HiassofT Posted July 25, 2015 Share Posted July 25, 2015 Didn't know how to do an incremental upload so I selected option 3. During the process my stupid work laptop (PC) shut down because of energy settings (yes it was on mains power but it was still set up to shut down.) After changing that I repeated the process starting from a couple of blocks before where it shut down, hoping to still get a working situation....but alas....all I get when booting the cartridge now is a black screen..... Now what ? Try powering up with Option held down, this should bring you straight into the black menu. so long, Hias Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Level42 Posted July 25, 2015 Share Posted July 25, 2015 Thanks Hias.....but doesn't help....black screen whatever I try. Only thing I noticed is that when I hold the reset button on The!cart while booting up I get the built-in Memory Test (not the menu, it goes straight into the test). I'm gutted.....been struggling with the freaking Mac version of AspeQT for hours and resorted to the PC version I had on my laptop because I was tired of it and now this..... I blame myself though...should have looked better for the incremental flash option..but it's not so clear which option to choose from the menu. And no, there were no instructions with the cartridge (as suggested on the The!Cart studio website :S Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HiassofT Posted July 25, 2015 Share Posted July 25, 2015 Oh, just noticed you used "3) Program from raw image". Well, this was the wrong option, never use this one, only use "1) Program cartridge" if you created a programming image with The!Cart studio. This option will ask if you want to do an incremental or a full update. Pressing option won't do anything in this case, The!Cart will now try to start the programming header But there's another solution: Download the latest flasher software: http://www.horus.com/~hias/thecart/software/thecart-software-140407.zip and boot thecart.atr without The!Cart plugged in. Then load "HISIO.COM" from DOS and after that "FLASH.COM" (the COM file flasher doesn't have highspeed SIO built in). When the flasher says that it can't detect The!Cart hotplug it, with the reset-button on The!Cart held down. Your Atari might crash, if that's the case power off and try again. If your Atari didn't crash press RETURN and the flasher should detect the cart. Now mount your programming image in AspeQt and use option 1 to reprogram the cartridge (the flasher shouldn't ask for an incremental update, in case it asks enter "N"). so long, Hias 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Level42 Posted July 25, 2015 Share Posted July 25, 2015 (edited) Thanks !!! The 600XL didn't crash the third time I tried but now the flasher tool said the file size was incorrect....figured it might be a 128MB file and indeed I hadn't set that option correctly in The!Cart studio...(I have a 64MB The!Cart). SO I corrected that mistake and now it's programming the cart again ! BIG THANKS HIAS !!!!!!!!!! Edited July 25, 2015 by Level42 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Level42 Posted July 25, 2015 Share Posted July 25, 2015 And it works !!! Yahooo !!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+JAC! Posted August 7, 2015 Share Posted August 7, 2015 (edited) The!Cart Studio Version 2015-08-07 - Fujiama 2015 Edition released Fujiama was very productive this year with a lot real life testing on Mac and different Ataris. Here's the result. "TheCartStudio.app" for Mac OS X users now works correctly and allows to start the application directly from the finder. New modifier key "CONTROL" is evaluated when starting an entry to disable the default configuration lock. This can be useful when using software that is built to access the "The!Cart" cartridge in native mode, for example RAM disk drivers. See Extended Menu for details. New section Trouble Shooting added to the documentation. It also contains a download link to an archive including test workbooks for different sizes of cartridges and all supported cartridge types. for details. Description the flashing process for "The!Cart" added to section Programming Flash Cartridges of the documentation. Read more on: http://www.wudsn.com/productions/atari800/thecartstudio/help/TheCartStudio.html Edited August 7, 2015 by JAC! 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Level42 Posted August 7, 2015 Share Posted August 7, 2015 Mac user from beautiful country of Kazakhstan says: Very Nice !!!! 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+JAC! Posted August 8, 2015 Share Posted August 8, 2015 Another small update: Typing in the extended menu now creates a regular key click via GTIA. A bug during the search that was introduced in the previous version is fixed again. Substrings are now found again. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
morelenmir Posted August 10, 2015 Share Posted August 10, 2015 I have one of the prototype 32mB models which I bought for a slightly reduced price. Sadly it does not seem compatible with the "Ultimate1MB" and "VBXE" when installed together. In order to get the multicart to even boot I must turn off all the features of the "Ultimate1MB" - extra memory, PBI BIOS and SpartaDOS. The "VBXE" must also be disabled from inside the Setup BIOS. I must say this is somewhat of a disappointment, Has anyone else encountered this? Are there any workarounds? One of the chaps in another thread mentioned it was likely the "VBXE" causing the problem. I can also see how the extra memory on the multicart could conflict with the expanded memory of the "Ultimate1MB", but the other issues make it very inconvenient to use. If this is a general problem and not some quirk of my system it would be worthwhile to add a note about the compatibility issues on the web-page. Had I known about this situation in advance I would not have bought the item. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marius Posted August 10, 2015 Share Posted August 10, 2015 I have one of the prototype 32mB models which I bought for a slightly reduced price. Sadly it does not seem compatible with the "Ultimate1MB" and "VBXE" when installed together. In order to get the multicart to even boot I must turn off all the features of the "Ultimate1MB" - extra memory, PBI BIOS and SpartaDOS. The "VBXE" must also be disabled from inside the Setup BIOS. I must say this is somewhat of a disappointment, Has anyone else encountered this? Are there any workarounds? One of the chaps in another thread mentioned it was likely the "VBXE" causing the problem. I can also see how the extra memory on the multicart could conflict with the expanded memory of the "Ultimate1MB", but the other issues make it very inconvenient to use. If this is a general problem and not some quirk of my system it would be worthwhile to add a note about the compatibility issues on the web-page. Had I known about this situation in advance I would not have bought the item. Hi Morelenmir, At first: sorry to read you are experiencing issues with your The!Cart (32MB). I have only The!Cart (128MB) and I have mostly stock atari's. But one of my Atari's does have Ultimate 1MB (no VBXE) and in that 800XL I do not experience any issue at all with Ultimate 1MB and The!Cart. I am pretty satisfied by Ultimate 1MB, but I read from time to time issues people have with it (I have had some issues too, but in my 800XL it seems to work great). And yes I disable SDX too and PBI. I don't see much use of SDX and The!Cart together (except for a few coding cart roms like Mac/65 or Synassembler). Are you sure you do not want too much? Did you seriously try to disable everything except the memory expansion? The memory on the multicart is NOT conflicting with the memory expansion. I remember though that I had a few SIC! carts that also did not seemed to work in my U1MB atari. Had I known about this situation in advance I would not have bought the item. This is part of the hobby. I also sometimes find that combinations do not work together well. The!Cart is 100% working on original atari. Developers can't be blamed that something does not work on heavily modded atari's. They can not test their product on every possible configuration. I do not say you are blaming them, but I want to emphasize that The!Cart is an excellent product, and that there is big chance that the issue (if there is an issue) is in the Ultimate 1MB/VBXE combo. I was very surprised to find that The!Cart even works on my Atari 400 (PAL). It also works perfectly on my Atari 800 (NTSC), 1200XL (NTSC) and all my other PAL atari's. Also with all my 320/576KB XL/XE computers (even the one with the Ultimate 1MB) … so I am pretty sure it's not The!Cart that is causing issues in your place. Only thing: Is there a difference between the prototype 32MB and the final 128MB versions? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
morelenmir Posted August 10, 2015 Share Posted August 10, 2015 Hi Morelenmir, At first: sorry to read you are experiencing issues with your The!Cart (32MB). I have only The!Cart (128MB) and I have mostly stock atari's. But one of my Atari's does have Ultimate 1MB (no VBXE) and in that 800XL I do not experience any issue at all with Ultimate 1MB and The!Cart. I am pretty satisfied by Ultimate 1MB, but I read from time to time issues people have with it (I have had some issues too, but in my 800XL it seems to work great). And yes I disable SDX too and PBI. I don't see much use of SDX and The!Cart together (except for a few coding cart roms like Mac/65 or Synassembler). Are you sure you do not want too much? Did you seriously try to disable everything except the memory expansion? The memory on the multicart is NOT conflicting with the memory expansion. I remember though that I had a few SIC! carts that also did not seemed to work in my U1MB atari. This is part of the hobby. I also sometimes find that combinations do not work together well. The!Cart is 100% working on original atari. Developers can't be blamed that something does not work on heavily modded atari's. They can not test their product on every possible configuration. I do not say you are blaming them, but I want to emphasize that The!Cart is an excellent product, and that there is big chance that the issue (if there is an issue) is in the Ultimate 1MB/VBXE combo. I was very surprised to find that The!Cart even works on my Atari 400 (PAL). It also works perfectly on my Atari 800 (NTSC), 1200XL (NTSC) and all my other PAL atari's. Also with all my 320/576KB XL/XE computers (even the one with the Ultimate 1MB) … so I am pretty sure it's not The!Cart that is causing issues in your place. Only thing: Is there a difference between the prototype 32MB and the final 128MB versions? Those are totally fair points in themselves! In regards the physical setup - yep, every extra feature must be turned off. This includes the extra memory, the PBI BIOS and SDX. The "VBXE" must also be disabled from within the BIOS as well. I got the same behaviour from Altirra, although Phaeron reported he could not replicate it - so perhaps it is a very specific combination of features that causes the problem. Am I asking too much? I don't know. SDX would be nice, that way I could use the multicart as a host for programming languages and not boot from a DOS disk. 'PBI BIOS' - yes and no. The primary use of the 'PBI BIOS' is to allow a "SIDE2" cartridge CF card to pretend to be a hard-drive. Obviously with the "The!Cart" in place that is not necessary or possible, but the ancillary routines it also contains that provide high-speed SIO access are definitely missed. "VBXE" is a real killer failure - to have that missing is probably the biggest blow. In regards the nature of the hobby... Well - I agree in a large-scale way. Certainly every hobbyist who releases his hardware to the world cannot be expected to test compatibility with every other piece of homebrew. That said there are certain pieces of equipment of such high build quality and user take-up they have attained standing among the scene almost as omnipresent as the original Atari hardware itself. I would say the "Ultimate1MB", the "SIDE2", the "VBXE", the "RAM320/576" and the "IDE Plus v2.0" are so widely used that at the very least it would be useful if other homebrew makers perhaps mentioned they explicitly hadn't tested these devices on their new hardware. Certainly in future before I buy any equipment I will ask if the maker has run any compatibility series against these almost-standards. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marius Posted August 10, 2015 Share Posted August 10, 2015 In regards the nature of the hobby... Well - I agree in a large-scale way. Certainly every hobbyist who releases his hardware to the world cannot be expected to test compatibility with every other piece of homebrew. That said there are certain pieces of equipment of such high build quality and user take-up they have attained standing among the scene almost as omnipresent as the original Atari hardware itself. I would say the "Ultimate1MB", the "SIDE2", the "VBXE", the "RAM320/576" and the "IDE Plus v2.0" are so widely used that at the very least it would be useful if other homebrew makers perhaps mentioned they explicitly hadn't tested these devices on their new hardware. Certainly in future before I buy any equipment I will ask if the maker has run any compatibility series against these almost-standards. It is more complicated than that. The fact the my The!Cart does not give issues in my Ultimate1MB and yours does give issues proves that. Even when a developer does test his new gadget on his own hardware with all bells and whistles it does not guarantee that the new developed gadget will work on another atari with the same modifications. It's even a miracle that a lot of that stuff does work on all possible stock atari's, since there is no such thing as one strict list of specifications. There are some fluctuations in that between different models. When I upgraded my Atari 400 to 48K using a DIY 48K memory upgrade everything seemed to work fine, except for one thing. The AtariMax 8Mbit carts suddenly refused to work on my 400. They worked on 16K though. When I bought an original atari 48K upgrade the AtariMax 8Mbit carts suddenly started working again. Someone else I know made (specially for me) the same 48K DIY upgrade, and HE had no issues with AtariMax 8Mbit carts with that upgrade. Last word: I'm pretty sure (I have over 100 atari's) that there are a handful where my U1MB will not work. Perhaps I had simply luck that in my 800XL it works so well. Same story with the last batch of MyIDE 1 carts. In my Atari XL computers they work perfect. In my 800XE's they refuse to work. One thing i did not ask yet: did you try another power supply? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+JAC! Posted August 10, 2015 Share Posted August 10, 2015 (edited) Sadly it does not seem compatible with the "Ultimate1MB" and "VBXE" when installed together. In order to get the multicart to even boot I must turn off all the features of the "Ultimate1MB" - extra memory, PBI BIOS and SpartaDOS. What exactly happens when you turn the machine on with the extras enabled? What happens with The!Cart inserted and "OPTION" held during during power-up (should take you to the black expert menu). May just as well be down to having a modified OS. As opposed to the other mentioned expansions, The!Cart should not change any of the standard behaviours or electric properties of the board. Yet instable power supply is one of the most common problems in expanded machines. Edited August 10, 2015 by JAC! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
morelenmir Posted August 10, 2015 Share Posted August 10, 2015 What exactly happens when you turn the machine on with the extras enabled? What happens with The!Cart inserted and "OPTION" held during during power-up (should take you to the black expert menu). May just as well be down to having a modified OS. As opposed to the other mentioned expansions, The!Cart should not change any of the standard behaviours or electric properties of the board. Yet instable power supply is one of the most common problems in expanded machines. When I switch on - everything still enabled - I get a white cursor in the top-left and nothing else. It hangs there without any of the usual hand-shaking buzzes or a report of the PBI BIOS signing in. If I disable all the "Ultimate1MB" features but SDX, so memory to stock and no PBI I can boot to the normal SDX prompt. However if I then start up 'flash.com' to write the cartridge I get a message from it saying no "The!Cart" found or words to that effect. It is only with SDX down and no VBXE that I can boot to a DOS off floppy and start 'Flash.com' as normal. No worries though guys - ProWizard is absolutely right. There is an amount of the unknown to all pieces of homebrew. The fact any of them work at all on these 30+ year old pieces of equipment is a real testament to the electrical engineering of chaps like mega-hertz and candle who keep thinking up new and cool things to run on them. I just wanted to mention my issues so someone else with a similar setup can go in to picking one up with a little bit of warning that compatibility may be an issue. Foolishly it was not something I considered myself. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mega-hz Posted September 14, 2015 Author Share Posted September 14, 2015 (edited) I still have one 64MB and one 32MB THE!CART! The new pcb is just in soldering process. (the 1st prototype of the new layout) The drawings for the new housing is nearly ready to fabricate! But not on my cnc, it took too long, about 12 hours for 16 housings... but i got a great idea for making cases much cheaper and nicer! Not telling yet, whats about it :-) Here for those who can't wait, screenshots of the 64MB : Edited September 14, 2015 by mega-hz 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted September 14, 2015 Share Posted September 14, 2015 can i buy the 64mb version - PM sent Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dragos Posted September 15, 2015 Share Posted September 15, 2015 Well, since he got the 64, I'd like the 32 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mega-hz Posted September 15, 2015 Author Share Posted September 15, 2015 please send me a email for further things... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+JAC! Posted September 15, 2015 Share Posted September 15, 2015 How hard would it be to create an adapter for an eprom burner to be able to (partly) re-flash The!cart using that? The hard part is the driver/PC side of it and I don't think Steven would have any interest in that. One of the key decisions around The!Cart was, that it should not require additional hardware besides the Atari to actually flash. Consequences are the incremental falsh, that fact that 128 MB is the max size etc. Of course you need to transfer the data, but also nowadays you can assume people use some else than 1050 already - because it cannot directly download from AtariMania :-) One option might be to use the internal JTAG adapt of The!Cart to not flash the logic, but the content of the flash ROM. But here I'm just the software guy and hias/mega_hz can comment. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted September 16, 2015 Share Posted September 16, 2015 What?! I use a 1050 all the time... even to move stuff to flash carts.... the flasher could be coded to wait for a floppy swap.... I mean I could eat dinner while swapping disks, or even as you mentioned in earlier posts incrementally adding images over time as we go.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mega-hz Posted September 16, 2015 Author Share Posted September 16, 2015 The Jtag is ONLY for the XILINX Logic Chip! It can't be used for the Flash! The FlashChip has no JTAG or similar. It is like an eprom a paralell Device. Sorry, but there is no way to flash it on a different way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mega-hz Posted September 18, 2015 Author Share Posted September 18, 2015 Step1 has successfully finished: the prototype pcb of THE!CART2 is assembled an works fine on the first try! So the changes of the pcb-layout to the smaller size is correct and error-free! Step2 making the Case can run now.... 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+JAC! Posted September 20, 2015 Share Posted September 20, 2015 The!Cart Studio Update 2015-09-20 releasedFinally the reason for a looooong pending and to track down issue is found, thanks to support from Steven Tucker. 2015-09-20The "Multiple Entries" feature is now more reliable for corrupted Atarimax menus and can handle menus with more than 70 entries correctly now. "Maxflash Studio only reserves about 2000 bytes for the title texts. Title texts are store are variable length strings. Typically the entry space on the cartridge runs out for the entry data, before the title space runs out for the titles. But due to a missing warning in Maxflash studio, the title space can overwrite the entry space if many long titles are used. The!Cart studio now tried to detect that situation and stops at the last correct entry. See Maxflash Studio Menu corrupted when using >70 entries . 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marius Posted September 20, 2015 Share Posted September 20, 2015 Step1 has successfully finished: the prototype pcb of THE!CART2 is assembled an works fine on the first try! So the changes of the pcb-layout to the smaller size is correct and error-free! Step2 making the Case can run now.... Very interesting. I am a huge fan of The!Cart and the Java Studio for adding stuff to The!Cart. Can't wait for the successor. (Any chance you can support Carina ROM type?) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FULS Posted September 20, 2015 Share Posted September 20, 2015 The!Cart Studio Update 2015-09-20 released Finally the reason for a looooong pending and to track down issue is found, thanks to support from Steven Tucker.2015-09-20The "Multiple Entries" feature is now more reliable for corrupted Atarimax menus and can handle menus with more than 70 entries correctly now. "Maxflash Studio only reserves about 2000 bytes for the title texts. Title texts are store are variable length strings. Typically the entry space on the cartridge runs out for the entry data, before the title space runs out for the titles. But due to a missing warning in Maxflash studio, the title space can overwrite the entry space if many long titles are used. The!Cart studio now tried to detect that situation and stops at the last correct entry. See Maxflash Studio Menu corrupted when using >70 entries . JAC!, Thanks for pursuing that corruption bug (max. 2000 bytes for the title texts) with the Maxflash Studio. I use long descriptive file names whenever I can. It was very annoying not knowing what was causing my corrupted menus with Maxflash. Thanks, Doug Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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