Jump to content
IGNORED

U1MB, Incognito, SIDE2, SIDE3, 1088XEL/XLD Firmware 4.0 Released


Recommended Posts

2 hours ago, scorpio_ny said:

There was a big thread on this topic if I recall and it showed that the 800XL on use can reach close to 1.5 AMPs depending on what is being done and attached to the host computer

If the Atari 800XL is not being asked to supply power to anything besides itself, I believe the current draw is just under 3/4 of an amp, well within the capabilities of the smaller 5VDC supplies that Atari produced (rated at 1 AMP). Later they manufactured several 1.5 amp versions, probably with the thinking that other stuff (Printer Interfaces, PR Connection, XM301 modem) would possibly be attached and draw more power from the PSU. Now days even with a U1MB, SIDE, and FujiNet, 1.5 amps is still enough, although those smaller 1 amp PSUs would get taxed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think I'll stand by my post and that it's bad to operate a power supply at or near it's rated limit for any length of time...

42 minutes ago, _The Doctor__ said:

Correct, the modern day Atari with all the goodies in it needs 2.5 - 3 amp CLEAN power... noisy switching supplies do indeed futz up the video on some machines and cause random glitches in others... some know good modern power supplies get updated over time and then buying the same make and model doesn't pan out as the spec change but the name and model do not. It's a real P.I.T.A. Many people are fine with 1.5 amp supplies but a fully loaded machine with memory upgrades, cartridge beasts, video updates, and upgrade boards etc etc... it all add up, include a cassette deck, sio2sd, etc etc... maybe a sio powered modem, P:R: connection or fujinet etc etc, and you are using quite a bit of juice. It is best not to run power supplies at 100 percent of their rated values for sure!

 

as an aside, I've still found re programming and re-flashing the devices a couple of times helps... I am not sure if the stuff is marginal or if someone statically zaps some of this stuff during install or use... but it's a happening in the u1m/incognito world/cart world that's been encountered a number of times. Who knows... cosmic rays... stray emf... static... timing glitch... barely in spec chip who knows...  just one of those things... redo from the ground up and it's all good....

 

odd that PBI on is causing an issue with POP etc... has the footprint changed/does timing change?  As both of you see the same thing it sure seems to be a good thing to investigate.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, scorpio_ny said:

There was a big thread on this topic if I recall and it showed that the 800XL on use can reach close to 1.5 AMPs depending on what is being done and attached to the host computer

This may help providing a realistic, day-to-day idea of power consumption (800 and 800XL, with some popular upgrades. nowadays)

 

 

1.5amps @ ~5.0v seems at the very bottom of the scale, already.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, _The Doctor__ said:

as an aside, I've still found re programming and re-flashing the devices a couple of times helps... I am not sure if the stuff is marginal or if someone statically zaps some of this stuff during install or use... but it's a happening in the u1m/incognito world/cart world that's been encountered a number of times. Who knows... cosmic rays... stray emf... static... timing glitch... barely in spec chip who knows...  just one of those things... redo from the ground up and it's all good....

 

odd that PBI on is causing an issue with POP etc... has the footprint changed/does timing change?  As both of you see the same thing it sure seems to be a good thing to investigate.

@_The Doctor__
 

I had the same thought as you did. One of the trouble shooting steps was that I flashed the full 512 firmware (once with the version GOS and once with the one without). I also tried re and flashing the plug ins that enabled S3 support and excluded support for the Sophia 2. Both times, same issues with the mega cart games. I did the flash upgrades from a mounted ATR from an SDrive Max attached to the SIO port.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

33 minutes ago, Faicuai said:

This may help providing a realistic, day-to-day idea of power consumption (800 and 800XL, with some popular upgrades. nowadays)

 

 

1.5amps @ ~5.0v seems at the very bottom of the scale, already.

Hey @Faicuai!

 

This is the thread I had read on the power consumption. It was was this thread that that guided me to get a power supply with a little more headroom when I started to get back into using my Atari 8-bit. Thanks for the link!

 

 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, mytek said:

If the Atari 800XL is not being asked to supply power to anything besides itself, I believe the current draw is just under 3/4 of an amp, well within the capabilities of the smaller 5VDC supplies that Atari produced (rated at 1 AMP). Later they manufactured several 1.5 amp versions, probably with the thinking that other stuff (Printer Interfaces, PR Connection, XM301 modem) would possibly be attached and draw more power from the PSU. Now days even with a U1MB, SIDE, and FujiNet, 1.5 amps is still enough, although those smaller 1 amp PSUs would get taxed.

This is the one and only correct posting about this matter. 2A and 3A are not needed at all. 
 

Since I can’t stand people guessing and making claims without any factual knowledge and without ever having actually measured anything I decided to do it once more but film it this time. 
 

I hope Jon forgives me for staying off topic….

 

First absolutely stock PAL 130XE without any hardware updates or cartridge attached.

 

 

RESULT: 0,70 A.

 

If used with a 1A PSU you still have 30% margin to the rated value. Plenty to run a cartridge or a single upgrade probably.

 

Since this is a 130XE it is deductible that 800XL and 600XL will use a similar value. The 600XL and 800XL have some more separate TTL ICs, the 130XE has FREDDIE and 8 more RAM chips.

Edited by Level42
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Up next, my Atari 600XL, with U1MB, Stereo Pokey(enabled), Sophia RGB and AntiX. Of course also SIDE3 inserted.

 


RESULT: a tiny little bit over 1 Amp.

 

with a 1,5A original Atari PSU you still have 50% overhead ! It is nowhere near its limits.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, candle said:

if you want to be serious about your measurements, don't limit yourself to averages that any DMM will show you

For currents ? What do you expect, 4A spikes ?

 

For ripple and HF noise you are correct of course, but this was only to debunk the “we need 3A” myths. 

Edited by Level42
Link to comment
Share on other sites

almost at half capacity at 710 mA give or take and that's without any Added RAM, SIO powered SIO2SD or SIO powered data Cassette, let alone a P:R: connection etc...

Having clean and ample power is important. You can't see if the power is clean on a plain old digital multi-meter, you need a scope.

My old rule was 1.5 minimum but with VBXE, Rapidus, u1m, old and and new add on ram both pbi powered and internally powered, as well as all the old peripherals that use sio power it just saved a lot of headaches and instability problems using power supplies that provide clean power and enough in reserve to handle whatever gets chucked at the Atari. If you aren't using multiple SIO powered solutions and don't have any additions to your 800XL or 130XE well then of course you won't have and issue with power. The inrush current at power on for all of the devices coming online all at once is higher than you think and more than a slow DMM can capture. The whole idea is rock solid clean and responsive power. 1.5 amps barely covers what my 320XE with 2 sio2sd's can handle while using a P:R: and possibly my cassette deck... I will have to check again. but that's about it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, Level42 said:

What do you expect, 4A spikes ?

I did some Googling and one commentator suggests peak draw of 200mA for writes on old cards:

 

https://forum.arduino.cc/t/power-consumption-to-write-to-sd-card/129434/10

 

Whether you consider 2A and beyond necessary or not, relying on a forty year old linear PSU to deliver consistent power to a highly upgraded machine full of high-speed circuits is debateable at best.

Edited by flashjazzcat
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, _The Doctor__ said:

The inrush current at power on for all of the devices coming online all at once is higher than you think

There's the rub of it, years back when I mod'd an 800XL with a homebuilt MyIDE, this was the time when 2.5" IDE drives were a thing ?.

The power on current draw was on the limit of the supply during power up but would settle back. So I later got to move to the IDE->CF adapter approach.

Certainly with today's boards that can be installed, that initial power-up draw will be a factor.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

actually, if we're talking about novadays cmos memory or devices that i use for build my extensions, they are not that power hugry

but - atari motherboard was never designed to deliver power required by so many extensions, and, minding this is 40 years old board, that haven't seen fresh capacitors in a while i wouldn't expect it to preform as it was at day one

also - i wouldn't expect original power supply to preform that way either

transient current surges you get when memory gets refreshed and antic is fetching char data gives you banding of all kinds - is this enough to get you thinking?

HF - i'm sorry, but relativly, everything inside atari is slow compared to today's parts

and i do agree that you don't need 4A power supply - you just need a decent one that delivers what nameplate says it does - switching or linear it does not matter, it just has to be true

 

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I highly doubt this is a PSU issue. I can switch to the 3A PSU that came with and powers my Pi400 @ an overclocked 2.4Ghz CPU/800Mhz GPU and it doesn't make a single difference.

 

The only SIO device I use is an SIO2PC adapter connected to my Pi400 for RespeQt and FujiNet-PC, which isn't even powered on when I have the Pi400 PSU plugged into the A8 and draws no power from the A8 anyway.

Edited by Mazzspeed
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, scorpio_ny said:

It was was this thread that that guided me to get a power supply with a little more headroom

Yes, sir!!

 

TOTAL-NET Numbers... that's what count:

 

 

There you go:

  • 11.9w (at the tap) minus 2.5w (PS own idle/parasitic load) = 9.4w.
  • Let's assume those 9.4w as net V.A. draw and effective voltage-under-load to be around 4.8v-5.0v effective
  • Best-case scenario of 9.3w/5v = 1.88 amps, which some goes to heat, and rest to actual current consumption (unknown ratio).

So yes, originally stated, AS-PRINTED-ON-OEM-PSU 1.5 amps rating (7.5 VA) sounds just about right.

 

Sounds like 2.0 amps gives enough headroom.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, _The Doctor__ said:

almost at half capacity at 710 mA give or take and that's without any Added RAM, SIO powered SIO2SD or SIO powered data Cassette, let alone a P:R: connection etc...

Having clean and ample power is important. You can't see if the power is clean on a plain old digital multi-meter, you need a scope.

My old rule was 1.5 minimum but with VBXE, Rapidus, u1m, old and and new add on ram both pbi powered and internally powered, as well as all the old peripherals that use sio power it just saved a lot of headaches and instability problems using power supplies that provide clean power and enough in reserve to handle whatever gets chucked at the Atari. If you aren't using multiple SIO powered solutions and don't have any additions to your 800XL or 130XE well then of course you won't have and issue with power. The inrush current at power on for all of the devices coming online all at once is higher than you think and more than a slow DMM can capture. The whole idea is rock solid clean and responsive power. 1.5 amps barely covers what my 320XE with 2 sio2sd's can handle while using a P:R: and possibly my cassette deck... I will have to check again. but that's about it.

Show me your scope results and I will show you mine.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Do we really need to get into a dick slinging contest over power supplies? Certain CAR images load, certain ones do not. On two machines the issue is 100% rectified by disabling PBI BIOS, on one machine it is not.

 

At this stage I'm hesitant to consider timing an issue let alone the power supply used. This argument is pointless, let it go.

  • Haha 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I thought we were attempting to figure out what is wrong? I don't have to disable the PBI HDD at all on my 600XL, but on the customer XE, the images in question don't load regardless of whether the PBI HDD is on or off. So what do you think the problem is?

Edited by flashjazzcat
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 6/16/2021 at 12:44 PM, Mazzspeed said:

There is something funky going on with this title. The Megacart and SIC titles were booting perfectly this morning, this afternoon only the SIC .CAR would boot. Tomorrow the Atarimax .CAR will probably boot fine! It's like some kind of timing issue?

Can you remind me at what point we went from Megacart and SIC images working intermittently to them not working at all? I've gone through the whole thread and I am not sure when this occurred. Thanks!

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, flashjazzcat said:

Can you remind me at what point we went from Megacart and SIC images working intermittently to them not working at all? I've gone through the whole thread and I am not sure when this occurred. Thanks!

Of course.

 

As soon as I applied your loader update regarding the initial reported PoP CAR image compatibility problems, MC and SiC PoP images worked, but the AM image never worked. After turning the machine off and coming back a while later I was surprised to find the SiC image still worked perfectly, but both the MC and AM images weren't working - Both would say 'Loading cartridge' in the loader and then go straight to a black screen.

 

Since then I have updated the loader once more with the update provided to fix menu corruption and the MC and AM images never worked, only the SiC image.

 

I thought it was just some finicky business regarding the PoP CAR images, until I went to load the FloB CAR image and realized I was seeing the exact same issue with a totally different title. That's when I tried another SD card thinking that may have been the issue, a change which achieved nothing as the problem was still present and exactly the same.

Edited by Mazzspeed
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi @Mazzspeed and @flashjazzcat

 

I was reviewing the manual and the settings trying different things. So one thing that caught my eye was "Hard Emulation". On my system, it was alway on. I turned it off and guess what? The cartridges load with no issue! I was able to load PoP cart, Flob, Space Harrier, etc.

 

@Mazzspeed: Could you try to see if this works for you too?

@flashjazzcat: I guess this would explain why turning off the PBI Bios would work? Since it was off, it would also turn off hard emulation?

 

 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, scorpio_ny said:

Hi @Mazzspeed and @flashjazzcat

 

I was reviewing the manual and the settings trying different things. So one thing that caught my eye was "Hard Emulation". On my system, it was alway on. I turned it off and guess what? The cartridges load with no issue! I was able to load PoP cart, Flob, Space Harrier, etc.

 

@Mazzspeed: Could you try to see if this works for you too?

@flashjazzcat: I guess this would explain why turning off the PBI Bios would work? Since it was off, it would also turn off hard emulation?

 

 

Yes, I can confirm that if I disable the hard disk under PBI BIOS settings all cart images load perfectly.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...