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Incognito post-install problem


adam242

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After successfully helping Tempest install his Incognito board yesterday, I thought I'd tackle mine (finally!) tonight.

 

Everything went smoothly with the install and reassembly. Tested it a few times during the reassembly process, the Incognito title/menu screen comes up every time. Sweet! Never altered anything.. couldn't, the keyboard wasn't attached.. Until I get it completely reassembled. The menu comes up again, I try out the keys.. I think I set it for XL/XE, 1088K, SDX on, Joystick 3/4 off, SIDE off. Hit S to save... exit to Ultimate Clock set up and finally an SDX prompt. Cool.

 

Then I shut it off to try other software.. I power it on, but this time the Incognito title screen doesn't come up. Boots right to SDX. Hmm.. okay. Maybe it's supposed to do this. I run the BIOS update from a disk image on my PC via an SIO2PC, just like I did on Tempest's 800, so I know this method works. After with flashing bars and the screen normalizes, I hit RESET and it takes me to the Self Test screen. Okay, I don't remember that happening yesterday. From there, pressing RESET would only restart the Self Test, I had to cycle the power to get a cold boot.

 

Again, no Incognito screen, only SpartaDOS. Machine seems to work fine, I can load files from SDX, and it will boot a left cart (at least Pac-Man, the only one I tried). But I can't get back to the config screen...

 

Any thoughts? Anything specific to look at besides "double-check your work"? I'm already doing that... thanks for any help!

 

 

***EDIT***

Holding down the 'Atari' key on power up brings up the config screen? Is that right?

Wow, I feel stupid... But I'm happy to have my Incognito working properly.

Edited by adam242
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I've got a few questions about my Incognito installation:

 

1. Is the BIOS screen supposed to come up every time you turn on the system? Mine does and I'm not sure if that's the correct behavior.

 

2. When I change the configuration and push S to save it doesn't save it when I turn off the system and goes back to the default configuration when I turn it back on. Did I wire something up wrong?

 

3. How do you set the time?

 

4. Not an Incognito question, but related. Is there a good video mod for the 800? My composite out SUCKS, it has shadows and a bit of color bleed.

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1 no, check if battery was installed properly

2 see above

Thank you, I assumed that it wasn't supposed to do that. If it's not the battery (which I'm pretty sure I put in correctly) what else could it be? Maybe I got a dead battery somehow?

 

4 would not know, mine has superb video quality compared to any stock xl or xe i have or had

I've heard that the 800 has amazing output, but it must vary from system to system because mine is pretty poor.

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Agreed that the 800 video is way better than an xl or xe. I have had about a dozen 800s pass through my ownership and they have all been better than even a video modded xl.

The best mod is a VBXE, wonder if anyone could shoehorn one of those in

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Agreed that the 800 video is way better than an xl or xe. I have had about a dozen 800s pass through my ownership and they have all been better than even a video modded xl.

The best mod is a VBXE, wonder if anyone could shoehorn one of those in

With an Incognito board installed there would be lots of room available for a VBXE in the RAM card area, but it would be necessary to connect it via cable instead of directly to the adapter in the ANTIC socket. This is the way the U1MB board connects to the OS/MMU sockets.

 

I don't know if it would cause any problems by connecting it this way. Is there room for the adapter to plug into the CPU/video board inside the shield?

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Agreed that the 800 video is way better than an xl or xe. I have had about a dozen 800s pass through my ownership and they have all been better than even a video modded xl.

 

It's true my 800 is much better than any stock XL or XE, but it's nowhere near the sharpness or color saturation of my modded 1200XL with Super Video 2.1. I'd be interested in an 800 video modification, too. That's about all it would take to make the Incognito-equipped 800 my only machine.

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I'll check that. It was hard to get in IIRC. Thanks.

 

Let me know if that takes care of it, Tempest... hopefully it's not something I did.

 

I would have checked it out before you left with your 800 but I didn't know what wasn't normal. Hell, that's what made me wonder about my install the next day.

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I'm afraid it's still not working. I even put in a different battery just in case. What else could have possibly caused this? Could miswiring cause a problem like this?

 

Also, I tried to load some files with SIDE. The .xex files I tried worked, but the .atr files did not. Could this be an indicator that I wired up something wrong or is it more likely that I have a bad couple of .atr files?

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Both battery tab are on the bottom.. The + should be up to the side / over the battery..

 

Heh... I was right then. I made the exact same mistake myself.

 

What types of files does SIDE support? I though .xex and .atr were both supported. Do I need to use SDX for .atr?

 

The SIDE loader supports XEX and ATR files. You don't need SDX for the ATRs. You can mount disk images using the loader and boot any DOS or bootable software you want.

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Maybe I was using some bad ATR files or ones that did or didn't need BASIC. I only tried two or three so it may just be a coincidence that none of those worked.

 

What about those other formats? Have all the cartridge files been made into .xex files at this point? Can .bin files be hacked into some other format? I have a lot of protos I dumped that are .bin files.

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