Tempest Posted June 15, 2015 Share Posted June 15, 2015 If the cart didn't flash correctly the first time, shouldn't I do a full re-flash rather than an incremental one? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marius Posted June 15, 2015 Share Posted June 15, 2015 I think that does not matter, since the logic in the flash system updates everything that does not match the crc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HiassofT Posted June 15, 2015 Share Posted June 15, 2015 If the cart didn't flash correctly the first time, shouldn't I do a full re-flash rather than an incremental one?If the flasher reported an error at some point a full re-flash could be needed. If it finished with "operation successfully completed" you should be fine with an incremental update. The full-reflash is kind of a last resort option and should normally not be needed. Your descriptions read like flashing went OK and after power-up you are presented with the black background menu. That's expected if you choose "Simple Menu" in the Studio. If that's the case, you could try setting the bank number to 2244 (decimal) and the cart mode to 16k in the black/simple menu and then see Pole Position. Or bank number 2307 and mode 8k and get Ant Eater. If these things work the flash data should be just fine and and incremental update with the extended menu is all that's needed. BTW: by default The!Cart studio doesn't show the assigned bank numbers that are needed for the black menu (which is just for us developer nerds), you can enable that display by right-clicking into the column descriptions and selecting "Start bank". Just in case you are curious so long, Hias Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+JAC! Posted June 15, 2015 Share Posted June 15, 2015 At the time when this workbook was created, there only was the "Simple" menu. All new workbooks use the "Extended Menu" by default, but since this is the internet, that workbook will be out there forever. I could change the names of the menu, but still this would live on. Just like Terry Prachet http://www.gnuterrypratchett.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted June 17, 2015 Share Posted June 17, 2015 Out of curiosity I found out that the max speed on my serial port is 115200 (or so says AspeQT). What pokey divisor can I use to achieve this speed? Setting it to 0 just gets me the error "Cannot set serial port to 125000. Closest possible speed is 115200" and then it defaults to 19200 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyle22 Posted June 17, 2015 Share Posted June 17, 2015 Here is a PoKey divisor chart: http://andersonaudioworks.com/site/Atari/divisors.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted June 17, 2015 Share Posted June 17, 2015 Yeah I tried 1 and it still didn't work. Not sure what speeds my serial port is capable of, but it appears that it must be an exact match or it will revert back to 19200 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted June 17, 2015 Share Posted June 17, 2015 I found a game that doesn't seem to want to work on The!Cart. Pac-Mac. When I load it up it comes up with the title screen then immediately crashes. Not sure if it needs a special setting or not. MAC1-400.BIN Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted June 17, 2015 Share Posted June 17, 2015 I noticed that Aspeqt reports 19200 baud in the log window even if the speed is higher... Presumably a bug. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HiassofT Posted June 17, 2015 Share Posted June 17, 2015 Out of curiosity I found out that the max speed on my serial port is 115200 (or so says AspeQT). What pokey divisor can I use to achieve this speed?None. The highest speed you can use with this port that'll work for communication with the Atari is 57600 and you should stick to the standard 1x/2x/3x baudrates. Standard serial ports only support speeds that can be derived from the maximum speed (115200) by dividing that by an integer. So you can, for example, get 57600 (115200/2) or 38400 (115200/3) but nothing in between. Unfortunately the speeds supported by Pokey are rather off, compared to the usual RS232 speeds. They are (approximately, PAL and NTSC machines are slightly different) 890000/(X+7) where X is the pokey divisor. In order to get reliable communication the speeds of the PC serial port and the pokey mustn't differ by more than some 3%. Which leaves us with the 57600/38400/19200 speeds. so long, Hias Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HiassofT Posted June 17, 2015 Share Posted June 17, 2015 I found a game that doesn't seem to want to work on The!Cart. Pac-Mac. When I load it up it comes up with the title screen then immediately crashes. Not sure if it needs a special setting or not.I tried that with the Atari800 emulator and it locked up, too. When switching from XL to "old" mode the game started but didn't look like the Pac-Man I knew After a few minutes of playing it also locked up. Better use the Atari Pac-Man version, I've successfully used that one with The!Cart. http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-pac-man_3857.html so long, Hias Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted June 17, 2015 Share Posted June 17, 2015 I tried that with the Atari800 emulator and it locked up, too. When switching from XL to "old" mode the game started but didn't look like the Pac-Man I knew After a few minutes of playing it also locked up. Better use the Atari Pac-Man version, I've successfully used that one with The!Cart. http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-pac-man_3857.html so long, Hias That's because it's not Pac-MAN it's Pac-MAC. Pac-Man (aka McDonalds) is an unreleased game by Parker Brothers. I wonder if it needs the 400/800 OS? I should try that. http://www.atariprotos.com/8bit/software/pacmac/pacmac.htm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HiassofT Posted June 17, 2015 Share Posted June 17, 2015 That's because it's not Pac-MAN it's Pac-MAC. Pac-Man (aka McDonalds) is an unreleased game by Parker Brothers.Ah, sorry, I read too quick - also the title screen of the game :-( Thanks a lot for the info, BTW! I wonder if it needs the 400/800 OS? I should try that.Just tested it here with The!Cart and the 400/800 OS and it started up fine. so long, Hias Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted June 17, 2015 Share Posted June 17, 2015 Just tested it here with The!Cart and the 400/800 OS and it started up fine. So is there a way to make The!Cart load the 400/800 OS for a game or do I need to do that on the machine itself? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HiassofT Posted June 17, 2015 Share Posted June 17, 2015 So is there a way to make The!Cart load the 400/800 OS for a game or do I need to do that on the machine itself?IIRC that's currently not possible, you need to have a (switchable) OS installed in your Atari. so long, Hias Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marius Posted June 17, 2015 Share Posted June 17, 2015 IIRC that's currently not possible, you need to have a (switchable) OS installed in your Atari. so long, Hias If you add the games to a MaxFlash Studio workbook you can enable OS B emulation... and then export as a MaxFlash cartridge.... I have never tested it, so perhaps it doesn't work, but it is worth a try... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+remowilliams Posted June 17, 2015 Share Posted June 17, 2015 With a "real" serial port (16550 compatible, onboard or PCI/PCIe) you can only use 19200, 38400 and 57600 bit/sec. So you have to disable the "use non-standard speeds" option in AspeQt - this only works with a (FTDI) USB-serial converter or when using the AtariSIO backend with a 16C950 card. Interesting, I thought my PCIe 2S/1P card had 'real' 16550. I guess it doesn't which is why it works at that highest speed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted June 17, 2015 Share Posted June 17, 2015 IIRC that's currently not possible, you need to have a (switchable) OS installed in your Atari.so long,Hias Yeah I thought as much. I do have the switchable OS though If you add the games to a MaxFlash Studio workbook you can enable OS B emulation... and then export as a MaxFlash cartridge.... I have never tested it, so perhaps it doesn't work, but it is worth a try... I should try that. In the workbook I'm using (the one posted earlier in this thread) there's a MaxFlash entry called OS-B games, so maybe I can add it to that. What's the secret to making and importing a MaxFlash workbook into The!Cart? The ones the other person made show up and work, but the one I made never showed up (it was listed in the Studio software as MaxFlash $(an address range) and even if I renamed it it wouldn't show up on the actual cart. The way I was doing it was making a MaxFlash workbook with a few games then exporting it as a 1MB .car image then importing that into The!Cart studio. Is that not the way to do it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marius Posted June 17, 2015 Share Posted June 17, 2015 Yeah I thought as much. I do have the switchable OS though I should try that. In the workbook I'm using (the one posted earlier in this thread) there's a MaxFlash entry called OS-B games, so maybe I can add it to that. What's the secret to making and importing a MaxFlash workbook into The!Cart? The ones the other person made show up and work, but the one I made never showed up (it was listed in the Studio software as MaxFlash $(an address range) and even if I renamed it it wouldn't show up on the actual cart. The way I was doing it was making a MaxFlash workbook with a few games then exporting it as a 1MB .car image then importing that into The!Cart studio. Is that not the way to do it? I believe it should work that way yes... Oh one thing: perhaps OS B emulation does not apply to 8K ROM files... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ricortes Posted June 17, 2015 Share Posted June 17, 2015 None. The highest speed you can use with this port that'll work for communication with the Atari is 57600 and you should stick to the standard 1x/2x/3x baudrates. Standard serial ports only support speeds that can be derived from the maximum speed (115200) by dividing that by an integer. So you can, for example, get 57600 (115200/2) or 38400 (115200/3) but nothing in between. Unfortunately the speeds supported by Pokey are rather off, compared to the usual RS232 speeds. They are (approximately, PAL and NTSC machines are slightly different) 890000/(X+7) where X is the pokey divisor. In order to get reliable communication the speeds of the PC serial port and the pokey mustn't differ by more than some 3%. Which leaves us with the 57600/38400/19200 speeds. so long, Hias I believe the maximum BAUD rate on the US machines is clock/16 so ~1.79 MHz/16 or 112K BAUD. I never bothered to double check the divisors vs. what comes up. I always just assumed we were probably off by a couple of percent on the faster ones. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HiassofT Posted June 17, 2015 Share Posted June 17, 2015 Interesting, I thought my PCIe 2S/1P card had 'real' 16550. I guess it doesn't which is why it works at that highest speed.Last time I saw cards with "real" 16550 chips was some 20 years ago when we used ISA cards. Nowadays they are integrated into multi-IO chips from various manufacturers (Moschip, Winbond, ...). But this doesn't make any difference in everyday use, they usually are 100% register compatible to the original 16550 chip except for some minor quirks the driver/lowlevel developers have to worry about. so long, Hias Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HiassofT Posted June 17, 2015 Share Posted June 17, 2015 I believe the maximum BAUD rate on the US machines is clock/16 so ~1.79 MHz/16 or 112K BAUD. I never bothered to double check the divisors vs. what comes up. I always just assumed we were probably off by a couple of percent on the faster ones.NTSC machines can go up to pokey divisor 0, too, which is 127841 bits/sec (126675 on PAL). At divisor 1 pokey will do 111861 bits/sec on an NTSC machine and if you are very lucky this might _just_ work with a standard RS232 card at 115200 bits/sec. You'll have to try this yourself. I did most of my tests back then on PAL machines, but IIRC I also tested it with an NTSC computer and couldn't get reliable transmission at 115200. In theory the speed is only 2.9% too fast for pokey (3.8 for PAL), but in practice there are 2 big gotchas: One is that pokey doesn't sample in the very middle of each bit, but 4 or 5 clock cycles too late (at divisor 1 you have a total of 16 clock cycles per bit, instead of sampling at cycle 8 or 9 it samples at cycle 13). As a consequence pokey doesn't tolerate the usual +/- 3% in speed deviation but it's more like +1..-5% or something like this. +2.9% was on the limit before, and is above this limit considering the late sampling issue. The other thing is that the speed of your PC serial port might not be exactly 115200. Some cards use crystals where the exact rates can be easily derived, some other cards or onboard chips derive their frequency from a common crystal used for other components (floppy controller etc) as well and in this case the frequency may be slightly off (+/- 1% or so). If you are lucky and have a PC port that's slightly too slow 115200 bit/sec might just work with an NTSC Atari. But you'll be extremely near the edge. For these reasons we have to use speeds in SIO emulators that are slightly slower than the nominal PAL/NTSC pokey speeds, especially at the highest bitrates were the late-sampling issue is most critical. so long, Hias Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+remowilliams Posted June 17, 2015 Share Posted June 17, 2015 Last time I saw cards with "real" 16550 chips was some 20 years ago when we used ISA cards. Nowadays they are integrated into multi-IO chips from various manufacturers (Moschip, Winbond, ...). But this doesn't make any difference in everyday use, they usually are 100% register compatible to the original 16550 chip except for some minor quirks the driver/lowlevel developers have to worry about. Yes it's been some time... I thought mine was advertised as having '16C550' but that appears not to be the case. Even those that are listed that way have ASIX/MosChip in the tech details anyway. Luckily it seems to work flawlessly at DIV0 with The!Cart flashing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+JAC! Posted June 17, 2015 Share Posted June 17, 2015 (edited) I found a game that doesn't seem to want to work on The!Cart. Pac-Mac. When I load it up it comes up with the title screen then immediately crashes. Not sure if it needs a special setting or not. The reason is that the games uses the memory area starting at $3c0 for his own variables. That area is reserved for the OS, but usused (starting at $3e8) under OS B yet. Under XL OS, the location $3fa is essential as it contains the cartridge detection status. As the game writes a value there, the OS thinks you pull out the ROM and stops all processing. Here's version where I replaced all access to $3fa by $4fa which appears to be unused as a quick hack. At least the game starts then in Altirra with XL OS. MAC1-400 FIX-1.BIN Edited June 17, 2015 by JAC! 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted June 17, 2015 Share Posted June 17, 2015 Thanks! I'll try this tonight. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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