Jump to content
IGNORED

AVGCART


tmp

Recommended Posts

  • 2 weeks later...

( wrongly posted in the pre-order thread, my apologies but I can't remove it there )

 

Since I now own a Atari 850 and Wifimodem232 , I've been able to load Ice-T 2.80 alpha via a poor mans SIO2PC cable linked to RespeQt .

The AVG cart has been very usefull in booting ATR's which UNOcart can't start but Ice-T is a no-go .

Any idea if this could be made to work , I really would like to use the cartridge for this instead of having a cable run to a PC.

I've attached the ATR that I'm trying, if you would find the time to have a look.

 

Ice-T XE 2.80_alpha6.atr

Link to comment
Share on other sites

_The Doctor__, on 13 Oct 2018 - 12:28 PM, said:snapback.png

try later alphas that's an old one

 

Thanks a lot . I clearly missed the 2.80 alpha7 which works on the AVG cart, is this the latest alpha ?

Finally no more modern computer needs to be in proximity of the superior one :) well at least for Ice-T

Link to comment
Share on other sites

lol that last post was quoting the thank you from lastic but something went wrong and I wasn't able to do anything with the message. sadly I don't remember what I said.

 

The good news is the other AVG cartridge is now up and running!

Edited by _The Doctor__
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I received my AVG Cart several days ago. Now, to be perfectly honest my 130XE is sitting on the floor in a box right now as I rebuild my classic computer desks, which are primarily occupied by a TI, C64, and Amiga 1200, but now I am champing at the bit to get the XE set up.

 

I really had no idea how powerful this cartridge is, especially for what I paid for it. @tmp calls it the "Average Cartridge," but this is way above average. It is an awesome cart and I am looking forward to using it.

 

Well done, indeed!

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi TMP, anything on the cards for any updates?

 

I just ask as it promotes more interest in this wonderful cart and it keeps the current owners interested..

 

Obviously its amazing as it stands but you never know if there's any more stuff that may have come your way of idea's from others or from you..

 

Does not matter if there's nothing on the cards, its purely a query..

 

Bugger, this just reminded me, I knew I'd not done something...two carts to get wrapped and posted, sorry Mark and Pop, madness in my house as usual)...

 

The most unorganised bloke in the world here...

Edited by Mclaneinc
Link to comment
Share on other sites

i have not touched the code since 0014 was released (which would be almost 2 months now), there are only few (boring) things on my todo and since i hear no (loud) complaints about the current state or any ideas about exciting (and doable) new features, it's currently on hold

i'm sure there's going to be more development in the (near?) future, it's just currently not a priority due to reasons listed above

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No complaints here neither, like everybody else I'm amazed of the capabilities of this "average" cart for it's price .

 

However , an inquiry :-D could you have a look if loading these demos from AVGcart would be possible in the future, please ?

 

Cool Emotion - HARD

Timeless Announcement - BitBusters
Bitter Reality - Slight
Edited by Lastic
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I pleased as punch that both of these are now running for me.

 

I am certain there is much more to do. I we constantly picked things apart we'd be afraid to make you lose heart.

 

If you thrive on the challenges, we should all find time to have a test fest and let you have it! :)

 

Cleaning up the code and dotting I's crossing T's can be a reward in and of itself. Looking back through what you've done a couple months later can often yield wonderful new results!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

still working on some things here...

 

I was not able to enter basic using FJC's S2SDXavg

COLD /N does not disable the cartridge

Ultimate clock would not be needed if you had an ultimate as you would load SDX from there.... but if you wanted to I would leave the ultimate clock followed by rtime8 clock followed by jiffy clock

according to post #313, i did some fix for "cold /n" after b014 was released so it should be in 0014, please try that

 

SIDE driver loads says avgcart, but invalid partition....

so I load fdisk, it's not on the provided cart image!

so I load fdisk from respeqt. and it just blanks the sd card with wrong data, so I put it back into the pc and reformat as fat32 4 gig.. without volume info or anything... should I go further into XP manage drive and change something?

 

130XE NTSC stock, AVG cart b0014 firmware, 4 GB sd card, respeqt or ape of your choosing, sio2pc rs232... real sio drives.

 

does osxex version matter?

osxex version matters only for .atr loading

 

my memory on partioning/using fdisk on atari is hazy, i need to through the process again but if you start with single fat32 partition and try to use atari fdisk, you'll kill the data on the card

you will need at least 2 partitions, one fat32 (or fat16 if you want to be able to access it from sdx as well) and one that will be used for apt partitions

if you do partitioning on atari, i think you need to reformat the fat partition you create on pc

Link to comment
Share on other sites

okay so using windows I'll divide the SD in half and make 1 fat 16 and one fat 32 in that half.. leaving the remaining space not allocated...

 

then select s2sdx.car and and run FJC FDISK- it should work?

 

or do the above... shift control s load disk based sparta then FJC FDISK?

 

for whatever reason I kept getting bizarre sd card sizes... yet when using side loader and pdm all sizes on the cards report correctly.. Apologies in advance if I've forgotten something, this all used to be so easy for me.

Edited by _The Doctor__
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Tried to collect together various information here in this topic about the AVG cart. and create some "manual", "short information", "reference card" or whatever you may call it... Since I copied and pasted every information *I* found usefull, there are some double/redundant references in the text and maybe some things completely missing. Hopefully someone can come up with a better and more complete manual for the AVG cart (e.g. including what the left button is good for and what the right button is used for and several other things)... ;-)

 

Furthermore I would like to see the first post of this topic (or maybe a new topic?) updated by the author with a) the latest firmware, b) the latest manual, c) the latest add-on software (e.g. OSXEX, S2Loader.CAR, SDX.car, PDM.xex, etc.) for the AVG cart., whenever new firmware, software or useful stuff becomes available. After more than 400 postings it gets a little bit annoying searching for all that AVG stuff "flying around" in this topic... ;-)

AVG_Info.txt

Edited by CharlieChaplin
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

0014 actually has important changes to sdx cart handling, and works with more carts/xex's it is generally cleaned up with fixes as well.

you should also mention the importance of osxex to be in root directory

mention the firmware upgrade process requiring upd and that it's best to be in root directory.

right button currently reset the loaded cart image but not xex

left button currently resets the AVG and jumps to the last directory used

 

you could mention which one to press during upgrade process, not sure if pressing wrong one still does anything or might mess up the process in some way.

Edited by _The Doctor__
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hopefully someone can come up with a better and more complete manual for the AVG cart... ;-)

 

 

Okay, here is a small update, but I still hope that someone writes a better manual than me, especially, since I do not own a U1MB and never use SDX...

 

----- snip -----

 

AVG - Cart:

 

A great multi-purpose cartridge with SD-card by TMP 2018.

 

 

1) short reference and overview:

 

- loads CAR (up to 1MB), XEX (up to 1MB?), ATR (up to 512k?)

and other stuff; with U1MB present it fully emulates SIDE cart;

with or without U1MB it works with SIDE XEX-loader (S2loader.car)

and SDX (SDX.car); with SIDE XEX-loader it can load PDM-player

(PDM.xex) and playback 8Bit PDM files; and many more things...

 

- ? shows the current version

 

- Shift-s enables IDE emulation and reboots; shift-s will reboot

with IDE registers in cctl area enabled and no cart mapped -

useful for u1mb machines, internal sdx and side loader should

be able to access sd card as if it was IDE device (for machines

without U1MB, there are two *.CAR files to load SIDE loader

or SDX: S2loader.car and SDX.car)

 

- press Backspace to go to the parent directory

 

- use arrow keys to navigate the list, use arrow keys with ctrl

to jump to beginning/end of page/list

 

- Enter and letters choose/execute item

 

- Esc disables cart and reboots

 

- Shift-Ctrl-U starts update; Note: start the update in the root directory,

it requires a file AVGCARTA.UPD to be present in the root DIR to work

 

- right button currently resets the loaded cart image but not xex

 

- left button currently resets the AVG and jumps to the last directory used

 

 

addendum for firmware 0014:

 

no major changes except for some ATR improvements and search capability

(and some important changes to SDX cart handling and better XEX compatibility!)

 

-- ATR

 

- OS.XEX was renamed to OSXEX so be sure to copy it from the update zip file

(old one won't work since there were changes)

- ATR files are now writable (it is strongly recommended having a backup of

your SD card content just in case)

- you can now map multiple ATR files (using TAB) to D1:-D4: and use right cart

button to cycle between them

- OPTION key functionality is inverted (so BASIC is off by default)

 

-- search

 

- use / to search for files (recursively down from the current dir)

- ESC to cancel search

- BACKSPACE to return to normal file listing

HINT: If you search on an empty directory, press Backspace twice (2x) to see

anything again

 

 

2) CAR loading:

 

- various CAR image types up to 1MB can be loaded

- press right button on the AVG cart. to reset the loaded CAR image

 

 

3) XEX loading:

 

- use the built-in AVG cart. XEX loader and in case that one does not work

(XEX crashes, shows garbage, etc.) alternatively use the SIDE XEX loader (S2loader.CAR)

- note that since firmware 014 Option key is inverted (so Basic is off by default

and holding the Option key will switch Basic on!)

 

 

4) ATR loading:

 

- OSXEX must be present in the root directory for ATR loading to work

- uses RAM under the OS (a software or RAM-based OS), so only programs that do not

use RAM under the OS will work fine

- note that since firmware 014 Option key is inverted (so Basic is off by default

and holding the Option key will switch Basic on!)

 

 

5) PDM player:

 

- requires a) SIDE-loader (S2loader.car), b) PDM-player (PDM.xex) and c) PDM soundfiles

- the player by FJC currently supports only mono (44khz, 8bit)

- when the AVG menu appears, load programs a), then b) and finally c).

- looks like the PDM player has a search function, use Shift+anykey

to activate it (type in some letters and it will start searching)

- press Control-B to go to the beginning of the DIR or filelist, press Control-E

to go to the end of the DIR or filelist

- PDM files can be created online with your browser and the great online tool

"Fuji-Convert" by Xuel: https://lybrown.github.io/fujiconvert/

it will convert almost any soundfile (MP3, WAV, etc.) into the required PDM format

(technically also known as PCM 4+4), in either mono or stereo and various khz rates,

CAR/XEX/PDM/etc. formats; simply choose IDE-Player (flashjazzcat) for the PDM file to work

with the PDM-player (PDM.xex), Gain is volume control (1.0=100% or no change, 1.5=150%,

2.0=200%, etc.); Duration is for the length of the file (-1 means the full soundfile);

if you are using other carts or XEX you may want to limit the conversion to a max. size,

for AVG cart. with PDM-player you can leave it at the max. size of 128M (megabytes!);

resampling effort will reduce the (white) noise, but therefore conversion takes much longer!

 

 

6) SIDE XEX-loader:

 

- with or without U1MB present, the SIDE XEX-loader (S2loader.car) will load

various XEX files (even several XEX files that do not work with AVG cart. XEX-loader)

- with U1MB present it may or may not have more functions (unknown to me, since I do not

own a U1MB)

- note that since firmware 014 Option key is inverted (so Basic is off by default

and holding the Option key will switch Basic on!)

 

 

7) SDX emulation:

 

- full (?) SDX emulation with SDX.car (with/without U1MB?)

- no further knowledge here, since I do not own U1MB and have never used SDX

(and have no plans ever using it)...

 

----- snip -----

 

Attached the above text as a plain textfile. Sorry for all errors, but I leave updates and corrections of this text to other Atarians from now on... ;-)

AVG_Info.txt

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

Which version of FDISK are you using? I remember fixing a bug regarding large physical disk sizes in the recent update. Make sure you use the version from the latest toolkit ATR.

It's possible the supplied SIDE Loader is and older version, I think you were up to 2.0 and the supplied one is 1.29. There might be a reason for that. I don't know if it was hacked or modified at all. But it's definately the older side loader....

 

SIDE2 Driver is v.3.2 on the sdxrom provided.

 

FDISK looks like 4.73... and it's not on the sdx car rom, it's disk based.. the fdisk version with overlays do not appear in the supplied rom

Edited by _The Doctor__
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4.73 is the current FDISK version as per the most recent release (July 2018). SIDE driver is older and the loader is way out of date. Everything's available on my website. I have no idea where any of the AVG stuff came from or who put it together. There should be no reason to hack anything since AVG supposedly impersonates a SIDE1 cart, but as I say - no-one's spoken to me about anything since my discussions with Tmp when he was initially implementing IDE emulation.

Edited by flashjazzcat
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Side1... I vaguely remember that having some issues with u1m... they interfered with flashing one way or another or something like that. I wonder what other things were fixed up or improved.

 

If I catch your drift, I just need to convert it with a handy dandy car converter and copy the roms to the avg then.

Edited by _The Doctor__
Link to comment
Share on other sites

SIDE1's SDX banking register clashed with the U1MB SDX banking register at the same address ($D5E0), but the external cart banking register (used by the SIDE loader) is at $D5E4 on both SIDE1 and SIDE2, so that will not present a problem and there will be no need to hack the loader if it emulates the SIDE1's external cart banking register properly.

 

The easiest way to rectify any issues should be to grab the latest SIDE loader from my website and test it with the AVG cart. I can't do so yet, since I still haven't assembled my AVG.

 

Is there a copy of the SIDE loader ROM as found on the AVG cart in this thread, or can it be uploaded so I can have a look at it?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks. Looks reasonably stock to me. The only difference between the two ROMs is the cartridge mapper: 162 for the loader and 163 for SDX. Both images contain SDX and the loader, but only one half of the image is used by each mapper. They appear to be the SIDE2 images.

 

So... maybe these CAR versions of the 2.0 update will work:

 

SIDE2 CAR files.zip

 

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...