New (alt) BIOS for Ultimate 1MB/Incognito

[flashjazzcat]

On 11/8/2023 at 10:32 PM, Pecus said:

Is it possible to add an option to quickly select a profile at boot time? (On splash-screen). E.g. keys 1-4 (the way the L key works now starting the loader).

6 minutes ago, Pecus said:

How about, in addition, the splash-screen color should be the same as the color of the selected profile?

IIRC, both are implemented in the forthcoming update which I should have released months ago, but didn't (largely owing to moving house taking three times longer than envisaged).

 

Should be in and settled in a week to ten days, so I ought to be back up and running shortly.

[Pecus]

Great!

Thanks.

[Back2skooldaze]

Hi Jazzcat, Please can you help? I have updated my ultimate 1mb to the the new 4.2 which is working. I have also update the side3 cart to the latest 0.69. Now the thing is the side 3cart has stopped working ? When the cart is inserted its showing no device and the menu function is very sticky and slow moving? I have used the same cart 3 in another ultimate 1mb atari with out the 4.2 update and the cart is working?

 

I have reflashed the ultimate 1mb again and reflashed the side 3 cart again and its still not working or showing my sd card? Have i done something wrong? 

 

On Ultimate bios version 2.20 in the systems settings under boot to loader there is SIDE Cart ROM greyed out Disabled? Has this got to do with the problem?

Edited February 1 by Back2skooldaze

[Beeblebrox]

9 minutes ago, Back2skooldaze said:

Hi Jazzcat, Please can you help? I have updated my ultimate 1mb to the the new 4.2 which is working. I have also update the side3 cart to the latest 0.69. Now the thing is the side 3cart has stopped working ? When the cart is inserted its showing no device and the menu function is very sticky and slow moving? I have used the same cart 3 in another ultimate 1mb atari with out the 4.2 update and the cart is working?

 

I have reflashed the ultimate 1mb again and reflashed the side 3 cart again and its still not working or showing my sd card? Have i done something wrong? 

You most likely have not flashed the plugin for side3 in U1MB. Take an image of your bios menu screen which shows the plugins present. If you haven't, it's easy.

 

Edit: also after you have checked about the plugin for side3 being present, make sure the pbi is enabled and hard disk is enabled in Bios.

Edited February 1 by Beeblebrox

[flashjazzcat]

Easiest way is to flash 'U1MBS3FW.ROM' to the 'firmware' slot, and this will certainly be the issue, as Beeblebrox has pointed out.

 

[Back2skooldaze]

Phew thank god for that LOL i thought i'd seriously screwed things up.. Thank you to Jazz and Beeblebox much appreciated

[manopac]

On 11/12/2023 at 2:02 PM, flashjazzcat said:

IIRC, both are implemented in the forthcoming update which I should have released months ago, but didn't (largely owing to moving house taking three times longer than envisaged).

 

Should be in and settled in a week to ten days, so I ought to be back up and running shortly.

I was wondering - did you ever get around to release it? just got my U1MB and Side2 and about to flash it 🙂

 

also - I can think of a feature that would be nice to have but not sure it is possible to implement it technically (or if its already implemented and I am just too stupid to find it?):

 

Turn Reset-Key into Cold-Reset, so that everytime I press reset I get back into the Side2 Loader Menu - it feels like this would make switching between games much quicker 🙂

[flashjazzcat]

15 minutes ago, manopac said:

I was wondering - did you ever get around to release it?

No - I forgot all about it.  As it happened, I didn't start getting the office ready until mid-December, and ended up drilling holes in the ceiling to add an additional lighting circuit. Then I did my accounts in January and started the work queue towards the end of that month. Thanks for the reminder, anyway.

17 minutes ago, manopac said:

also - I can think of a feature that would be nice to have but not sure it is possible to implement it technically (or if its already implemented and I am just too stupid to find it?):

 

Turn Reset-Key into Cold-Reset, so that everytime I press reset I get back into the Side2 Loader Menu - it feels like this would make switching between games much quicker 🙂

Try holding the 'L' key and pressing Reset. The system will block on the 'L' key but when you release it, the loader should start up. I just tested this with SIDE3/U1MB and it certainly works.

[manopac]

1 hour ago, flashjazzcat said:

Try holding the 'L' key and pressing Reset. The system will block on the 'L' key but when you release it, the loader should start up. I just tested this with SIDE3/U1MB and it certainly works.

hm - doesnt work for me - it just does a "soft" reset (i.e. back to the game if its staying in memory) - I have to do Reset+Help / then press L - the only way to get back to the loader without turning it off/on again (trying on an 800XL with U1MB, Side2 - maybe I have to change a setting in U1MB ? flashed with your 4.2 firmware already btw)

 

and thanks for the quick reply 🙂

[flashjazzcat]

7 minutes ago, manopac said:

maybe I have to change a setting in U1MB ?

You're correct. It's actually a dependency of having 'Cold boot' enabled:

Should work when you turn that on (the setting forces a coldstart on SELECT+RESET, and enables the loader shortcut).

[manopac]

5 minutes ago, flashjazzcat said:

Should work when you turn that on (the setting forces a coldstart on SELECT+RESET, and enables the loader shortcut).

and it does 🙂 cool !! thanks a lot - with the loader set to boot immediatly, I only have to press Select+Reset to get back to the loader 🙂 thanks a lot !! and looking forward to the next release of the firmware

Edited March 14 by manopac

[manopac]

20 minutes ago, flashjazzcat said:

You're correct. It's actually a dependency of having 'Cold boot' enabled:

Should work when you turn that on (the setting forces a coldstart on SELECT+RESET, and enables the loader shortcut).

would it be easy to add "Reset" as an option for Cold boot ? to make the Cold boot the default whenever you press reset ? or would that break something else ?

[_The Doctor__]

that explains another issue, select console key activates MIO menus and screens that are normally non destructive on exit but was having some issues now... can we re assign cold start key to another key like C for cold start or some other easy to remember moniker?

Edited March 14 by _The Doctor__

[flashjazzcat]

43 minutes ago, manopac said:

would it be easy to add "Reset" as an option for Cold boot ? to make the Cold boot the default whenever you press reset ? or would that break something else ?

I'm a little wary of adding functionality like that to a single key, just because it's easy to accidentally press it. I remember hitting the F-key shortcut for the loader on the 1088XEL accidentally from time to time, and since that forces an OS restart, the result can be a little unexpected. Not that I'm against giving some thought to such things: as you can see, I tried to anticipate every usage scenario, but clearly I can't think of everything.

19 minutes ago, _The Doctor__ said:

that explains another issue, select console key activates MIO menus and screens that are normally non destructive on exit but was having some issues now... can we re assign cold start key to another key like C for cold start or some other easy to remember moniker?

I'd be reluctant to describe that as an 'issue' since contention over console key shortcuts was certainly known about when the firmware was designed, which is the reason the SELECT cold boot shortcut can be turned off (and may well be deactivated by default, IIRC and judging by the support question just answered), and the reason that entry into the configuration menu itself can be accomplished with START+RESET instead of HELP+RESET if the user so desires or if changing the hotkey will resolve a conflict with something else. The reason the loader shortcut (L) 'just works' is that it's simply leveraging the same code path employed by the function of starting the loader with 'L' when you power on the machine or perform a cold boot. Configuration space in NVRAM being at something of a premium now (I'd be surprised if there was more than one spare bit left), I'd have to think carefully before overloading system reset with yet more hotkey functionality, especially since increasing a setting (the 'Cold boot' hotkey setting in this case) from two options ('Disabled' and 'Select' here) to three requires an extra bit in NVRAM, and I'm not willing to actually ditch SELECT+RESET as a coldstart shortcut (since it's been the coldstart shortcut for the past nine years).

[RedShirt36]

I just installed the U1MB in my venerable 800XL, which I'm glad I kept all these years, and am starting to learn how to use it. The BIOS is easy to configure and works well, and I appreciate all your work in creating and maintaining it.

 

I have a couple of questions if you don't mind:

 

* I was able to find an Atari OS A NTSC ROM elsewhere on this site by doing some searching, but it took a while to find it. I replaced the OS B PAL ROM with it and it works perfectly (my Shamus cartridge was the test). Is there a repository of plugins, OS ROM images, and ROMS for the BASIC slots, to make finding such things easier?

 

* Right now I use the SD on my FujiNet for disk images and executables, which does not work with the loader feature of the U1MB (from everything I've read). I am thinking of getting a SIDE3, but was wondering if any thought has been given by the hardware developer to making a cheaper/simpler version of it for use with the U1MB, given that the realtime clock and other features are disabled when using it with the U1MB and apparently aren't necessary in that configuration. It's not a big deal, and I can certainly purchase a SIDE3 when they are in stock again, but I was just wondering about this possibility.

 

Thanks for your time and for providing such great software.

[flashjazzcat]

1 hour ago, RedShirt36 said:

Is there a repository of plugins, OS ROM images, and ROMS for the BASIC slots, to make finding such things easier?

The repository of plugins is in the firmware download. As for OS ROMs and 8K ROMs: there are quite a few places hosting these, such as:

 

http://ftp.pigwa.net/

1 hour ago, RedShirt36 said:

I am thinking of getting a SIDE3, but was wondering if any thought has been given by the hardware developer to making a cheaper/simpler version of it for use with the U1MB, given that the realtime clock and other features are disabled when using it with the U1MB and apparently aren't necessary in that configuration. It's not a big deal, and I can certainly purchase a SIDE3 when they are in stock again, but I was just wondering about this possibility.

You're describing something along the lines of the existing XEL-CF3 which Mytek designed for the 1088XEL. It's little more than an IDE connector with some buffers on the address bus, and the U1MB is able to drive the attached media as a HDD. Regarding SIDE3, however, although things like the on-cart SDX are redundant in the presence of U1MB, not much else is, given the capabilities of the hardware:

• The SIDE3 RTC is exploited by the loader's integral FAT DOS for the purposes of time and date stamping of files in FAT partitions (admittedly the U1MB RTC could be used when present, but in order to keep the FAT DOS as small as possible, it isn't).
• The SIDE3 loader heavily exploits DMA (SRAM to SRAM, SD to SRAM) as part of its basic operation, as well as the large amount of SRAM and ROM on the cartridge
• SIDE3 uses SD cards, which itself implies a resonable amount of hardware and software complexity
• The SIDE3 loader stores its configuration in the RTC chip's battery-backed NVRAM

So, a 'simplified' or cost-reduced SIDE3 could perhaps give up the on-board SDX (which is neither here nor there, since it occupies a tiny amount of the cartridge's 8MB of ROM), but not much else if full functionality (including cartridge emulation) is to be retained.

1 hour ago, RedShirt36 said:

Thanks for your time and for providing such great software.

My pleasure - thanks for the kind comments!

Edited March 18 by flashjazzcat

[RedShirt36]

3 minutes ago, flashjazzcat said:

The repository of plugins is in the firmware download. As for OS ROMs and 8K ROMs: there are quite a few places hosting these, such as:

 

http://ftp.pigwa.net/

You're describing something along the lines of the existing XEL-CF3 which Mytek designed for the 1088XEL. It's little more than an IDE connector with some buffers on the address bus, and the U1MB is able to drive the attached media as a HDD. Regarding SIDE3, however, although things like the on-cart SDX are redundant in the presence of U1MB, not much else is, given the capabilities of the hardware:

• The SIDE3 RTC is exploited by the loader's integral FAT DOS for the purposes of time and date stamping of files in FAT partitions (admittedly the U1MB RTC could be used when present, but in order to keep the FAT DOS as small as possible, it isn't).
• The SIDE3 loader heavily exploits DMA (SRAM to SRAM, SD to SRAM) as part of its basic operation, as well as the large amount of SRAM and ROM on the cartridge
• SIDE3 uses SD cards, which itself implies a resonable amount of hardware and software complexity
• The SIDE3 loader stores its configuration in the RTC chip's battery-backed NVRAM

So, a 'simplified' or cost-reduced SIDE3 could perhaps give up the on-board SDX (which is neither here nor there, since it occupies a tiny amount of the cartridge's 8MB of ROM), but not much else if full functionality (including cartridge emulation) is to be retained.

My pleasure - thanks for the kind comments!

Thank you for the response! I am now enlightened on both of these topics! 🙂