fujidude Posted December 17, 2015 Share Posted December 17, 2015 Yep, all I had to do was make sure to unattach that damn cart. That's one of the issues with emulation, it's not obvious in front of your face. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrMartian Posted December 17, 2015 Share Posted December 17, 2015 Here's something I noticed with this new BIOS.. 800 w/ Incognito.. Often, when I reboot with SHIFT (cold boot), I have no PBI (Error: No DOS from SDX) If I go into the BIOS settings, everything is on. If I just reboot, still no PBI but if I do X to save and exit, it's all back.... ?? Also, turning it on today, again there was No Dos. But, when I went into settings, everything was a bit wonky.. It came up as Coleen w/ 16k (not XL/XE with 1088K as usual) and the menu icon showed SIDE not PBI... ????? Took a power cycle to get it back to normal... Anything I can test? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted December 17, 2015 Author Share Posted December 17, 2015 Often, when I reboot with SHIFT (cold boot), I have no PBI (Error: No DOS from SDX) If I go into the BIOS settings, everything is on. If I just reboot, still no PBI but if I do X to save and exit, it's all back.... ?? That doesn't denote the lack of PBI, but the fact SDX is off (perhaps temporarily, via bit 7 of the banking register), and there's no disk operating system on the boot drive. What you're eventually doing is either forcing SDX back on again, or resetting the hard disk boot drive to something bootable. Also, turning it on today, again there was No Dos. But, when I went into settings, everything was a bit wonky.. It came up as Coleen w/ 16k (not XL/XE with 1088K as usual) and the menu icon showed SIDE not PBI... ????? Took a power cycle to get it back to normal... Sounds worth checking out. If you'd like to try test builds before I put them up here (that goes for anyone, in fact) or do some diagnostics, drop me a PM. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrMartian Posted December 17, 2015 Share Posted December 17, 2015 That doesn't denote the lack of PBI, but the fact SDX is off (perhaps temporarily, via bit 7 of the banking register), and there's no disk operating system on the boot drive. What you're eventually doing is either forcing SDX back on again, or resetting the hard disk boot drive to something bootable. Hmm, true, that's probably out of the boot sector. So disk yes, SDX no. Hmmm. So it's possible that when I reboot, it was disabled, and thus stays disabled. Any way to put an option into your BIOS to re-enable it every boot if we ask it to? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted December 17, 2015 Author Share Posted December 17, 2015 Hmm, true, that's probably out of the boot sector. Exactly right: the boot code on a SpartaDOS X volume simply prints "Error: No DOS". So it's possible that when I reboot, it was disabled, and thus stays disabled. Any way to put an option into your BIOS to re-enable it every boot if we ask it to? The SDX banking register is another one of those "easy to break" areas, since we mustn't go near it otherwise we'll break "COLD /N" from the command line. The Ultimate BIOS just requires you to jump back into setup and press "c" to cold boot in order to reinstate the default SDX state, and that seems quite convenient. If things aren't working the same way in the Incognito BIOS, it's probably a bug. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+skr Posted December 19, 2015 Share Posted December 19, 2015 Finally I´ve set up my new Atari room and found some time for updates. I nearly fu**ed it up, because uflash is included with SDX on the CAR:-device! You should put a hint in the ReadMe, that if you create an .atr-file (like I did) want to load uflash from there, that you have to make sure to type "D1:uflash.xex". In first instance I just typed "D1:uflash" and uflash started. I didn´t realize it was the wrong version (should have noticed the missing loading beeps) and got errors. But instead of panicking I just left the machine on and made a second attempt. This worked like a charme. Now I play around with it. Thanks for this great software! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
morelenmir Posted December 19, 2015 Share Posted December 19, 2015 Finally I´ve set up my new Atari room and found some time for updates. I nearly fu**ed it up, because uflash is included with SDX on the CAR:-device! You should put a hint in the ReadMe, that if you create an .atr-file (like I did) want to load uflash from there, that you have to make sure to type "D1:uflash.xex". In first instance I just typed "D1:uflash" and uflash started. I didn´t realize it was the wrong version (should have noticed the missing loading beeps) and got errors. But instead of panicking I just left the machine on and made a second attempt. This worked like a charme. Now I play around with it. Thanks for this great software! You can always customize the distro of SDX that you flash to your Side2/U1MB using the 'SDXImager' tool. I have deleted the old version of uFlash for exactly the reason you mention skr! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted December 20, 2015 Author Share Posted December 20, 2015 You should put a hint in the ReadMe, that if you create an .atr-file (like I did) want to load uflash from there, that you have to make sure to type "D1:uflash.xex". In first instance I just typed "D1:uflash" and uflash started. I didn´t realize it was the wrong version (should have noticed the missing loading beeps) and got errors. Well, I mention you should use the version supplied with the ROMs but did indeed neglect to reiterate parts of the SpartaDOS X manual. Old versions of uflash won't touch the new firmware (as you discovered), though, so there should be little opportunity for f***-ups. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fujidude Posted December 20, 2015 Share Posted December 20, 2015 Yeah, it really shouldn't be up to you (FJC) to remind everyone about how paths work in SDX and their relation to executables. That being said, it is a fairly foreseeable "gotcha' and a quick mention wouldn't hurt. I think the same thing happened to me once, and I should have known better. Yet.. So it's cool either way. I suppose once that is in there, then there will be the next titbit that would be helpful and so on and so forth. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted December 20, 2015 Author Share Posted December 20, 2015 Well, it's too bad I spent more time coding than writing the cursory beta installation docs, but as I said the prior versions I placed on CAR: do not recognise the new ROMs so the worst that can happen is the user ends up on the forum asking why the file wouldn't load. And if the user knows enough to have placed intervening uflash versions on CAR:, he might already understand the pathing issue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fujidude Posted December 20, 2015 Share Posted December 20, 2015 Yeah, I was trying to be supportive of you actually, by saying there really could be no end to the level of detail one could provide. (But that doesn't mean one should spend forever including it.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
morelenmir Posted December 20, 2015 Share Posted December 20, 2015 Is there a trick to breaking the executable up to be small enough to fit as individual fragments in the SDX user space? I can imagine a method where the section actually named 'uflash.com' is nothing more than a loader which grabs the numbered *.OVL files one by one and assembles the completed thing in sequential memory before passing the flow of execution to the memory address where the now completed whole begins. I am sure there are other ways of doing it though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted December 20, 2015 Author Share Posted December 20, 2015 (edited) That's exactly what happens. The only requirement is that no single file exceeds 8KB in size. Native SDX OVL files are a little different, but uflash is a standard binary which works with any DOS. Of course this raises another point: namely that the version of uflash supplied with the ROMs is called UFLASH.XEX, and the version on CAR: is called UFLASH.COM. Using the version supplied with the ROMs (as the README directs the user to do) entails typing UFLASH.XEX at the SDX command line prompt. Anyway: no harm done, and point taken. Moving on... Edited December 20, 2015 by flashjazzcat 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
morelenmir Posted December 20, 2015 Share Posted December 20, 2015 That's exactly what happens. The only requirement is that no single file exceeds 8KB in size. Native SDX OVL files are a little different, but uflash is a standard binary which works with any DOS. Of course this raises another point: namely that the version of uflash supplied with the ROMs is called UFLASH.XEX, and the version on CAR: is called UFLASH.COM. Using the version supplied with the ROMs (as the README ditects the user to do) entails typing UFLASH.XEX at the SDX command line prompt. Moving on... :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gozar Posted December 20, 2015 Share Posted December 20, 2015 I rename the uflash executables with the version number so I don't accidentally run the wrong one. :-) Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
morelenmir Posted December 20, 2015 Share Posted December 20, 2015 I try to keep stringent track of the individual version numbers nowadays. Currently I have the latest offerings as: Ultimate1MB BIOS = v0.46, PBI BIOS = v1.5, SIDELoader = v0.30. IS this correct? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted December 20, 2015 Author Share Posted December 20, 2015 Yes. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
morelenmir Posted December 20, 2015 Share Posted December 20, 2015 Yes. Excellent! And - rather more critically - is the new functionality of SIDELoader safe to use to mount a disk image which contains these new flash files which in turn are used to update the Ultimate1MB? In the past I have used MATR for this fairly exclusively. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted December 20, 2015 Author Share Posted December 20, 2015 Should be, unless changes in the updated PBI BIOS were significant enough to cause the partition table equates to move, in which case it would immediately invalidate all the mounts. It's probably more convenient (and safer) to put the new ROMs and uFlash in the FAT and run the flasher direct from the XEX loader. This gives you read-only access to the ROMs so you can do the updates, but doesn't rely on the PBI code at all (indeed, you can leave the PBI BIOS turned off doing it this way). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fuji-Man Posted December 20, 2015 Share Posted December 20, 2015 I try to keep stringent track of the individual version numbers nowadays. Currently I have the latest offerings as: Ultimate1MB BIOS = v0.46, PBI BIOS = v1.5, SIDELoader = v0.30. IS this correct? Where does one find these updates? I'm stuck on U1MB at v0.24beta. PBI BIOS = No clue. SIDELoader = No clue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted December 20, 2015 Author Share Posted December 20, 2015 Latest full Ultimate 1MB update package: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/240034-new-alt-bios-for-ultimate-1mbincognito/page-14?do=findComment&comment=3389841 Incognito version: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/240034-new-alt-bios-for-ultimate-1mbincognito/page-14?do=findComment&comment=3391400 Ultimate BIOS bug-fix: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/240034-new-alt-bios-for-ultimate-1mbincognito/page-15?do=findComment&comment=3392607 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
morelenmir Posted December 20, 2015 Share Posted December 20, 2015 Should be, unless changes in the updated PBI BIOS were significant enough to cause the partition table equates to move, in which case it would immediately invalidate all the mounts. It's probably more convenient (and safer) to put the new ROMs and uFlash in the FAT and run the flasher direct from the XEX loader. This gives you read-only access to the ROMs so you can do the updates, but doesn't rely on the PBI code at all (indeed, you can leave the PBI BIOS turned off doing it this way). Unfortunately it looks not. I mounted the *.atr in SIDELoader, dropped back to SDX via an HELP+RESET to the U1MB menu and then 'B'. After the reboot the drive was visible and so were its contents. I launched the new UFlash.XEX, highlighted the 'BIOS' entry and told it to write the '0.46' flash in to that area. At which point the wheels fell off. It read the new BIOS okay, seemed to be going through its writing stage properly, but then the 'progress bar' jumped to the right hand side of the screen and the 'dialog box' holding it shrank down to be only large enough for the text. It completed, the red bar at the base came and went. Finally a scroll of garbled text popped up at the very bottom of the screen which caused the UFlash display to scroll up by a few lines. The text written here said something about 'System Error' with an alphanumeric string; the whole thing repeated enough times to cause the up-scroll. I knew at that point things were pretty drastic. However I still hoped a cold boot might clear the error. Sadly a power cycle gave me nothing, no boot handshaking, no blue background, no PBI message. Just a black screen. Bricked. Bugger it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted December 20, 2015 Author Share Posted December 20, 2015 (edited) Sounds like you've been very unlucky there, since I just tried the same procedure and it worked without incident. The fact the flasher appears to have blown up half way through the update would explain why the system was rendered unbootable, however. There's nothing about hosting the ROMs on a mounted ATR which would inherently cause this issue, aside from what I said earlier about partition table equates changing subsequent to a PBI update (and that would simply require an immediate cold reboot). On a positive note, replicating your actions alerted me to a bug which I'd introduced in the unpublished 0.47 BIOS, so I've fixed that. Edited December 20, 2015 by flashjazzcat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
morelenmir Posted December 20, 2015 Share Posted December 20, 2015 Sounds like you've been very unlucky there, since I just tried the same procedure and it worked without incident. The fact the flasher appears to have blown up half way through the update would explain why the system was rendered unbootable, however. There's nothing about hosting the ROMs on a mounted ATR which would inherently cause this issue, aside from what I said earlier about partition table equates changing subsequent to a PBI update (and that would simply require an immediate cold reboot). On a positive note, replicating your actions alerted me to a bug which I'd introduced in the unpublished 0.47 BIOS, so I've fixed that. I did just the same - ran through the update from the old 0.35 to 0.46 in Altirra, first with MATR and then SIDELoader... Strange and somewhat annoying as I'd just got rid of the patterning!!! Nevermind - I shall have to have another look at getting a standalone flasher in the New Year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted December 20, 2015 Author Share Posted December 20, 2015 Nevermind - I shall have to have another look at getting a standalone flasher in the New Year. You don't have one? Well, your determination to take the path less trodden without disaster recovery is to be admired. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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