switches, external HDD, external rtc, external SDX, and even external HSIO support (most of which all coming from the IDE+.)

 

After all of this I was missing 1) ROM/CAR support and 2) SIO stuff. 

 

As far as SIO, regardless of what else you own, everyone should own a cheap SIO2PC cable... its like $6 USD. Understandably some might not want to be tethered to their PC/MAC and so here its hard to walk away from the value of the Fujinet. It provides the SIO drive emulation that a person might want AND also brings SIO2BT AND of course the Fujinet wireless networking and tools. I have found different parts of it buggy but so far every suggestion I have made to the authors has been responded to promptly and most often repaired or implemented.

 

This leaves only the low priority ROM/CAR support. Low priority because I already have SDX and most (all for me so far) CAR/ROM files I have found in ATR/XEX format. So when you get this far its hard to justify either of the solutions the OP was discussing. There are no features they bring to the table that I am missing and neither can replace the solutions I currently have.

 

So I would suggest grabbing a cheaper and simpler multi-cart solution at that point.

 

3 hours ago, Dmitry said:

And 10502PC is almost a unicorn product.

I was looking into this recently. I can't speak myself having not ordered from him myself but the people here I trust and respect have said I can trust Lotharek:  

 

https://lotharek.pl/productdetail.php?id=157

 

I built a device cheaply... though it doesn't sound like you would want to do the same:

 

 

 

 

 

[Dinadan67]

5 hours ago, MrFSL said:

I was looking into this recently. I can't speak myself having not ordered from him myself but the people here I trust and respect have said I can trust Lotharek:  

 

https://lotharek.pl/productdetail.php?id=157

 

I have this device from Lotharek and it works wihout problems.

[Dinadan67]

7 hours ago, Mr Robot said:

I think I was probably a fairly average British Atari 800XL owner. I wasn't into piracy (due to lack of opportunity not desire), I never used SpartaDOS, I used DOS 3 and then DOS 2.5, I played games (initially mostly from cart or disk but toward the end only budget titles on tape), I drew pictures in AtariArtist, I wrote and printed stuff in AtariWriter, typed in listings from magazines (Atari User & Page 6), got PD software from the Page 6 PD library, and did some simple database type programming in the built in BASIC.

 

Ah, the differences. In germany we used to buy games, then removed the copy protection for backup purposes. Then we helped other people (who ran out of disks of course) to backup their stuff. Then we had the idea of putting animated graphical screens on the disks, which appeared bevor loading the games. We put messages to other people in these screens, which was some kind of predecessor to email ?

[+skr]

2 hours ago, Dinadan67 said:

Ah, the differences. In germany we used to buy games, then removed the copy protection for backup purposes. Then we helped other people (who ran out of disks of course) to backup their stuff. Then we had the idea of putting animated graphical screens on the disks, which appeared bevor loading the games. We put messages to other people in these screens, which was some kind of predecessor to email ?

I sometimes think, I must have been the only person in Germany who bought an original copy of "Rescue on Fractalus" back then, just to figure out, that I already owned this game, just named "behind jaggi lines"...

But I never attempted to remove copy protection and spend lots of money in buying original games. I was quite young and no one of my friends had a computer at all. So JoySoft, Kaufhof, Karstadt and Vredes in Cologne were my only source for games. And of course I´ve typed in any listing I could find in any magazine. Had to pay like 15DM for a copy of "Antic", which was available only at the book shop at Cologne Central Station.

 

Ah, those days, when I did my math homework on the Atari and plotted it out with the 1020...

[Mr Robot]

3 hours ago, Dinadan67 said:

Ah, the differences. In germany we used to buy games, then removed the copy protection for backup purposes. Then we helped other people (who ran out of disks of course) to backup their stuff. Then we had the idea of putting animated graphical screens on the disks, which appeared bevor loading the games. We put messages to other people in these screens, which was some kind of predecessor to email ?

Opportunity arose when I got an Amiga and joined a demo group formed of a few guys from my local computer shop as an artist, always regretted never getting into the demoscene earlier.

[Mr Robot]

14 hours ago, MrFSL said:

Admittedly it is a nice piece of hardware that I wouldn't mind owning. For me I see the SIDE3 as being an extension or add-on of U1MB. I know it can be run on its own but it is rarely mentioned without marketing the U1MB along with it.

Side carts use the U1MB to get around some of the limitations of not having the SIO cable of the AVG, they both use the U1MB PBI bios. The AVG can run a version of the Side 2 loader and that will use the U1MB to load ATR files in the same way the Side carts do. I find having SDX embedded into every device a bit wasteful and confusing, like you say the Side carts are always talking about U1MB like they are companion products, but both have SDX in them and you have to disable it in one device to use the other. I'd leave that to the U1MB and do something else for the side cart, make the relationship between the two devices a closer one. 

 

14 hours ago, MrFSL said:

As far as SIO, regardless of what else you own, everyone should own a cheap SIO2PC cable... its like $6 USD. Understandably some might not want to be tethered to their PC/MAC and so here its hard to walk away from the value of the Fujinet. It provides the SIO drive emulation that a person might want AND also brings SIO2BT AND of course the Fujinet wireless networking and tools. I have found different parts of it buggy but so far every suggestion I have made to the authors has been responded to promptly and most often repaired or implemented.

I have an SIO2PC from Lotharek, I got it when I first got back into Atari, my 1088XEL has a SIO2PC built in. I don't use either of them. I have a few fujinets now, all development units, and they are awesome, but I don't use them at all for local loading of files. I use the fujinet for printer emulation, modem emulation and browsing remote tnfs servers. The SD card in them has almost no files on it, if I need to get a file to my Atari I can just copy to my tnfs server. The AVG does all the local file loading, it handles every CAR/ATR/ATX/XEX/CAS/AVF/PDM file I throw at it, only Turbo2000 cassettes are not fully supported, everything else just works. I wish the AVG had an on/off switch so I would never have to unplug it, I plan to add one to the NUC+ cart slot addon so I can leave the cart in place permanently. 

 

This little cable really is the killer feature of this device!

 

 

[tmp]

1 hour ago, Mr Robot said:

 I wish the AVG had an on/off switch so I would never have to unplug it

not sure at what times you need to unplug it but theoretically you could just enable auto side emulation and it should be almost invisible (aside from those side registers in $d5xx), you can go back to menu by pressing cart button and atari reset (and optionally disable auto side)

Edited January 14, 2021 by tmp

[Mr Robot]

2 hours ago, tmp said:

not sure at what times you need to unplug it but theoretically you could just enable auto side emulation and it should be almost invisible (aside from those side registers in $d5xx), you can go back to menu by pressing cart button and atari reset (and optionally disable auto side)

My typical use cases on 1088XEL are 

1. AVGCART loads when I switch on

2. Fujinet config loads when I switch on 

3. U1MB loads SDX and boots from XEL-CFIII to an APT partition 

 

On my NUC+ and 800XL I'm only interested in 1&2, there is no 3.

 

I know it's possible and a cool feature to be able to set side mode, have the fujinet be D1 and the AVG be D2 and all that clever stuff but in reality I never want to do that. It's simpler for me to let the fujinet have complete control of disks, or let the AVG have complete control of disks. It gets even more complicated when you have a U1MB and an XEL-CFIII in the mix, it can take so long to configure each device to make sure each one is in charge of the one thing you want it to be in charge of and nothing is conflicting with anything else, that it just gets frustrating. 

 

On my XEL I have a small pcb with a switch on it which just cuts RD5 and makes the cart invisible, and the Fujinet has a switch on it to turn it off. It simplifies things a great deal.

 

 

[Level42]

So....after getting married and my dad passing away (at 87...not much to complain about) I'm getting back to my hobbies a bit and the one thing still irritating me is that I still don't own either AVG or SIDE3.

 

I still love The!cart for it's interface and ultra-fast search function but I can't get myself to setting it all up to add just a few new games...I really need to be able to simply copy files to SD card and pop it in my A8 (cartridge).

Anyway: the way I use my beloved 600XL most of the time is simply playing games and demo's. 

Now, I've read all about ATR compatibility, but nowhere do I see a list of games/demos that won't run on SIDE3......
I'd think that at least the vast majority of games are available in XEX or CAR and don't need ATR. For demo's, I wouldn't mind using SdriveMax.

So, what ultra-important ATR games will not work on SIDE3 and will work on AVG ? Names, not percentages please  
 

Edited May 18, 2021 by Level42

[+CharlieChaplin]

50 minutes ago, Level42 said:

So....after getting married and my dad passing away (at 87...not much to complain about) I'm getting back to my hobbies a bit and the one thing still irritating me is that I still don't own either AVG or SIDE3.

 

I still love The!cart for it's interface and ultra-fast search function but I can't get myself to setting it all up to add just a few new games...I really need to be able to simply copy files to SD card and pop it in my A8 (cartridge).

Anyway: the way I use my beloved 600XL most of the time is simply playing games and demo's. 

Now, I've read all about ATR compatibility, but nowhere do I see a list of games/demos that won't run on SIDE3......
I'd think that at least the vast majority of games are available in XEX or CAR and don't need ATR. For demo's, I wouldn't mind using SdriveMax.

So, what ultra-important ATR games will not work on SIDE3 and will work on AVG ? Names, not percentages please  
 

 

Well,

 

I do not own a SIDE-3 cart, but afaik most (all?) A8 bootdisk programs that use their own (custom) SIO routines (and absolutely rely on SIO) will not work with SIDE-3. You want names? Hmmm, there are only a few programs (that I have heard) that use custom SIO loading, e.g.:

 

- Alternate Reality (The City, The Dungeon; unsure if one or both; CAR versions available, but afaik not fully working yet)

- Seven Cities of Gold (Electronic Arts)

- one or two Lucasfilm games (most likely Koronis Rift or Eidolon or both; luckily available in CAR format)

- a few demos (a bootdisk demo from Copy Service Stuttgart, some polish bootdisk demos)

- maybe the Big Demo by HTT? (original version worked alright with 1050 drives, but not on the XF551; HTT made a patch available and after I used it, the patched version would work on the XF but not on the 1050 anymore; curious if it works on other/3rd party drives, from harddisks, from carts, etc.)

- programs that were (are) coded intentionally (on purpose) not to work with U1MB by XXL, in case you are using SIDE-3 together with U1MB

 

For me it is hard to tell (notice), since I am using real floppy drives, SIO2PC, AVG with SIO cable and SIO2SD and I do not own a U1MB. If the mentioned programs are ultra important for you or not, you have to decide yourself.

 

[TGB1718]

I don't have an AVG, so can't comment on it, but have a Side2 and Side3, for me having the ability to run

.ATR's from the loader, SDX built in which allows access to many different DOS's which are on

my S-DriveMAX, when used with U1M it's awesome, mounting .ATR's that are on a DOS partition on the

SD card.

 

I just love Side3.

 

My main use is programming with MAC/65 and occasionally BASIC.

[Mazzspeed]

I own a SIDE3 as well as an U1MB and personally find the two to be an outstanding combination.

 

For everything else there's a cheapely made SIO2USB cable and RespeQt or Fujinet-PC running on my Pi400.

 

As far as bit bashing off the CPU is concerned, I own a 1541UII+ connected to my C64 and it's amazing, hands down one of the best devices ever and it doesn't rely on an ageing 6502 based processor for most functions, but it's 1541 cycle accuracy and outright speed using DMA as well as the REU and vastly more in the way of features makes it a well implemented absolute nessecity in my books. Bit bashing is commendable, but not a nessecarily in this day where there may be better alternatives. So while I've never used an AVG cart, I'm not at all biased in relation to any one implementation and can definately see it's benifits.

 

However, I love FJC's firmware and appreciate Candle's excellent designs. As long as things don't become more fragmented, choose is a definate positive in my book.

 

Use what works best for you and your usage case. For me, on the A8, that's most definitely the SIDE3/U1MB combo.

Edited May 18, 2021 by Mazzspeed

[damanloox]

U1MB and SIDE3. You're missing out if you don't have the duo. 

[mimo]

I think it depends on your use case. I just play games and look at demos from time to time. U1meg and AVG cart is perfect for me. I don't use sdx either

[Faicuai]

1 hour ago, Mazzspeed said:

t doesn't rely on an ageing 6502 based processor for most functions,

Anybody can do that, and to multiple degrees (Relying on external processing HW to get one or many tasks accomplished in lieu of the host system). 

 

The opposite, however, is much harder, as it requires more innate processing and architectural assets. The Atari platform can and will do it, and we truly appreciate it (thus a much higher figure of merit, for both the host HW and the supporting HW and SW developers).

 

There absolutely no such thing as an "aging 6502" when, it fact, it has already aged and gone old for 40+ years, now. It is how far can we go with it what makes us it really appreciate it, even when it already has gone old and obsolete.