AVGCART

[tmp]

2 hours ago, MiCV2 said:

But why can a modern memory expansion automatically and intelligently adapt to others?

i'm not sure what you're asking

2 hours ago, MiCV2 said:

I am attaching the demo with graphic errors here (Rambo).

according to https://a8.fandal.cz/detail.php?files_id=7091 that demo requires separate antic access (compy)

[MiCV2]

I mean a memory extension that can recognize what you already have. Everything good. Thanks 👍

 

RAMBO and Compy-Shop RAM mode, what a mess.. 😉

Edited February 14, 2023 by MiCV2

[_The Doctor__]

with the addition of a signal to the ECI/PBI Antic bank can be for external memory upgrades as well correct?

as for multiple memory upgrades... on an 800 with dual floating bus the ability to have more than one memory upgrade need not be an issue provided the upgrades access in different method or addresses.

the same can be for the XL XE but may require a bit more work to do. Antic access could even have it's own independent memory if someone actually wanted to go there. Why would a person want mixed memory upgrades exactly? the banking scheme using port B requires they follow the same pattern so to speak and avoid certain points so as not to kill BASIC, Antic access, etc. Maybe an old fashioned switch can help you toggle your internal upgrade to base memory / extended to let you have some choice.

[+CharlieChaplin]

On 2/3/2023 at 12:36 AM, CharlieChaplin said:

I have a problem with the firmware bb29 and my older AVG pcb. (Updating the firmware worked without problems.) Maybe I am the only one ?

 

When I press the CAPS key, the AVG config. window pops up, there I can choose several things, change or execute them and exit. Well, except one option - the settings. Whenever I make some changes there (e.g. set eXtended PBI memory to off), I try to save these changes. Think this is possible in two ways: a) by pressing the highlighted "s" for Save or b) by moving the cursor onto Save and then pressing Return. Alas, whenever I do that (pressing S or moving the cursor onto Save and then pressing Return) the computer and/or the cart freezes. I cannot leave this window anymore, no matter if I press Reset several times on the cart or on the computer. The cursor does not move anymore and no key has any effect. The only thing that works then is switching off the computer. When I power on again, the window for the AVG settings is gone and the AVG cart displays its normal menu. Thus, I cannot make any changes in the settings and save them permanently.

 

Tested computer: PAL Atari 800XL with 576k RAM (thats why I want to set extended AVG memory to off), XL-OS Rev. 2, stereo-Pokey board and Covox (both by Lotharek). No other enhancements.

 

Success! Problem solved! Mission accomplished!

 

1) create _AVGCART subdir manually: In the past the subdir _AVGCART had always been created automatically, when you changed the settings (e.g. switched Highspeed SIO on or off, etc.). But it looks like with firmware 0028 and newer it has to be created manually (on the PC) now. At least that worked for me and I could successfully save the (changed) config then.

 

2) be patient: When you do a firmware update this is finished in less than 10 seconds, but saving the (changed) config. for the very first time took a full 40 seconds with my Atari 800XL (XL-OS Rev. 2) and Sandisk ultra 128GB SD-card (130MB per second). All further saves of the config. are done in less than a second (maybe 1 tenth of a second, maybe half a second), it is only the first save that takes that long. Looked at the contents of the SD-card, the config file has a length of 40 Bytes. Since the first save takes 40 seconds, thats a whopping 1 Byte per second, quite slow compared to the 130MB per second the SD-card should be able to do ?!?

 

3) for the Rompack the order is important: If you want to use the supplied Rompack, you must take care of the order of updating the cart, i.e. if you must update the firmware also, then a) the firmware must be updated first, then b) the Rompack can be flashed by simply going to the Rompack file and pressing Return key, then the left AVG button. After the Rompack has been flashed, it looks like the Rompack file is not required anymore. (And if you do it the other way around, flash the Rompack first and then update the firmware, it will not work, at least it did not work for me.)

 

Puh, so now I have four AVG carts with the newest/latest firmware 0029, fully usable Rompack (OS) and can change+save the config whenever I want to. Happy, that it works now. Thanks to tmp for giving me several hints on what to do / try !

[tmp]

it seems you got bit by a bug i used to see occasionally where some writes would stall for some time (it used to be under 10s in my case) for an unknown reason, just in your case it was worse than usual (maybe it's somehow related to the fact that your sd card is much larger than what i usually use), it's possible it would go through even without having to create _AVGCART if you waited long enough

i'll have to figure out how to reproduce it deterministically and find out what's the issue now when somebody finally complained about it

 

[TheMontezuma]

I have recently updated my AVG cart (without cable mods) with 028 firmware and can not load ATR files anymore.

Pressing "Return" key turns the screen to black... I tried several ATRs.

 

Any idea?

[tmp]

check in About ("?") whether there's no cable being misdetected

check whether OSXEX2 on the sd card is the same as in the update zip

[TheMontezuma]

7 minutes ago, tmp said:

check in About ("?") whether there's no cable being misdetected

check whether OSXEX2 on the sd card is the same as in the update zip

OSXEX2 was OK, but the it says: Detected SIOPBI/ECI 600XL

I have 65XE with Ultimate 1MB (PBI BIOS disabled).

[tmp]

that's ok, detected addons are in inverse so nothing is being detected

you can try to disable features (ctrl-h (hsio), ctrl-m (extmem), ctrl-e (autoenable), set OS to disabled in menu (CAPS)) but that should not make a difference

 

are you sure the tested atr files worked before? can you attach any?

Edited April 1, 2023 by tmp

[TheMontezuma]

23 minutes ago, tmp said:

that's ok, detected addons are in inverse so nothing is being detected

you can try to disable features (ctrl-h (hsio), ctrl-m (extmem), ctrl-e (autoenable), set OS to disabled in menu (CAPS)) but that should not make a difference

 

are you sure the tested atr files worked before? can you attach any?

Right. I disabled all features and I see no difference.

I'm not 100% sure if the ATR worked before, but I think so.

Thank you for looking at it

GAMES001.ATR

[tmp]

that one indeed doesn't work but i tried to downgrade to 0018 (which was released back in the day when dinosaurs were still walking among us) and it does not work either so it wasn't affected by the update

 

try something simple like dos 2.5 first

DOS v2.5 (1984)(Atari).atr

[TheMontezuma]

I see. GAMES001.ATR is a DD disk. Maybe that's the reason.

Anyway DOS and other SD disks seem to work fine. Thanks!!!

[rcamp48]

TMP : I have a question for you , a long time ago I used my AVG cart to write to an IDE hard drive file..... ever since that I have been unable to play back even the AVF files that I had created here in NTSC. It is as if they were created in PAL, they display that bad on my machine. PDM files however play back perfectly.

 

Is there a way to reset the AVG cart to factory specs so that my AVF movies will work properly , and also are there settings in my U1MB cart that might change things? I would love to start producing AVF files but for now I have to stick with making PDM files for the AVG cart, oh also I am using the SIO cable when running these videos.

 

Thanks in advance for your help and thanks for a good Atari product.

 

PS: This is for anyone else that wants to help convert good rock and roll mp3s to PDM files, I have way too many MP3 files to convert, and I am doing them all in 4 parts, (1 Part mono/NTSC, 1 part stereo NTSC, 1 part mono PAL, 1 Part stereo PAL), that is 4 files per MP3 song, I just printed out my list of MP3 songs and the printout was 239 pages of MP3 Files.

 

Here is a list of what I have , it is not a list for copying of MP3 files , rather a list for you to decide what is to be converted first, and I have to idea of what all of you want for PDM files.

 

The List: rcamp48s entire list of MP3s.pdf

 

[tmp]

there are no settings that could affect avf playback (settings are stored on sd card, to revert them, rename/delete folder _AVGCART)

 

if it worked before and now it doesn't, you need to figure out what has changed

different sd card? was u1mb installed at that time when it worked? are you trying files that worked for you before?

[_The Doctor__]

SUBCART,

AV_eraG_ecart,

@tmp

news?

Edited April 24, 2023 by _The Doctor__

[rcamp48]

14 hours ago, tmp said:

there are no settings that could affect avf playback (settings are stored on sd card, to revert them, rename/delete folder _AVGCART)

 

if it worked before and now it doesn't, you need to figure out what has changed

different sd card? was u1mb installed at that time when it worked? are you trying files that worked for you before?

I am wondering if somehow I accidently copied the pal settings over top of the NTSC settings for the AVF files, I will attempt to rebuild what I have anyways. It looks like the settings are for Pal and not NTSC. Russ

I am trying files that worked before and I had the U1MB in before.

[+CharlieChaplin]

18 hours ago, rcamp48 said:

TMP : I have a question for you , a long time ago I used my AVG cart to write to an IDE hard drive file..... ever since that I have been unable to play back even the AVF files that I had created here in NTSC. It is as if they were created in PAL, they display that bad on my machine. PDM files however play back perfectly.

 

Is there a way to reset the AVG cart to factory specs so that my AVF movies will work properly , and also are there settings in my U1MB cart that might change things? I would love to start producing AVF files but for now I have to stick with making PDM files for the AVG cart, oh also I am using the SIO cable when running these videos.

 

Thanks in advance for your help and thanks for a good Atari product.

 

There is no need to reset the AVG cart to factory settings. Defrag my friend, defrag is the solution!

 

The strange thing is, while IDE harddisks can and should be defragged, there is normally no need to defrag SD-cards. Still I had to do it several times, because otherwise some PDM soundfiles or AVF movies would not play correctly anymore (or not at all).

 

And errm, even then it happens, that I have to start playback for some AVF files 2x or 3x, because at first it only shows garbage (and plays heavy/loud noise) and when started a second or third time (from the same media!) it suddenly runs fine - no clue why. Maybe the Antic chip requires some resting period from time to time...?!?

 

P.S.: AVF files do not require SIO cable at all, since SIO is much too slow for this! AVF runs with up to 509KB per second, SIO cannot reach that speed (remember NTSC is 60fps and approx. 8KB per picture/frame, thats approx. 60 x 8KB = 480 KB per second)

[_The Doctor__]

the wear leveling does not mean the SD card is contiguous even though you would think it was, it just level the stream most instances not the actual files themselves. Crazy as it sounds they fair better copying one file at a time rather than sector streams... WTF!!!

[+CharlieChaplin]

16 hours ago, _The Doctor__ said:

SUBCART,

AV_eraG_ecart,

@tmp

news?

 

The sticker/label reads "SUB AVG CART".

Waiting for the PBI-cart, ermmm, Octavia.

 

[_The Doctor__]

The other Label read

 S U B

_average

 CART

 

or similar

 

Very Tongue in cheek!

 

another Label

  S U B

^AVGCART

Edited April 24, 2023 by _The Doctor__

[rcamp48]

 

 

 

On 4/24/2023 at 3:17 PM, CharlieChaplin said:

 

There is no need to reset the AVG cart to factory settings. Defrag my friend, defrag is the solution!

 

The strange thing is, while IDE harddisks can and should be defragged, there is normally no need to defrag SD-cards. Still I had to do it several times, because otherwise some PDM soundfiles or AVF movies would not play correctly anymore (or not at all).

 

And errm, even then it happens, that I have to start playback for some AVF files 2x or 3x, because at first it only shows garbage (and plays heavy/loud noise) and when started a second or third time (from the same media!) it suddenly runs fine - no clue why. Maybe the Antic chip requires some resting period from time to time...?!?

 

P.S.: AVF files do not require SIO cable at all, since SIO is much too slow for this! AVF runs with up to 509KB per second, SIO cannot reach that speed (remember NTSC is 60fps and approx. 8KB per picture/frame, thats approx. 60 x 8KB = 480 KB per second)

 

 

 

 

 

Hey Charlie: Here is an original set of NTSC and Pal files that was recorded from my gramophone and subsequently put on the Atari , hence it is called Listen_To_The_Mocking_Bird_On_An_Atari, the video is the original on the PC, the NTSC version does not work on my Atari at all, I could do it as a PDM file however. Check the PAL version out and see if it works, if you have an NTSC machine try it too..... I am beginning to suspect something may be wrong with my Atari 800XL.

 

Listen_To_The_Mocking_Bird_On_An_Atari_NTSC.avf

Listen_To_The_Mocking_Bird_On_An_Atari_PAL.avf

 

 

 

 

Edited May 4, 2023 by rcamp48

[ascrnet]

Hi @tmp,

 

question can this cartridge be enabled to record programs in basic? 😅

 

context this cartridge can store your programs in a 32KB memory for it uses a handler that activates a unit H: in BASIC

SAVE "M:A
LOAD "M:A
XIO 35,#1,0,0,0, "M: (directory)
XIO 33,#1,0,0,0, "M:A (delete a file)
XIO 254,#1,0,0,0, "M: (format)

New Memory Card.car

 

attached is a schematic I found of this cartridge

http://www.retrogames.cl/imagenes/nmc/esquematico_tb_nmc.jpg

 

regards

Edited May 10, 2023 by ascrnet
add schematic

[tmp]

theoretically? sure (i assume it's a williams type cart with battery backed sram instead of eprom so it'd need enabling overwriting cart contents in avgcart sram and as a bonus, somehow persisting those changes back to car)

but why?

[ascrnet]

2 hours ago, tmp said:

but why?

to emulate it 100% and AVG is really the king of emulation in cartridges around the world, besides in my country it was quite well known.
well if you can not at least try it 😉

 

regards

[+Larry]

@tmp  I'd like to upgrade my older AVGCART with the PBI and ECI cables.  (My SIO mod works great.)  I have a brown/white pcb with the diagonal solder pad.  I looked at the ECI Mod listing, and that looks doable by me.  My questions are about the cables and plastic connector.

 

1. Can I get longer cables from you, or must I splice/lengthen them myself?

2. Can you supply the plastic connector along with the cables?

-or-

3. Can you sell me a new-style PCB, if it will fit in my original cart shell?  If so, what would the price be? 

 

Thanks.