SIDE2/U1MB copy files to APT

[rickcollette]

Greetings - I have searched, and I have been going over manuals, and i have come up empty.

 

I have a u1mb upgrade in an 800xl with a SIDE2 cart.

I want to run a BBS with "hard disk like partitions".
What I need to do is get files into the APT partition of the CF media from $(anything)
 

Can I copy files from an ATR (or any other media) to APT?
Is there a version of SpartaX on either the U1MB or SIDE2 that has fatfs.sys on it?
Can I mount an ATR and an APT partition at the same time?
If so, how?

 

Is there another method? A utility on windows, mac, linux that I can do this?

 

Sorry - I realize this may have been answered, but for the life of me, i cannot find an actual answer.

 

I see where people are steered to use an ATR, but I want more than one.

 

thanks!

[tuf]

1 hour ago, rickcollette said:

I have a u1mb upgrade in an 800xl with a SIDE2 cart.

I want to run a BBS with "hard disk like partitions".
What I need to do is get files into the APT partition of the CF media from $(anything)

 

With the U1MB/SIDE2 you can create hard drive partitions (using FDISK/FORMAT in SDX) and mount those up as Dx: or a drive letter - I think you have 15 or 16 of them in total.  You can also mount floppy images (via the SIDE2 loader) and those will mount as drives allowing you to copy files across to your other drives.

 

You mentioned FAT partitions - there's a driver in SDX (you mentioned it - fatfs) that allows you to mount them (read only if I remember) so you can use the CF card in a PC, load it up with things and access them from within SDX as a drive.

 

I think you've got everything you need - I'd suggest reading FJC's BIOS manuals entirely - you'll learn a few things for sure.  BTW, you are using the FJC BIOS for both your SIDE and U1MB, correct?

Edited August 13, 2021 by tuf

[_The Doctor__]

Tell me everything you have storage wise (sio to usb cable etc) either in this thread or by pm... and I'll try to come up with various way to do it. It's not all that difficult as it might sound, it just gets confusing and difficult for some when there are so many ways to do it and it all depends on what you have to work with.

[rickcollette]

41 minutes ago, _The Doctor__ said:

Tell me everything you have storage wise (sio to usb cable etc) either in this thread or by pm... and I'll try to come up with various way to do it. It's not all that difficult as it might sound, it just gets confusing and difficult for some when there are so many ways to do it and it all depends on what you have to work with.

SIO2USB, SIDE2, FujiNet, various floppy drives, I do have registered APE as well.

 

[rickcollette]

4 hours ago, tuf said:

 

With the U1MB/SIDE2 you can create hard drive partitions (using FDISK/FORMAT in SDX) and mount those up as Dx: or a drive letter - I think you have 15 or 16 of them in total.  You can also mount floppy images (via the SIDE2 loader) and those will mount as drives allowing you to copy files across to your other drives.

 

You mentioned FAT partitions - there's a driver in SDX (you mentioned it - fatfs) that allows you to mount them (read only if I remember) so you can use the CF card in a PC, load it up with things and access them from within SDX as a drive.

 

I think you've got everything you need - I'd suggest reading FJC's BIOS manuals entirely - you'll learn a few things for sure.  BTW, you are using the FJC BIOS for both your SIDE and U1MB, correct?

I do have FJC firmware.  I think the issue is that I just cannot find the right combination of settings and mounting to get what I want. 

[Mazzspeed]

I believe what you're asking is how do you actually get software transferred into your APT partition?

 

If the FAT partition of your SD card is formatted in FAT16, I believe you can use the FATFS driver to access the FAT partition on your SD card which is readable by your PC (so you can drag and drop software/files into it) - Although I have never used this feature as my SD card's FAT partition is formatted in FAT32, it may also be slow.

 

The way I transfer data into my APT partition is to use an SIO2PC adapter which connects my A8 to my Pi400 via the SIO port, effectively giving me a vast number of virtual drives I can drag and drop software into to transfer to my APT partition using RespeQt.

 

I hope this helps.

[+DrVenkman]

14 minutes ago, Mazzspeed said:

The way I transfer data into my APT partition is to use an SIO2PC adapter which connects my A8 to my Pi400 via the SIO port, effectively giving me a vast number of virtual drives I can drag and drop software into to transfer to my APT partition using RespeQt.

 

This. Although the same principle works for APE or whatever SIO emulation software you're using on your PC/Mac/Linux box. 

 

My APT partitions are setup as D5: and higher. I mount disk images or even full PC folders as virtual drives in RespeQt on my PC connected to my Atari through an SIO2PC-USB device. Then I boot into SDX on the Atari and copy files from D1: - D4: in RespeQt to whatever APT drive/folder I want from the SDX command line.

[Mazzspeed]

34 minutes ago, DrVenkman said:

This. Although the same principle works for APE or whatever SIO emulation software you're using on your PC/Mac/Linux box. 

 

My APT partitions are setup as D5: and higher. I mount disk images or even full PC folders as virtual drives in RespeQt on my PC connected to my Atari through an SIO2PC-USB device. Then I boot into SDX on the Atari and copy files from D1: - D4: in RespeQt to whatever APT drive/folder I want from the SDX command line.

Very true, you can even use FujiNet-PC. RespeQt is just the solution I choose to use. Any virtual or even real SIO connected drive will do the job.

Edited August 14, 2021 by Mazzspeed

[_The Doctor__]

If your BBS is using spartados as your dos of choice then you can use the sio2pc usb version with respeqt and use pclink driver to grab whatever is on your x86 pc at pretty fast clip using the recursive copy within spartados

I used that method to back up my BBS and restore it a number of times... You can create your own batch files to make it copy from the x86 pc to where they all belong for first time setup and then make others for backups thereafter.

@Kyle22 uses the same methods for his BBS as well.

Edited August 14, 2021 by _The Doctor__

[TGB1718]

After you create your partitions on the SD card and formatted them under SDX FORMAT command.

Choose what partition you want as your boot device and create a file in the root of the drive

CONFIG.SYS, copy FATFS.SYS to the root as well and any other drivers you want.

Here's an example of CONFIG.SYS

DEVICE SPARTA OSRAM
DEVICE SIO
DEVICE ATARIDOS
DEVICE INDUS 4
DEVICE ULTIME
DEVICE JIFFY
DEVICE FATFS
DEVICE D9:\PCLINK.SYS
; DEVICE XEP80.SYS
; DEVICE RAMDISK N,20
; DEVICE DOSKEY D9:ALIASES.INI
DEVICE DOSKEY
SET PATH=CAR:;D6:\BIN\;D5:\BAT\;D9:
SET MANPATH=D6:\MAN\

 

You obviously don't need all of those settings, but the bold line is essential.

 

Set the boot drive in U1M settings and save the profile.

 

re-boot and you should have access to all APT partitions and also the FAT partition with the ART images on.

 

I also use an AUTOEXEC.BAT to set some other things up, again on the root of the boot drive:-

SET BASIC=DN:BASIC.SAV ; Save the current BASIC program, on reload of BASIC this is reloaded
SET SCRDEF=2,141,0,0 ; Change screen colour
SET PROMPT=D$N$P> ; Change command line prompt to show path e.g. D9:\CITY>
QUICKED.SYS ; recall commands using cursor keys
ECHO "" ; reminder of my partitions
ECHO "DRIVES:-"
ECHO "D5: D6: D7: D8: D9:"
ECHO "DJ: DK: DL: DM: FAT=DO:"

 

 

[rickcollette]

Thanks for everyone's help.

 

I managed to do this two ways.

 

First: Using AspeQT on mac with a FTDI cable I had in a spares box.  I just wired it in to an SIO connector and it worked.

Went into the SIDE2 loader, mounted my APT drives, then booted SpartaX
the apt drives were there, and the AspeQT drives showed up as well.

 

Second: Going into the loader and mounting an external partition ( page 11 here: https://atari8.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/APT-Software-Manual-8th-Edition.pdf ) 
Again; booted SpartaX from the SIDE loader, and the drive shows up and I can copy stuff.

 

very cool.

 

again - thank you!

 

As a side note for anyone finding this: The issue with fatfs.sys is, you have to mount the drives somehow to get fatfs copied over.  Chicken->egg

 

 

[Mazzspeed]

2 hours ago, rickcollette said:

As a side note for anyone finding this: The issue with fatfs.sys is, you have to mount the drives somehow to get fatfs copied over.  Chicken->egg

I believe FJC's working on the FATFS drivers, but as far as I can tell there is a performance penalty compared to simply using an emulated drive setup like the one you configured - Furthermore, as you found (myself included) building an SIO2PC adapter isn't hard.

 

Here's my own implementation:

 

[rickcollette]

17 hours ago, Mazzspeed said:

I believe FJC's working on the FATFS drivers, but as far as I can tell there is a performance penalty compared to simply using an emulated drive setup like the one you configured - Furthermore, as you found (myself included) building an SIO2PC adapter isn't hard.

 

Here's my own implementation:

 

is that the sparfun usb:ttl board?

my thing was just some usb ftdi cable i had for some midi project.. and it seems to cause a lot of errors; the ATR mount method is the one im currently using.

 

[TGB1718]

I built an original SIO2PC device donkey's years ago and before I got my S-Drive MAX I used it with a

USB to Serial adaptor cable with Respqt, it also works with PC-LINK too, very handy

[_The Doctor__]

make sure your cable is a quality one, don't forget that pokey divisors matter with certain DOS cases, some can't handle High/ultra/ and above speeds. Also make sure the computer sio ports' rx/tx/command/interrupt/clock lines have no fcc caps on them, they can interfere with fast comms on the SIO bus leading to errors.

select the proper handshake for your cable in all software and drivers

[Mazzspeed]

6 hours ago, rickcollette said:

is that the sparfun usb:ttl board?

my thing was just some usb ftdi cable i had for some midi project.. and it seems to cause a lot of errors; the ATR mount method is the one im currently using.

 

Here in Australia it's called a Duinotech board with the (apparently, there's no way to tell if real or not) real FTDI chip.

 

It's perfectly stable up to divisor 5, to get beyond that I had to remove the SIO caps from my 600XL. Now it'll run divisor 0 using RespeQt no worries.

Edited August 15, 2021 by Mazzspeed

[rickcollette]

perfect. thanks