Atari 400/800 OS B PAL - The real McCoy

[luckybuck]

Oh yeah, right-to-left text entry, did forgot that... cool.

 

Maybe I am wrong, but there was once a guy, who saved many things from Atari before they trashed it in the end. Far later, then E.T. in the desert. Maybe he could saved the 5200 stuff? Even the roms? Perhaps, a new post will help?

[+JAC!]

Hi,

 

I’ve added a generic support for check sums including the implementation for the XL OS.


I have also extracted the ROM version information from the code into a separate CSV file (included in the jar) and added all from the Atari800 source. For the following ROMs I’d like to have sample files and maybe part numbers (If there were any).

 

File Size

CRC32

Type

ID

Revision

Date

Norm

Comment

Parts

16 KB

 

Atari OS

 

SYSROM_BB02R3

 

REV. 3

 

1984-3-23

 

PAL/NTSC

 

Prototype ROM, OS from Atari 1450XLD prototype, known as 1540OS3.V0 and 1450R3V0.ROM

 

Unknown

 

16 KB

 

Atari OS

 

SYSROM_BB02R3V4

 

REV. 3 VER. 4

 

1984-6-21

 

PAL/NTSC

 

Prototype ROM, OS from Atari 1450XLD prototype, known OS1450.128 and 1450R3VX.ROM

 

Unknown

 

16 KB

 

Atari OS

 

SYSROM_CC01R4

 

REV. 5 VER. 0

 

1984-9-6

 

PAL/NTSC

 

Potential Production ROM, compiled from sources by Tomasz Krasuski on 2014-05-31, see 'http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/78579-a800ossrc/page__view__findpost__p__961535'

 

Unknown

 

8 KB

 

Game

 

SYSROM_XEGAME

 

Missle Command, built-in version from Atari XEGS

 

C101687 (1st quarter)

 

 

You can see the content of the file in the online help also. If you spot any error or have additional information, I’d be happy to add it.

 

[luckybuck]

JAC! You are incredible!!! Fantastic work. Thank you so much.

 

So, sorry, but I am in great trouble at the moment, need some days to come out of that. Will then do Miner and Artifact List #2.

 

CU all soon.

[Kr0tki]

For the following ROMs I’d like to have sample files and maybe part numbers (If there were any).

The Missile Command image can be extracted from the 32 KB XEGS ROM, available here. As for the three prototype XL ROMs, I've already posted the appropriate links.

Edited June 17, 2014 by Kr0tki

[+JAC!]

Slowly everything is getting together. See http://www.wudsn.com/productions/atari800/atariromchecker/help/AtariROMChecker.html

for the complete list of what the tools now detects. Improvements:

- Missing ROMs added
- "Compare Entries" can now also be used if only a single entry is select. In this case is shows the ROM contents with offset & absolute address.

- MD5 added for all ROMs

- Checksums for XLs add, all checksum are now displayed generically

- Build version and ROM version characteristics included in HTML help
- Table in HTML is sortable

 

Questions:

- Are the 5200er ROMs working both with PAL & NTSC?

- Is there a date for the Missle Command/ROM?

- Are there dates for the BASIC ROMs A/B/C?

- Wouldn't it make sense to also add the 32k XEGS ROM for completeness? Which ID (SYSROM_...") and date would you use?

Edited June 18, 2014 by JAC!

[luckybuck]

Hi JAC!

 

That is so outstanding, can't say enough times thank you! :-)))

 

To your questions:

 

1st -: Must be, according to KrOtki and maybe Freddy (without checking), there were only these 2 roms. You have that marvelous tool for rom compare, maybe these 2 are just different in NTSC and PAL? Same way as the OS B roms in NTSC and PAL? Just guessing, I am not in the loop for knowing.

2nd -: Well, there are different sources:

1980 for a 6502 @ 1 MHz:

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_Command

don't think, they altered the source code very much from that version, but anyway:

http://www.arcade-history.com/?n=missile-command&page=detail&id=1644

3rd -: Well, according to:

The Atari BASIC Source Book-Bill Wilkinson-Kathleen O'Brien-Paul Laughton.pdf, we find:

 

Copyright © 1983 text, COMPUTE Publications, Inc.

Copyright © 1978, 1979, 1983 program listings, Optimized Systems Software, Inc. All rights reserved

that could mean A in 1978 to be published in 1979, B in 1979 to be published in 1979 and finally C in 1983 to be published > 1983?

To be on the safe side, we can ask Freddy or KrOtki?

4th -: A clear YES! But you have already done so! It is in your link above!

 

Maybe a 5th -? The Hebrew ROM and font? and of course the OS 255!!! This is on my rom list as #1...

Edited June 18, 2014 by luckybuck

[+CharlieChaplin]

Errm well,

 

I do have seven 800XL (PAL) computers, four of them have Atari Basic Rev. C built-in © 1984 by Atari, three of the XL`s had Atari Basic Revision B built-in © 1983 by Atari. Since I do not like Revision B Basic (due to the 16byte-save-bug) and I did not have more Revision C Basic chips, I threw in Revision A Basic © 1979 by Atari into these machines:

 

 

 

[luckybuck]

Well, I think we can take 1979 for Atari Basic Rev. A for sure as an official release.

 

And B for around 1983 and C for around 1984?

 

What about the Atari hardware manuals? Maybe Guus or Curt Vendel? They have been in the real loop.

[Kr0tki]

Huh? For some reason, "java -jar AtariROMChecker.jar" returns an "Error: Could not find or load main class com.wudsn.tools.atariroms.ROMChecker" for me. Using Java 1.7.0u60 on Ubuntu; the first version of AtariROMChecker worked fine.

 

- Are the 5200er ROMs working both with PAL & NTSC?

The 5200 BIOS doesn't contain tape and keyboard delay routines, so yeah, it would work on both NTSC and PAL consoles. But the rev. A BIOS differs from the original one in that it contains a simple form of region locking, active only in PAL - it checks a certain ROM location and only runs cartridges that identify themselves as PAL cartridges. So, if you had a PAL 5200 with the rev. A BIOS, it would not run some of the existing cartridges. Anyway, a PAL 5200 never reached the market, so the issue is moot.

 

- Is there a date for the Missle Command/ROM?

The XEGS Missile Command differs in exactly two bytes from the original 1981 cartridge, so we can't say the date is 1981. I would assume the date is 1987.

 

- Are there dates for the BASIC ROMs A/B/C?

I'd say 1979, 1983 and 1984, too. 1979 is obvious; 1983 because that's when the first 600/800XLs were released with rev. B built in; and 1984 because this ANTIC article says so.

 

- Wouldn't it make sense to also add the 32k XEGS ROM for completeness?

I think it would make sense, yes. But then it would also make sense to add the separate 400/800 ROMS of the Floating Point package, Low OS and High OS, as they were stored on three separate physical chips; and similarly the Low OS and High OS of the 1200XL.

 

Which ID (SYSROM_...") and date would you use?

The Id column in ROMVersions.csv is pointless and should be removed IMO. All those SYSROM_ IDs are an internal matter of Atari800, not intended to serve as any kind of ROM identification.

 

3rd -: Well, according to:

The Atari BASIC Source Book-Bill Wilkinson-Kathleen O'Brien-Paul Laughton.pdf, we find:

 

Copyright © 1983 text, COMPUTE Publications, Inc.

Copyright © 1978, 1979, 1983 program listings, Optimized Systems Software, Inc. All rights reserved

that could mean A in 1978 to be published in 1979, B in 1979 to be published in 1979 and finally C in 1983 to be published > 1983?

That wouldn't be right. The listing in the Source Book is actually of Rev. A, with the fixes listed in a separate appendix. The book was published before the 600/800XLs, ie. before rev. B. Edited June 19, 2014 by Kr0tki

[luckybuck]

KrOtki your knwoledge is overwhelming! Incredible! I am deeply impressed. If there will ever be Atari again, you should be CEO.

 

So, to finish the rom project, which roms do I have to add on the artifact list #2?

 

OS255 for sure, what else?

[+JAC!]

Back again. I had refactored the build and forgot one script. Will have a look at the replies above tomorrow.

[+JAC!]

Hi there,

all of the above feedback has been incorporated. I have also extracted the single chips from the compound ROM files, yielding a total of 36 detected versions/chips.

See http://www.wudsn.com/productions/atari800/atariromchecker/help/AtariROMChecker.html

Best regards, Peter.

[+JAC!]

Uploaded a small update of the ROM Checker with correct version information of the checker itself (not "??" anymore) and fixed documentation & download link (not "atari8000" anymore).

Madi reported display issues on Windows 8 which I cannot reproduce on my Windows 8 with built-in gfx card. Maybe somebody else can.
Or Windows still has no proper support for Arabic stuff, reminds me of another thread :-)

 

Edited October 5, 2014 by JAC!

[+JAC!]

Kevin Savetz was very helpful and ultimately opened up his Arabic 65XE to fill the last gap in my OS ROM list.

The boards appears to be a regular 130 XE Rev. 1. The 8-bit FAQ mentiones the OS ROM to be "14KiB Operating System ROM: XL OS Rev.3B (Arabic localized OS), C101700".
It corresponds to the source version BB1R59A.

As you can see the ROM version on the EPROM is "C101700-002C".

I've updated the ROM checker with that information and minor fix with an exception that occurred when reordering columns.

Edited May 16, 2015 by JAC!

[luckybuck]

Thank you very much Kevin, now the databank is complete. :-))) So great.

 

Now, we just have to find the rarity 20(?) ones:

 

 

OPERATING SYSTEM 255 (1st one for the 800) ; PRINT PEEK (65528) <RETURN> => 255

Atari OS Rev. B (PAL) (400-800) (1981) ; PRINT PEEK (65528) <RETURN> => 34

and we are done.

[+DrVenkman]

 

Now, we just have to find the rarity 20(?) ones:

 

 

OPERATING SYSTEM 255 (1st one for the 800) ; PRINT PEEK (65528) <RETURN> => 255

 

 

If I remember correctly, there was a thread here in the last year or so from a fellow who had what looked very much to be like a prototype 800 that he had acquired many years ago. If you can locate that thread and contact that user, you may be able to track down some details on that OS version.

 

EDIT: Okay, here's the thread I recalled but no luck. The machine is an engineering sample but it's got an NTSC Rev. OS (see the last page of the thread). Interesting discussion and internal photos, however.

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/122471-atari-800-engineering-serial-26/?hl=prototype%20800

Edited May 17, 2015 by DrVenkman

[luckybuck]

Thanks DrVenkman, have downloaded the roms, will try to get the result form FFF8.

[+JAC!]

Update: 2016-10-23

 

The download now also contains a simple automatic ROM dumper in Atari BASIC that runs on all Atari 8-bit machines with BASIC. Just boot the "AtariROMDumper.atr" with BASIC enabled. It will create a 16k file "D1:OS.ROM" and an 8k file "D1:BASIC.ROM" you can analyze then. Helpful if your machine only has less than 48k or the keyboard is not working.

 

[KLund1]

Sorry raise an old thread, But I was looking to find out what the difference is between OS-A and OS-B, and I found this very interesting thread. But it still not answer my question.

What is the difference between OS-A and OS-B?

Than after reading this thread, what is the difference between 1200XL Rev 10 and Rev 11?

I'm sure this differences are small, but they obliviously were needed.

[luckybuck]

I suggest you go to the AtariWiki, download in the source code chapter all the OSs you want, load them in a good editor (my no. 1 is Sublime Text) and do a compare. Quite easy.

[+CharlieChaplin]

Sorry raise an old thread, But I was looking to find out what the difference is between OS-A and OS-B, and I found this very interesting thread. But it still not answer my question.

What is the difference between OS-A and OS-B?

Than after reading this thread, what is the difference between 1200XL Rev 10 and Rev 11?

I'm sure this differences are small, but they obliviously were needed.

 

Hmmm, I do have two 800XL computers with 512k XRAM by mega-hz, XL-OS and OS-A. There is no switch to switch-off the XRAM, but when I switch from XL-OS to OS-A then Copy 2000 sees only 41KB RAM - it does not see the XRAM at all.

 

I also have two 800XL computers with 512k XRAM by tf_hh, XL-OS and OS-B. Again, there is no switch to switch-off the XRAM and when I switch from XL-OS to OS-B then Copy 2000 sees approx. 283KB RAM - which means, it sees 256k XRAM.

 

So I would guess, that OS-A is maybe limited to 48k RAM and does not see or use any XRAM in the 4000-7FFF area, whereas OS-B does see the XRAM in the 4000-7FFF area. Back then there were Axlon RAM enhancements for Atari 400 and 800 (and Axlon was a 100% daughter of Atari, chairman was Nolan Bushnell) and maybe they made that change in the OS to support the XRAM...?!?

 

Surely (and surely+ ) there are other differences, but this is one difference I can see on my XL computers when switched to one of the older OS...

Edited June 14, 2018 by CharlieChaplin

[+CharlieChaplin]

I suggest you go to the AtariWiki, download in the source code chapter all the OSs you want, load them in a good editor (my no. 1 is Sublime Text) and do a compare. Quite easy.

 

Here: https://atariwiki.org/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=Articles#section-Articles-OperatingSystemsOS

[KLund1]

Thanks.

The ram issue would seem like a major reason for Atari to upgrade to OS-B. Also for all of us:)

DO you thing that is the only difference? I can't read assembly code. Basic and Pascal is as far as I got.

Is the 1200XL OS rev differences documented some where?

[luckybuck]

@KLund1:

 

Let the editor do the work for you! In a resulting file, you see the differences.