STorm ST/Cloudy and RTC...

[+DarkLord]

So I pulled my Mega ST4 that runs DarkForce (my bbs) offline so I could do some upgrades.

 

I installed the STorm ST board with Cloudy and the real time clock.

 

It's a straight forward installation and everything went pretty smooth until I went to install

my AdSpeed accelerator board into the STorm/Cloudy setup. Very difficult, very tight fit.

 

As in I had to use all my strength and put my weight on it to get it to go in. Don't think i've

had that happen with any of these sockets before.

 

So first test run. Booted right up to a beautiful TOS v2.06 screen.  For about 3 minutes, then

it locked up. Rebooted, went to a very garbled/scrambled colors screen and no further. At

once I suspected the stacked boards so I pressed on them again and rebooted. Booted right

up, lasted about twice as long as the first time before locking up again. So I took the Mega's

MB out and put it on a hard (but cushioned) surface and worked around the AdSpeed with

my fingers and weight, pressing, pressing, pressing. I did this every 5 minutes for about an

hour.

 

Finally tried it again. Seemed to work fine. I let it run for 3-4 hrs with no lockups so I put

everything back together and restarted the BBS.

 

Working at the moment, but I'm really paranoid now. 

 

2 other things. The status button in the General CPX in the Control Panel does not report the

8 megs of ALT-RAM that this board is supposed to give. I ran Gembench 6 and it did find and

test it (if it doesn't find any it just tells you). So I don't know what's up with that.

 

I also installed the real time clock that came with this kit. I know, the Mega ST already has a

battery backed up clock but I wanted to see if it made a difference it now BBS Express! ST

shows the date. It didn't. So my conclusion is it's Express that is not Y2k compliant.

 

Has anyone else installed the STorm ST/Cloudy combo and used an accelerator board with it,

and if you did, did you have a hard time getting it to fit?

 

Thanks all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[snarkdluG]

No software is required when using EmuTOS. Alt-RAM and RTC (if connected) are detected and used automatically. You can verify this by looking at the boot screen.

For TOS 2.06 and MagiC driver programs are needed that should preferably be placed in your AUTO folder:

• ALTRAMON.PRG adds the alternate RAM to TOS memory management. From then on, this memory is automatically used by TOS and (most) applications.
• RTC_TIME.PRG synchronizes the computer’s clock with the RTC and makes TOS 2.06 Y2K-compatible.

Note: Under EmuTOS or after running RTC_TIME.PRG under Atari TOS, you can set the RTC using any program that changes date and time, such as the control panel. However, RTC_SET.PRG is also provided as a separate program to set the RTC.

 

Tools and drivers.

 

More here about STorm on ST.

[+DarkLord]

Thanks. I am running TOS v2.06 on it (EmuTOS is flashed as well).

 

I do have both those programs in the AUTO folder.

 

So...does the status button from the General CPX in the control panel

report your ALT-RAM?

 

Thanks.

 

[Tillek]

Well, I'm glad someone's retro experience didn't end in disaster.

 

[+DarkLord]

2 hours ago, Tillek said:

Well, I'm glad someone's retro experience didn't end in disaster.

 

Not yet anyway. Really bothers me how hard I had to work to get that AdSpeed

in that socket. I'm just waiting for it to "creep" back out.

 

Worst case, I can pull it out and go back to the original setup but it's just cool

to have TOS v2.06 and 12 megs of RAM (4 ST-RAM and 8 FAST-RAM).  

 

[+DarkLord]

Just wanted to report that Frank Lucas suggested that I use:

 

SI.CPX (system information)

 

and it would show both ST and ALT RAM. He was right, as Frank

usually is.

 

So happy to say it seems everything is currently working (at least

for the moment)...like it's supposed to.

 

[Tillek]

That's good news indeed.

 

Found the Dave Small SST yesterday when I was going through some things.  Might take a stab at putting that back together now that I have the parts.

 

So I'll either have a really great weekend, or I'll owe my new landlord for the window I throw all my Atari stuff out of.

 

Maybe I'll just use the proceeds from the "yard sale".

 

[guus.assmann]

Hello Tillek,

 

I have that board as well, but it doesn't work.

Are you able and willing to read the Eproms and sent me the content?

That way I can verify if maybe the Eproms are the problem and I can fix the board.

Thanks in advance.

BR/

Guus

[Tillek]

Well, for one thing, I'm not sure the board works.  Also, the EPROMS were never covered, so I'm not sure they work either, but to my understanding, they're just plain old TOS 2.06 roms.

 

Basically... Bought this thing on Ebay and as you know, it's pretty much held in place by the header blocks.

 

So by the time it got to me, those were shattered and the thing was just floating around inside the case.  The guy took out insurance on it (without me asking and without him charging me extra for it).

 

So I have no idea if the thing ever worked, or if it was in working condition when it was sold.  I chose not to go the insurance route because then it would have ended up in a landfill and since it took me forever to source the part I needed, the window had closed by then.

 

Did yours ever work?

 

[+DarkLord]

On 5/22/2021 at 3:28 PM, Tillek said:

That's good news indeed.

 

Found the Dave Small SST yesterday when I was going through some things.  Might take a stab at putting that back together now that I have the parts.

 

So I'll either have a really great weekend, or I'll owe my new landlord for the window I throw all my Atari stuff out of.

 

Maybe I'll just use the proceeds from the "yard sale".

 

 

Well, I for one certainly hope you have a really great weekend! 

 

[Tillek]

32 minutes ago, DarkLord said:

 

Well, I for one certainly hope you have a really great weekend! 

 

Alas... you jinxed it.

 

I went to grab the little envelope that had the jumper headers.... and.... wait... these are the DRAMS that I bought to fix my other 1200xl (spoiler: they didn't).

 

So where the f are my jumper headers?????????????  I had them in my hand this past week!!!!  Where did I put them?

 

@#$@#!@$FSDF@#@#RSAF@!#Rsdfkser23k2n@#$@#$@#$@S!!!!!!!!!

(much profanity).

 

[guus.assmann]

Hello Tillek,

 

The board is complete and supposedly worked.

To the best of my knowledge, the Eproms have an adapted version of Tos 2.06.

I have checked the CPU and that's ok in another board.

The Eproms not being covered is usually no problem. It takes many days of full sunshine exposure to get them ereased.

 

BR/

Guus

 

[+DarkLord]

16 hours ago, Tillek said:

Alas... you jinxed it.

 

I went to grab the little envelope that had the jumper headers.... and.... wait... these are the DRAMS that I bought to fix my other 1200xl (spoiler: they didn't).

 

So where the f are my jumper headers?????????????  I had them in my hand this past week!!!!  Where did I put them?

 

@#$@#!@$FSDF@#@#RSAF@!#Rsdfkser23k2n@#$@#$@#$@S!!!!!!!!!

(much profanity).

 

 

 Gremlins! I've caught them several times running around my man cave. 

 

PS I bring my 2 cats in for a while after I see one - that'll teach'em!

 

 

[Tillek]

Well... I was going to start a new thread for this, but alas... it looks like the journey has come to an end.

 

So attempting to dump the roms failed.  I couldn't get it to read with my reader.  Of course, this could have been because there is nothing on these roms to identify the manufacturer or model.  They had no stickers or any writing anywhere on them that would have identified them.  I can't even be sure they were the ones that came with the thing (and I'm doubting they were because the pictures I've seen of a NIB one had clearly printed labels.

 

So then I went ahead and tried to see if I could get it working.  The problem:  Whoever installed this used tons of hot glue on the header jumpers that connect the socket on the SST board to the socket on the motherboard... so I had to remove that to be able to put the new header jumpers in place.

 

The first one went without a hitch, even thought he glue was covering some wired connections, I was able to carefully remove them without damaging anything or breaking any of those connections.

 

Unfortunately, #2 didn't go so well... I pulled up little green traces. (Or what's covering the traces.  Not a huge expert on circuit board design.  Took pictures...  might post them if I bother getting them off the camera.

 

Alas.....

 

When I fired it up, got a white screen for a second, then it went black.  Still got key clicks, and the floppy ran (and when I stuck a disk in, it even read it).  It seems like the boot sequence is going normally... just without a screen.

 

To be honest, when this thing came to me, it even had broken plastic inside.  I had always suspected that it was dropped or damaged.  It was always a longshot that it would ever work.  Frankly, I'm shocked it's as close to working as it is.   It's "closer to working" than my dead Mega STE's.  Though to be honest, I almost wish it hadn't come close to working... now I'll always be haunted by that hot glue removal or if it's just something simple that I'm missing.

 

I even tried with the memory in hopes that the memory would save the MSTEs...... nope.  No "Organ Donation" today.  Even tried some stock 2.06 roms "just in case".... Nope.

 

Patient's time of death.  18:58pm

 

[+DarkLord]

R.I.P....  

 

[+DarkLord]

Got a really odd problem that I don't want to go

into great detail about it just yet...

 

Is anyone out there using an STorm ST board

with an accelerator like the AdSpeed?

 

Also, any STorm ST users running Xcontrol?

 

Thanks.

 

[guus.assmann]

Hello Tillek,

Can you post a picture of the Eprom, where the type number etc. is visable?

Then it should be possible to identify the manufacturer.

It may also be that the programmer has a generic mode to read any Eprom of the correct size.

At least my ones do. (HiLo programmers)

 

As for hot glue, why not heat it again? (Yeah I know, next time...)

If you use a paint stripper, with distance and care, it will work.....

 

BR/

Guus

 

[Tillek]

3 hours ago, guus.assmann said:

Hello Tillek,

Can you post a picture of the Eprom, where the type number etc. is visable?

Then it should be possible to identify the manufacturer.

It may also be that the programmer has a generic mode to read any Eprom of the correct size.

At least my ones do. (HiLo programmers)

 

As for hot glue, why not heat it again? (Yeah I know, next time...)

If you use a paint stripper, with distance and care, it will work.....

 

BR/

Guus

 

Actually, no.... and kind of strange... not a single marking on the chip of any kind.  In fact, it didn't even have anything covering the "window".  Which might be why I couldn't dump it.  I tried what I could think of, but really was just guessing.

 

And I couldn't find anything that seemed to be a default/generic reader for anything other than PLCC chips if I recall right.  (TL866+)

 

As for whether it's really dead, I'm going to try putting tos roms and a cpu in first, to see if the mega even works.. then we'll see.

 

[Tillek]

Of course, that won't be anytime soon.

[+DarkLord]

Small update. Apparently, I was supposed to remove the original TOS v1.4 ROMs

from my Mega ST4's motherboard. I guess somehow, someway, I missed that in

the instructions.

 

https://wiki.newtosworld.de/index.php?title=Storm_ST

 

Anyway, Matthias has instructed me to do so and test again. Pretty busy right

now (like Tillek ) so it'll probably be a little bit...

 

I'll report back here with the results as soon as I can...

 

[+DarkLord]

Okay, I didn't have to remove the original TOS v1.04 ROMs.

 

I had to go through and set the flags on various ACC's and

AUTO folder programs to get them all to co-operate together.

 

I'm talking about the <fastload, TT-RAM, TT-PRG> flags.

 

I also had to remove EXTENDOS.PRG from the AUTO folder,

set it's flags, and then auto-start it from the TOS v2.06

desktop using the install application option.

 

Finally, after all of that, I think I've finally got things

working together. I'm going to watch it for a few days

and see...

 

In case anyone is wondering what the problem I  was

having was...well, it's a real head-scratcher. Never seen

anything like it before. I could do file copies up to around

20-25k. Anything larger than that resulted in a 5-9 bomb

hard crash. Disabling some of my ACC's and AUTO folder

programs increased that size, but then the strangeness

continued - the slot where Xcontrol sits would simply

disappear or have scrambled characters there. Clicking

on it in this state resulted in another hard crash. Ugh.

 

It's all good now though, apparently. 

 

Just wanted to thank Matthias and Cziets for all their

help - they have been extremely helpful and supportive

through all of this.

 

Thanks guys! 
 

Edited July 1, 2021 by DarkLord
grammer check...