Atari800MacX and U1MB / Side2 Setup

[spookt]

Hey Folks

 

Has anyone got a U1Mb + SIDE2 setup working under Atari800MacX? I've got the Ultimate1Mb emulation working and have supplied a SIDE2 ROM. I've created a blank disk image file, but when I run FDISK form SDX there are no APT devices found.

 

I'm guessing that I might need to prep the disk image file in some way. At the moment I just created a 256Mb empty file.

 

Any clues?

[+KlasO]

I was experimenting with this today and reached the same state - U1MB working but I cannot get the SIDE2 working.

 

Would very much appreciate some hints. 

[atarimac]

I will see if @flashjazzcat will chime in for the reason, as my expertise on the Ultimate/SIDE2 is pretty basic.

 

But, I believe you need to run FDISK from the SIDE2 SDX image, not the Ultimate1mb SDX image.  So in the Ultimate1mb configuration, you will need to enable the SDX Cart ROM, then issue a CAR command from the Ultimate1mb to run the SIDE2 SDX image.  The alternative is to just insert the SIDE2 in a 1088XL machine in the emulator to do the formatting.

 

You should then see the device when you run FDISK.  But.......I just found out there is a bug in the Hard Disk Image creation/mounting on the Mac that escaped due to a last minute change that didn't get tested.

 

To explain, I need to diverge.   Apple sometimes makes silly decisions in my opinion, and this is one of them.  A Mac will mount a VHD image if you double click on it,  however, the Mac won't mount the image if it has a .vhd extension.  It has to have a .img extension.   So, I changed the image creation code to name newly created files with a .img extension to handle this.   The problem is, I forgot to change the Image mounting code in the SIDE2 emulation, so it ends up mounting it as a RAW image instead of a VHD.   To fix this for now, you can rename the image file extension to .vhd to mount it with the emulator. 

 

I'll issue a 5.5.1 bug fix release soon to fix the mounting issue.

 

By the way, the Mac will mount the VHD image if it has a .img, but it also has to have a valid file system the OS recognizes.  Well that's a catch 22, since how to you get the FAT16 formatted then?

So, as another hint if you want to format that FAT16 partition in the image (test.img for this example) that you have created on the Mac, you can do these commands (of course after making it test.img instead of test.vhd if you changed it):

 

sudo hdik test.img

sudo newfs_msdos -F 16 /dev/disk3s1

sudo hide -e /dev/disk3

 

You will need to press the ignore button in the dialog that pops up after the first command.

 

Then, you can double click to mount the image and copy files to the FAT16 partition to be used by the SIDE2 loader.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[atarimac]

I just released version 5.5.1 which has the very small fix for the correct hard disk mounting (RAW or VHD) based on the image name.  (.vhd and .img are mounted as VHD, anything else is mounted as RAW, along with images named .vhd or .img which fails to mount as a VHD image).

[atarimac]

Comparing operation on Atari800MacX to Altirra, it does look like something is wrong in the emulation.  It should work from the Ultimate1mb version of SDX, but doesn't.  So using the SIDE2 version is a workaround for now, and I'm still investigating....

[+KlasO]

Don't know if it was the new release, but it definitely was me realising that I used an incorrect SIDE2 rom file. Now it's working like a charm. I am using a copy of a VHD that I originally created in Altirra, so I did not go through the steps to create a new hard disk image. 

 

Thank you for the work you have done with this emulator, great stuff!

[spookt]

Where are the steps listed to create a HDD image? Think I need to check I’m doing it right ?

 

Also thanks @atarimac for such a quick response!

[+skr]

4 hours ago, KlasO said:

Don't know if it was the new release, but it definitely was me realising that I used an incorrect SIDE2 rom file. Now it's working like a charm. I am using a copy of a VHD that I originally created in Altirra, so I did not go through the steps to create a new hard disk image. 

 

Thank you for the work you have done with this emulator, great stuff!

I´m struggling with all the ROM files I have, too. Could you show me your Atari800MacX configuration please?

[flashjazzcat]

15 hours ago, atarimac said:

But, I believe you need to run FDISK from the SIDE2 SDX image, not the Ultimate1mb SDX image.

No, this isn't necessary and in fact it's inadvisable to boot SDX from the SIDE cart on an U1MB system. Disable SDX on the cart and enable or disable on U1MB as required.

 

[+kheller2]

Be careful with those MacOS format commands as they don’t alway apply.  If I had several other disks connected you might not want to be formatting disk3.  Also, and I could be wrong on this, the OS only looks at extensions after having not found proper info in the resource forks for the file.  So yeah you can have a .img file that is really a jpg file. They’ve tried to make it much easier with every change of their file system and attribute changes, but extensions shouldn’t be trusted always. 
 

[atarimac]

Your right, the format commands do need to be used carefully.  What I omitted in a rush to respond, was the first command:

 

sudo hdik test.img

 

will return on the console the name of the disk that was mounted, in other words, /dev/disk3, in the example I used.  You are correct, in that with other disks that number would be different.  Once you have that name, then you can use it in the second command.  So if it returned instead say /dev/disk4, then in the second command, assuming that the FAT partition you want to format is the first one, you would use /dev/disk4s1 instead.   The same goes for ejecting the image with the last command.  

 

This is covered in the "Handle Hard Disk Images" help page in the application, and includes the caveat about disk number.

 

If Apple is depending on resource forks in this case, it is a bad decision.  Windows knows nothing about resource forks, they don't exist there, nor extended attributes, and this is a file format that originated there.  VHD files have a header, that they have to read to be able to process it, and it has magic numbers so it can't be misidentified.  The strange part is they will happily do that if it has the WRONG extension for the format, .img, but will not do it for the correct one, .vhd.

[atarimac]

I've found the issue.   It's the SIO Patch.  It's not compatible with the PBI Bios, and that's why it doesn't work from SDX in Ultimate1mb.  So please turn it off in the Preferences/Atari Tab.

 

This may have been mentioned in an earlier post, and I have been running with it off, but must have turned it on in testing.

 

The atari800 core SIO Patch won't work, and at some point I may try and use something like Altirra does, but in the next release, I will be turning it off if Ultimate1mb and SIDE2 are enabled.

[+KlasO]

19 hours ago, skr said:

I´m struggling with all the ROM files I have, too. Could you show me your Atari800MacX configuration please?

Certainly, retracing my steps: 

Preferences -> Atari -> Atari Type -> Atari XL Ultimate 1MB

Preferences -> Expansions -> XL Ultimate 1MB/SIDE: 

- Ultimate 1MB flash file: ultimate.rom (v3.10 from Flashjazzcat's web site)

- SIDE2 flash file: side2.rom (v3.0, also from Flashjazzcat's site)

 

Where I believe I may have stumbled during my first attempts was: 

Media -> 'Handle Special Cartridge' -> Insert SIDE2 (CMD-I) - first it took a while to realise that I had to do this, then I found that I had another rom file for SIDE 2 that was apparently not fit for purpose. 

 

Remains for me to understand: 

I cannot use FDISK, or rather it does not find any APT devices. Still, I have the VHD that I created for Altirra and it works fine, both the FAT and the APT parts, so I currently don't have to use it. Been changing the SIDE2 switch between SDX and Loader, but I am not more enlightened than before. 

 

Please let me know if there is anything else I can do to help. Screenshots below in the spoiler section.

 

 

Spoiler

Screenshots: 

 

[+skr]

Thank you!

 

I´ll have to bang my head to my table harder. I totally forgot to insert the cartridge... ?

I1MB was easy enough to install. But for SIDE2 I totally miss the haptics of putting a cart in a slot and having buttons and switches on that cart.

Ok, will give it a go later, still have to get awake and do some other important things.

[atarimac]

@KlasO, the step you need to allow you run FDISK is for the SIO Patch to be disabled as shown in the screenshot below.  It is intercepting the SIO calls the PBI Bios is making to detect the disk.   In a future release there may be a way to make them play together, but my easy attempts have failed, so I will probably need to replace the SIO Patch that is in the atari800 emulator with something more like what Altirra uses.  

 

For the next release (which will be 6.0, with ARM Mac Native support), what does everyone think?  Leave it as is?  Disable it if Ultimate1mb and SIDE2 are both present, or warn the user if it is enabled and Ultimate1mb and SIDE2 are present?

 

[+skr]

For me, a simple warning would be totally sufficient.

 

Thanks for the great work. In the last few months Atari800MacX is evolving like it is on speed. Love it!

[+KlasO]

2 hours ago, atarimac said:

 

For the next release (which will be 6.0, with ARM Mac Native support), what does everyone think?  Leave it as is?  Disable it if Ultimate1mb and SIDE2 are both present, or warn the user if it is enabled and Ultimate1mb and SIDE2 are present?

Warning would be great.

 

2 hours ago, atarimac said:

@KlasO, the step you need to allow you run FDISK is for the SIO Patch to be disabled as shown in the screenshot below.  It is intercepting the SIO calls the PBI Bios is making to detect the disk.   In a future release there may be a way to make them play together, but my easy attempts have failed, so I will probably need to replace the SIO Patch that is in the atari800 emulator with something more like what Altirra uses.  

Thanks, even though I wasn't stuck on this, I very much prefer to know why I failed.

[Mark2008]

I'm so glad I found this thread.   First thing I discovered, as the thread said, if I booted SDX from cartridge, even if that isn't recommended, it nevertheless founds the virtual disk image and then let me format.  After which, the now formatted image was still found when running SDX off of U1MB.

 

Also, I renamed .img to .vhd at some point, and finally, I disabled the Sio patch.  I did that out of order, but anyway - suffice to say that I've got u1mb/side 2 running.  I do have to keep inserting the cartridge every time I turn on the emulator.

 

Of course, I very much appreciate these efforts, and in listing any observations, don't take it as complaint, because it's certainly not, I just love the software, and am amazed.

 

It'd be a nice thing, if it could remember to keep the cartridge plugged in.  

I'm using 6.0 on an M1 Mac.

 

It'd also be nice if "Keep Aspect Ratio when in full screen" would work- it has major graphics glitches on my MacBook Air m1, OS 11.2.3

 

And also, I was wondering why typing CAR results in "Not Present"?   I may be misunderstanding something, but the u1mb indicates it has 4 cartridges, on a real Atari, I'm pretty sure typing car would take me to the selected cartridge in the u1mb settings.  In my case, basic.   Do I need to add something to the config?

 

If I could get Mac/65 running as a cartridge, I'd be doing pretty good, imho.

 

Thanks for the software.  I do tend to use Atari800 because I know how to launch Atari800 with compiled executable from KickC.  If anyone has instructions for using Atari800MacX as the KickC debugger that'd be awesome too.

 

thanks

 

 

[flashjazzcat]

13 hours ago, Mark2008 said:

 

And also, I was wondering why typing CAR results in "Not Present"?   I may be misunderstanding something, but the u1mb indicates it has 4 cartridges, on a real Atari, I'm pretty sure typing car would take me to the selected cartridge in the u1mb settings.  In my case, basic.

It would not. The '4 cartrirges' you speak of are four Internal BASIC slots, accessed by typing 'BASIC' at the SDX prompt. Nothing at all on the U1MB implements an external cartridge (the SDX 'cartridge' itself being considered the 'internal' cartridge ROM).

13 hours ago, Mark2008 said:

If I could get Mac/65 running as a cartridge, I'd be doing pretty good, imho.

You would indeed. It's possible to run a patched version of MAC/65 on a SIDE2 cartridge, however, and of course on SIDE3. Both will run from SDX with the 'CAR' command.

Edited March 18, 2021 by flashjazzcat

[Mark2008]

8 hours ago, flashjazzcat said:

It would not. The '4 cartrirges' you speak of are four Internal BASIC slots, accessed by typing 'BASIC' at the SDX prompt. Nothing at all on the U1MB implements an external cartridge (the SDX 'cartridge' itself being considered the 'internal' cartridge ROM).

You would indeed. It's possible to run a patched version of MAC/65 on a SIDE2 cartridge, however, and of course on SIDE3. Both will run from SDX with the 'CAR' command.

Got it.  I had patched my actual side 2 cart, so that must be why I had gotten used to typing CAR.

 

OK, so, I will see if I can patch this virtual side 2 cart to match that setup.  That setup was u1mb has SDX turned off, PBI bios is turned off.

 

SDX runs from Side 2, typing "CAR" brings me to Mac/65.

 

That worked on both my 1200xl (w/u1mb as above) and 130xe (no u1mb, just side 2 cart).  Until such time as my side 2 cart stopped recognizing my compact flash card, which reminds me need to get a flash card reader to troubleshoot.  Ancient flash card, may have gone bad...

 

thanks for the help

 

 

Edited March 18, 2021 by Mark2008

[Mark2008]

This is the end of the story (and essentially just how I followed the directions) - but I type it up just in case anyone 10 years from now, stumbles across the thread with the same issue, they'll wonder why I didn't mention the solution.

 

p.s. above my use of the word "patched' was incorrect, I had followed some directions before, and I thought it included running a patcher, it did not, it was simpler than that (unfortunately I've run through so many different things, swapping out various roms,  I cannot recall it all any more)

 

http://atari8.co.uk/apt/side/

 

OSS ROMS -> Downloads

 

From the zip file, of interest to me was side2oss.rom

 

Then in Atari800MacX -> Preferences -> Expansions

 

I changed the entry for Side 2 Flash file to side2oss.rom

 

Then I went into U1MB menu,

From there I intended to change SIDE Cart Rom from disabled based on reading that the requirement is disable the ATR swap button and enable ’SIDE Cart ROM’ in the U1MB BIOS Settings when the PBI HDD is enabled. - but it remained greyed out and nothing happened.   Since I don’t use it this way real world, I didn’t investigate further.

 

Instead I matched this virtual setup to my real world 1200xl, in u1mb settings disable SDX, disable PBI bios.  So essentially side2 stand alone.

 

Now, typing CAR does pull up the side2 car, but the current selection is side loader, not Mac/65

 

Then I recalled ‘a tool is provided’ to switch from side loader to oss cart.  Going back to the downloaded zip, finding a tool folder and a program called sidecfg.xex.

 

First I run that in Atari800Max x with command-R, but that crashes the entire program.  Then in Atari800MacX, create a new floppy.  Then format it.  Then use ATR editor.  Then put sidecfg.xex in the new disk.  Then mount on d2:.  Then run sidecfg.xex.   Now select Mac/65.  Now reboot.

 

Car takes me to Mac/65, done

Edited March 18, 2021 by Mark2008