The XL/XE self test

[carmel_andrews]

Around 1987 i remember hearing and reading that Atari were going to release a new version of the XE o/s with a patched self test, the new version apparently tested the additional 64k in a BS 130xe (BS=Bog Standard)

 

A little while later i was told by those that know (mainly people working for Sillica, then Atari's main UK distributors) that Atari decided against releasing this new version of the XE o/s (the one with the patched self test)

 

A few years later i remember reading on comp.sys a8 that a number of european a8 users had mananged to get hold of these very versions of the xe o/s that Atari decided against releasing

 

I am therefore assuming that they were using either bootlegged or cracked versions or that they wrere using prototype versions

 

If Atari if eventually release this version of the xe o/s in non xegs A8 systems (i know that the patch is present in the xegs) I'd be intereseted to find out if there's a rom dump you can use with a880win etc

[Rybags]

I've heard there's at least two version of the Self-Test, and that one would make 3.

 

Regardless, I consider it to be a complete waste of 2K ROM space.

 

They would have been better off either:

 

- just leave it out, and use that bit to allow selecting the "lost" region of RAM from $D000-D7FF to appear @ $5000.

 

- have a resident "Mini-DOS". Imagine the benefit back in the day of having the boot time reduced from 30 seconds or so down to about 12.

 

- have an onboard game.

[mimo]

have to agree, the only time the self test has worked for me is when everything has been ok.

When there have been any problems (usually RAM) the computer won't boot anyway. Whats the point. A game built in would be far better IMO, can anyone patch it now, that would be cool

[Rybags]

Come to think of it, 2K + the 1K that the International Charset takes would be almost enough for a resident DOS.

 

Having part of that compressed, then unpacked to RAM on coldstart might see a situation where a 2.5 equivalent could be made resident.

[Urchlay]

The idea of having a self-test/diagnostic in ROM isn't a bad one... but it should actually be useful. I think a good self-test should do test patterns (grid, color bars, greyscale, etc). It should definitely test the game controllers, and maybe poll the SIO bus and show what devices are attached (also possibly an SIO loopback test, would require a loopback plug though). It should check for extended RAM banks and show how much total memory is installed... maybe it could generate a 1000Hz audio test tone.

 

The only useful test in the standard XL/XE self-test ROM is the keyboard test, but it's redundant on machines with BASIC in ROM (just boot to a READY prompt and start typing). I actually kind of like the 400/800 Memo Pad mode, too...

[Kr0tki]

Around 1987 i remember hearing and reading that Atari were going to release a new version of the XE o/s with a patched self test, the new version apparently tested the additional 64k in a BS 130xe (BS=Bog Standard)

 

A little while later i was told by those that know (mainly people working for Sillica, then Atari's main UK distributors) that Atari decided against releasing this new version of the XE o/s (the one with the patched self test)

 

A few years later i remember reading on comp.sys a8 that a number of european a8 users had mananged to get hold of these very versions of the xe o/s that Atari decided against releasing

 

I am therefore assuming that they were using either bootlegged or cracked versions or that they wrere using prototype versions

 

If Atari if eventually release this version of the xe o/s in non xegs A8 systems (i know that the patch is present in the xegs) I'd be intereseted to find out if there's a rom dump you can use with a880win etc

Actually, Atari did make 65XE and 130XE computers with upgraded Self Test (known as Revision 3). Apart from testing additional memory, it had several keys removed in Keyboard Test (F1-F4).

 

Go here and use the links under "All revisions of atari OS-ROMs".

[Defender II]

What is the differences between the Rev 3 & Rev 4 in the link you presented? Does Rev 4 have the upgraded test?

[ijor]

I remember reading that the first version of the selftest "typed" the name (or a message) of the developer. And that later revisions was changed to "Copyright Atari", or something like that.

 

I do agree that the whole thing is mostly a waste. I've seen some cases where the computer boots and the test fails, but it is a very rare combination.

[Rybags]

I went looking (unsuccessfully) for some source code for a de/packer for the 6502.

 

Then, I thought why not try a best-case scenario for compacting DOS.SYS, so I used WinRAR and WinZIP on their highest settings.

 

Sadly, it comes in at around 3.5K which means we'd have no hope of fitting it into the space available, which is 3K + about 40 spare bytes just before $C800.

 

Would have been nice to just be able to start a machine without booting and have an easily accessible DOS, but now I'll have to look into other avenues.

[Urchlay]

Maybe you couldn't fit a fully-functional DOS in 3K, but I bet you could fit a read-only one that's just smart enough to display a disk directory and load a binary file... you'd want it boot if you hold down Select or something (or maybe you hold down Select to NOT boot it... anyway, allow the possibility of regular disk boots).

 

Actually... You can fit the code to do that in 3 128-byte boot sectors (e.g. Fenders 3-sector loader). In 3K of compressed code (say, 4K to 4.5K uncompressed), it *should* be possible to write a more functional DOS from scratch. Maybe not 100% complete, but I bet it could be useful...

[Rybags]

I did a functional games loader in 5 sectors - although it uses GR. 1 and has extra logic for stuff like pressing RETURN to reload directory etc.

 

3K would be plenty for a rudimentary read-only DOS.

 

Probably the best way to go with such a thing would be to try and fit a subset of DOS 2.5 in, then have the option to load the rest of the DOS either at boot time, or simply have the default DOS vector point to the code which loads the rest of DOS.

 

The, upon loading the remainder of DOS, the DOS vector then points to the normal DUP.SYS load point.

 

But, for 64K and better machines, it would be logical anyway to just load DUP and stow it under the OS in the same way that the hacked "DOS 2.5XL" does it.

 

 

Regardless, it's kinda moot these days since we have easy turbo-load ability via APE and all the other upgrades like flash-carts and IDE interfaces.

[urborg]

I agree that self test is usually useless. I think it was added mainly to easy demonstrate computer features, (displays graphics and plays sound) than to test something. Only the keybord test are usefull, but there is possibility to check keybord under basic editor, so even that part is not necessary.

 

I buyed some time ago 130XE about which seller wrote that is 100% working because it comes through all "self test" tests. When it arrive I run it and run self test. Everything was OK. But after running some games I discover that computer displays corrupted sprites - it had broken GTIA chip. Self test don't use sprites so everything seemed to working. After replacing GTIA with one dismounted from a dead 65XE I got fully functional 130XE.

Edited July 6, 2007 by urborg

[carmel_andrews]

I do remember back in the day's when i was using proper A8 gear/kit, I had a 1050 d/d with a weird german upgrade called 'speedy 1050' (Apparently the equivalent to a lazer/hyperdrive or happy 1050 u/g but with sligthtly faster sio baud rate)

 

Speedy 1050 rom came with a built in version of 'Bibo Dos'

[re-atari]

I do remember back in the day's when i was using proper A8 gear/kit, I had a 1050 d/d with a weird german upgrade called 'speedy 1050' (Apparently the equivalent to a lazer/hyperdrive or happy 1050 u/g but with sligthtly faster sio baud rate)

It's a shame you don't have the Speedy anymore, IMHO it was the fastest, best engineered and feature laden diskspeeder for the A8 around. Did you have the full version with trackdisplay and buzzer? If you're interested in a Speedy again, IIRC the German A8 club ABBUC has the rights to this product and can supply them brandnew. Last year one of their members did a production run of the PCB's. From what I've heared, it was quite a challenge to get hold of enough 65C02's.

I remember a friend of mine had two 1050's both with Speedy's installed. He once demonstrated backing up a disk with these drives, one drive read while the other wrote simultaneously. This was so much more impressive than with Happy enhanced 1050's. With two Happy enhanced drives you'd still always have just one drive active, either for reading or for writing, but not concurrently.

Back in 1987 I had a chance to meet and talk to the developers, very competent and friendly guys. The laboratory, storage and shop was part of the family home of one of the guys.

 

Speedy 1050 rom came with a built in version of 'Bibo Dos'

That's correct. As you say BiboDOS was built into the Speedy's BIOS (onboard the PCB inside the 1050). It would be triggered by booting the A8 with the lever of the drive open, after which DOS was 'downloaded' into the A8's memory. The whole process took no more than just a second. Yet another impressive feature.

 

re-atari

[carmel_andrews]

I can't remember the name of the ftp site but it was something to do with 'pigwa.net' (it was a polish ftp site) i think that one or two AA members on this forum (A8) might know how to get on this ftp site

 

Anyway i do recall that they had in 'INH' format, an image of the speedy 1050 upgrade

 

I think that INH format means that the image is suitable for writing straight to an eprom or something like that

 

Sorry i don't have the speedy 1050, I think the reason i no longer had mine is because i always had trouble formatting disks (can't think why), I only had the BS (Bog standard) speedy 1050, which was just the rom and some instructions (in German ofcourse), you might be thinking of something called 'super/turbo' speedy which advanced the speedy 1050 concept had had more ram and sounds like the other bits and pieces you mentioned

 

The only 1050 u/g i liked was the lazer upgrade (or Lazer/USD, if you were lucky to get the combo version), Happy was OK, SA/SA2 was so-so (I owned 2 in the past, first one lasted about a week)

 

The best 1050 u/g i've heard about but not seen is the ISPlate 1050, which apparently can replicate all the features of happy, lazer/hyperdrive and SA/SA2 etc and compared to speedy was slightly faster still at over 118,000 bps

 

Bibo dos was nice, but these days with a800win and all that i moved back over to mydos as most of the euro dos's seem to be moving towards the 'spartadros' alike camp, i prefer mydos (and bibo dos as well) as it as most or all the features of spartadros but with the look and feel of Atari dos 2.x

[re-atari]

Sorry i don't have the speedy 1050, I think the reason i no longer had mine is because i always had trouble formatting disks (can't think why), I only had the BS (Bog standard) speedy 1050, which was just the rom and some instructions (in German ofcourse), you might be thinking of something called 'super/turbo' speedy which advanced the speedy 1050 concept had had more ram and sounds like the other bits and pieces you mentioned

The Speedy indeed had a rather different approach towards formatting disks. On standard 1050's, Happy enhancements, and the likes formatting starts at track 0 and moves forward to track 39. When complete, the freshly formatted tracks are verified moving back from track 39 to track 0. A Speedy formats and verifies a disk in only one go, moving from track 39 down to track 0.

Since you say you only had a rom and instructions, do you perhaps mean you had the Speedy OS? This is a replacement OS that you would build inside the A8, reportedly this one worked not only with Speedy's but also with Happy's, USD's, etc. The smallest variant of the Speedy was the Mini-speedy, which had to be build inside the 1050. The guys at the Compy Shop also produced the 'Super-Speedy', which was a Speedy 1050 with 192Kb SRAM built in, but AFAIK only a handfull ever got out on the market.

 

The Mini-speedy looks like this:

 

 

Can you identify this as the one you had?

 

Here are the Speedy 1050

 

 

and the Super Speedy

 

 

re-atari

[ijor]

It's a shame you don't have the Speedy anymore, IMHO it was the fastest, best engineered and feature laden diskspeeder for the A8 around.

 

The Speedy is a great product indeed. In general, later european drives and upgrades were more advanced than US ones. Mainly because they were developed later and could use newer technology and lower component prices. They usually have much more RAM, and sometimes more ROM, than Happy enhancements. A lot of new and better things can be done with enough RAM and ROM. Built-in DOS is one of them, an extremely useful feature.

 

Additionally, european mods, at least the Speedy, were more "open" than US ones. They used to upgrade ROM versions frequently which you could do by yourself burning a new EPROM. US enhancements rarely improved the ROM. One of the reasons was that they didn't have a standard EPROM, but it was protected in one way or the other.

 

I remember a friend of mine had two 1050's both with Speedy's installed. He once demonstrated backing up a disk with these drives, one drive read while the other wrote simultaneously. This was so much more impressive than with Happy enhanced 1050's. With two Happy enhanced drives you'd still always have just one drive active, either for reading or for writing, but not concurrently.

 

The Happy can actually operate in multiple drives concurrently when you use the MultiDrive module. It doesn't read and write concurrently though. What it does is to write to multiple drives at the same time. This is great if you want to make multiple copies of the same disk, but it is not faster for making a single copy. Furthermore, it is not very useful with "just two Happies", you need to have 3 or more or otherwise you need to swap disks in the source drive.

 

I understand that the Turbo goes even further than the Speedy. And it can copy a whole disk directly from its internal memory, without transferring the data at all to the computer.

 

The Speedy indeed had a rather different approach towards formatting disks. On standard 1050's, Happy enhancements, and the likes formatting starts at track 0 and moves forward to track 39. When complete, the freshly formatted tracks are verified moving back from track 39 to track 0. A Speedy formats and verifies a disk in only one go, moving from track 39 down to track 0.

 

The USD format and verify in one single go (but unlike the Speedy, it starts from track 0). Each approach has its pros and cons. Formatting and verifying in a single pass is a bit faster, and you can retry formatting a track immediately. Two separate passes is more reliable, because it verifies that the head was positioned correctly when formatting all the tracks.

 

The Speedy approach is probably the best one. Not as safe as two passes, but the chances of missing a track misplaced are very small when you start from the last track. It is also faster because the 1050 mechanism can step-out much faster than it can step-in.

Edited July 6, 2007 by ijor

[re-atari]

Additionally, european mods, at least the Speedy, were more "open" than US ones. They used to upgrade ROM versions frequently which you could do by yourself burning a new EPROM. US enhancements rarely improved the ROM. One of the reasons was that they didn't have a standard EPROM, but it was protected in one way or the other.

That's very true. The Speedy user's manual even contained a documented source listing of the BIOS. You just can't get more open than that.

On the other hand, there was a good reason why Richard Adams, designer of the Happy Enhancement, kept very secretive about the internals of the Happy 810 and 1050 enhancements. Quite soon after they appeared on the market, 'cloned' (read: pirated) versions popped up. As the Happy was built out of standard components, doing a DIY version was easy stuff for electronics hobbyists. There might have been an even more obscure reason for him being so secretive, though. I recall there was a rumour back then (really don't know if it's true or not), that the hardware design and firmware of the Happy enhancement was largely based on a design done by another manufacturer. It was said he didn't want to reveal the hardware and firmware internals in order to prevent getting sued for infringement of intellectual property. Again, I don't know if it's true, and I certainly don't want to discredit people in particular.

 

I understand that the Turbo goes even further than the Speedy. And it can copy a whole disk directly from its internal memory, without transferring the data at all to the computer.

I presume you mean the Super Speedy, and not the 1050 Turbo? The latter only consists of a 8Kb eprom and a 74LS, no extra SRAM for track buffering (I have one laying here). The Super Speedy can indeed read a entire 180Kb double density disk into its SRAM once, and then write out multiple copies of this disk. It was mainly developed for diskmagazine publishers, but arrived onto the market just a fraction too late. It would have been too expensive for home use, as well.

 

BTW: Carmel, in my archive I found a schematic of the Super Archiver you were referring to. It's drawn up by Nir Dary. Here it is:

 

 

As you can see, this enhancement is not very complicated. I doubt very much that it can compete with a Happy or Speedy.

 

re-atari

[ijor]

There might have been an even more obscure reason for him being so secretive, though. I recall there was a rumour back then (really don't know if it's true or not), that the hardware design and firmware of the Happy enhancement was largely based on a design done by another manufacturer. It was said he didn't want to reveal the hardware and firmware internals in order to prevent getting sued for infringement of intellectual property. Again, I don't know if it's true, and I certainly don't want to discredit people in particular.

 

I have, of course, no way to be 100% sure, but I doubt this very much. Mr. Adams is a top expert. I can tell you that I never knew, met or even heard about anybody with nearly as much knowledge as him regarding disk copy-protections. And trust me, I know quite some about the topic myself.

 

I never head about anything similar to the Happy, except later products such as the Duplicator (or the Speedy), that obviously took the concept from the Happy, and not the other way around. The only remotely similar product earlier than the Happy was the Archiper/Chip, and if you want, the USD. But the hardware design are completely different, and the firmware is completely different as well. I also understand that Mr.Adams had a very good relation with Mike Gustafson (Chip/Archiver & USD designer), they even cooperated one with the other, so I doubt the problem was related to those products.

 

What it's true, is that some small portions of the Happy 1050 ROM (I'm not so familiar with the Happy for 810) are obviously based on the Atari ROM. This was probably done for trying to be as much compatible as possible with a stock drive.

 

I understand that the Turbo goes even further than the Speedy. And it can copy a whole disk directly from its internal memory, without transferring the data at all to the computer.

I presume you mean the Super Speedy, and not the 1050 Turbo?

 

Hmm, I was sure this was a feature of some other non-Speedy euro drive (and I thoght it was the turbo), but I might be wrong.

 

BTW: Carmel, in my archive I found a schematic of the Super Archiver you were referring to. It's drawn up by Nir Dary. Here it is: ...

As you can see, this enhancement is not very complicated. I doubt very much that it can compete with a Happy or Speedy.

 

It is a different type of product. It is designed for copy and hacking, not for speed. It can't compete on speed with buffered upgrades like Happy or Speedy. But its copy-protected capabilites are better. It has hardware support for producing weak bits. And when you add the Bit-Writer, it can copy tracks that others can't. Still not nearly as powerful as the Discovery Cartridge (made by Happy for the ST).

[Defender II]

Very interesting conversation...

Do you know if the one they made a run of was the Super-Speedy?

 

Which of the disk duplicating mods do you think was the best? (Super-archiver with Bit-Writer or?)

[re-atari]

I have, of course, no way to be 100% sure, but I doubt this very much. Mr. Adams is a top expert. I can tell you that I never knew, met or even heard about anybody with nearly as much knowledge as him regarding disk copy-protections. And trust me, I know quite some about the topic myself.

 

I never head about anything similar to the Happy, except later products such as the Duplicator (or the Speedy), that obviously took the concept from the Happy, and not the other way around. The only remotely similar product earlier than the Happy was the Archiper/Chip, and if you want, the USD. But the hardware design are completely different, and the firmware is completely different as well. I also understand that Mr.Adams had a very good relation with Mike Gustafson (Chip/Archiver & USD designer), they even cooperated one with the other, so I doubt the problem was related to those products.

I don't doubt mr. Adams' technical and programming knowledge and skills at all, quite the opposite. I never thought the rumour had much substance anyway, as more precise facts never ever surfaced. All in all, it was just another urban myth.

Diskspeeders like the Happy enhancements were a killer product. Once you had one, you wondered how on earth you ever managed to get along without it. IMHO Atari should have licensed this technology and incorporated it into the design of the 1050 right from the start.

 

re-atari

[re-atari]

Very interesting conversation...

Do you know if the one they made a run of was the Super-Speedy?

The production run involved the Speedy 1050, not the 192Kb Super Speedy. According to my info, only 7 Super Speedy's were ever distributed. This makes them quite rare, to put it mildly

 

re-atari

[ijor]

I don't doubt mr. Adams' technical and programming knowledge and skills at all, quite the opposite.

 

Yeah, I realize. I just wanted to make a point that being a top expert, it wouldn't make much sense for him to copy a design or code.

 

Diskspeeders like the Happy enhancements were a killer product. Once you had one, you wondered how on earth you ever managed to get along without it.

 

Can't agree more. Once you get used to a buffered hi-speed drive (choose you favorite one), you just can't go back.

 

I was always suprised, and even amused, how the press at that time ignored the Happy (actually, it was almost a boicot). You could find constant superlative reviews about the USD, but almost never about the Happy.

Edited July 7, 2007 by ijor

[ijor]

Which of the disk duplicating mods do you think was the best? (Super-archiver with Bit-Writer or?)

 

Most people would probably agree that the SA+Bit Writer is (or at least it was at the time) the most powerful, A8 based, device for making backups of copy protected disks. Nir Dary mentioned once that he could copy his whole collection (and he is a very big collector) with it, except for the SAII disk.

 

Somebody mentioned once or twice about modern variations of european mods with very advanced copy-protected capabilities. I'm afraid I'm not familiar with them. In theory, and with the current technology, you can easily do lots of thing that you couldn't even dream at the time (put a very fast CPU/MPU, plenty of RAM and Flash ROM, etc).

 

Lastly, note that you can backup A8 disks with non A8 hardware, such as the Catweasel (PC) or the Discovery Cartridge (ST). Both much more powerful than the SA+Bit Writer.

[Urchlay]

I was always suprised, and even amused, how the press at that time ignored the Happy (actually, it was almost a boicot). You could find constant superlative reviews about the USD, but almost never about the Happy.

 

Probably because the Happy was viewed as an "evil pirating tool" and the USD didn't have any advanced copying capabilities. I know back then I would have traded my USD 1050 for a Happy 1050 in a heartbeat, if I'd had the chance. By the time I had money of my own, the Happy was getting hard to find