UnoCart firmware update(s)

[+Al_Nafuur]

New public UCA version v2.3.17 for the UnoCart.

• Disable exit function with file name key/extension ".noexit"

UnoCart user have to flash the firmware manually with the STM32CubeProgrammer via USB or ST-Link. If you already have update to the UCA firmware v.2.3.14 you can rename the .bin file to "firmware.bin" and put it in the root folder of your SD-Card. To update to the UCA firmware v2.3.14 from r17 see @ZackAttack's post here

 

UnoCart.bin

UnoCart.elf

 

 

[+sramirez2008]

Popped the cart in, and updated to latest version. Btw, the update completed very quickly. -Thanks.  

[phoenixdownita]

@Al_Nafuur I am having issues with the unified firmware and my old crusty unocart 2600 (it's an old one with just 512KB flash bought from TBA a few years ago).

 

Anyhow only recently I managed to play with it and my 7800. Updating to std firmware v17 worked as expected, then I updated to the UCA as indicated here:
 

Quote

To update to the UCA firmware v2.3.14 from r17 see @ZackAttack's post here

I like the new interface much better, easier to read, more lines on screen, changeable fonts, all goodies.
I also updated from 2.3.14 to 2.3.17 using your latest bin above (renaming and putting firmware.bin on the root) ... so far so good.

 

The issues I am having is that some games are now glitchy and/or unplayable.

 

Xenophobe for example on v17 works no issue, but on 2.3.14/17 loops at the "ship approaching" sequence, sometimes I may see half a second of the first room and then back to the sequence.
Phoenix on v17 works no pb but on 2.3.14/17 has the aliens "glitching" (the galaxian like levels more frequently, it resets to the center and even the alien mothership level) every 2 or 3 secs, when that happens the screen "shakes" (I am using a retrotink 5x so not sure if on a CRT the screen would "shake") .... funny part is that I can keep playing as it happens.

There are more issues with a couple of other random games I tried that go away as soon as I downgrade to v17 (via the UnifiedToLegacy.ace file at the link for the UCA upgrade), l believe dig dug doesn’t even start (I’m fuzzy on this one).

There are of course games that work right (for the little time I tried them) like Pitfall and Pitfall II .... maybe my cart is too old for the UCA firmware? Or maybe a timing issue on the new UCA fw tripping my old 512K chip?

I don't have another 7800 or 2600 to test with. I do have the original Phoenix 2600 cart that also works no pb on my 7800 if that helps. 
My 7800 had the C64 capacitor removed for the timing fix (unsure if it matters), but as I said it should be a fw issue as v17 does not have the glitches (I only have the one unocart 2600 with one SD card with games and the various firmwares/bin/ace to upgrade/downgrade, so all the tests are literally on the same hw).

[+Al_Nafuur]

4 hours ago, phoenixdownita said:

@Al_Nafuur I am having issues with the unified firmware and my old crusty unocart 2600 (it's an old one with just 512KB flash bought from TBA a few years ago).

 

Anyhow only recently I managed to play with it and my 7800. Updating to std firmware v17 worked as expected, then I updated to the UCA as indicated here:
 

I like the new interface much better, easier to read, more lines on screen, changeable fonts, all goodies.
I also updated from 2.3.14 to 2.3.17 using your latest bin above (renaming and putting firmware.bin on the root) ... so far so good.

 

The issues I am having is that some games are now glitchy and/or unplayable.

 

Xenophobe for example on v17 works no issue, but on 2.3.14/17 loops at the "ship approaching" sequence, sometimes I may see half a second of the first room and then back to the sequence.
Phoenix on v17 works no pb but on 2.3.14/17 has the aliens "glitching" (the galaxian like levels more frequently, it resets to the center and even the alien mothership level) every 2 or 3 secs, when that happens the screen "shakes" (I am using a retrotink 5x so not sure if on a CRT the screen would "shake") .... funny part is that I can keep playing as it happens.

There are more issues with a couple of other random games I tried that go away as soon as I downgrade to v17 (via the UnifiedToLegacy.ace file at the link for the UCA upgrade), l believe dig dug doesn’t even start (I’m fuzzy on this one).

I don't have a UnoCart, but I'll test these two on my PAL 7800 with a PlusCart.

 

4 hours ago, phoenixdownita said:

There are of course games that work right (for the little time I tried them) like Pitfall and Pitfall II .... maybe my card is too old for the UCA firmware? Or maybe a timing issue on the new UCA fw tripping my old 512K chip?

The UCA firmware should detect and work with the 512K version of the STM32F407. You can check at "Setup" -> "System Info" in the menu.

 

 

[phoenixdownita]

4 hours ago, Al_Nafuur said:

I don't have a UnoCart, but I'll test these two on my PAL 7800 with a PlusCart.

Forgot to add the important detail that I am in NTSC land using NTSC 7800 and roms, can confirm the glitch (although this last try with Xenophobe  I was able to be on the first room and to trip a glitch try to get to the next room on the right -> glitches back to title screen), and DigDug is locking hard (vertical stripes on screen) after few secs. I tried them both with the exit combo ON and OFF (just in case) but it makes no real difference.
As I was at it I tried 2.3.15 and it made no difference.

 

4 hours ago, Al_Nafuur said:

The UCA firmware should detect and work with the 512K version of the STM32F407. You can check at "Setup" -> "System Info" in the menu.

It detects a long serial number and states I have 512K, it does not report details on the chip per se.

[phoenixdownita]

@Al_Nafuur I assume your test passed and +cart is fine with those titles on you PAL 7800.

[+Al_Nafuur]

35 minutes ago, phoenixdownita said:

@Al_Nafuur I assume your test passed and +cart is fine with those titles on you PAL 7800.

Yes. I tested the PAL and NTSC versions of those ROMs.

 

 

[phoenixdownita]

On 6/21/2023 at 12:35 PM, phoenixdownita said:

@Al_Nafuur I am having issues with the unified firmware and my old crusty unocart 2600 (it's an old one with just 512KB flash bought from TBA a few years ago).

 

Anyhow only recently I managed to play with it and my 7800. Updating to std firmware v17 worked as expected, then I updated to the UCA as indicated here:
 

I like the new interface much better, easier to read, more lines on screen, changeable fonts, all goodies.
I also updated from 2.3.14 to 2.3.17 using your latest bin above (renaming and putting firmware.bin on the root) ... so far so good.

 

The issues I am having is that some games are now glitchy and/or unplayable.………

Full post 

 

@MacRorie any chance you could try the UCA firmware with an NTSC 7800 to see if it works?

(I purchased the UnoCart 2600 from TBA which I believe you have an affiliation with)
 

It may well be my 7800 but may as well ask.

[+MacRorie]

15 hours ago, phoenixdownita said:

Full post 

 

@MacRorie any chance you could try the UCA firmware with an NTSC 7800 to see if it works?

(I purchased the UnoCart 2600 from TBA which I believe you have an affiliation with)
 

It may well be my 7800 but may as well ask.

Sure.  I need to dig out my NTSC 7800 (I use a French SECAM model for testing, it has a nice 13 pin din SCART connection, sooo sweet! 🙂

 

Where is the firmware?

 

-M

 

[+Al_Nafuur]

 

7 hours ago, MacRorie said:

Where is the firmware?

https://github.com/Al-Nafuur/United-Carts-of-Atari/tree/main/firmware

 

or here:

 

[+Gemintronic]

I'm not in a position to definitely say when I'll report back.  But, I have to test an Uno cart on an NTSC 7800 soon.  Will hollar back at that time.

[phoenixdownita]

8 hours ago, MacRorie said:

Sure.  I need to dig out my NTSC 7800 (I use a French SECAM model for testing, it has a nice 13 pin din SCART connection, sooo sweet! 🙂

 

Where is the firmware?

 

-M

 

You need first to go to std r17 then use a special upgrader to switch over to uca v2.3.14 it’s all explained here with attached files

there’s also a downgrader there to go back from uca to std r17 which works pretty well.

 

I already have issues with uca v2.3.14 so it should be quick to validate (upgrading uca fw is a slight different process).

 

Hope it to be just an ntsc timing thing that can be fixed as the UI is definitely better imho …. maybe one day @Al_Nafuur can implement local offline rom support from SD who knows 😊

[phoenixdownita]

@MacRorie any luck?

[DirtyHairy]

Long time no see 😏 I have release firmware v18. This brings a few updates to the emulated BIOS that fix Survival Island and probably other supercharger games. You can find the release on github. Have fun!

[Dreammary]

Hmm my UNO cart stopped reading after the update. 
I have contacted The Brewing Academy. 

Edited September 13, 2023 by Dreammary

[DirtyHairy]

2 hours ago, Dreammary said:

Hmm my UNO cart stopped reading after the update. 
I have contacted The Brewing Academy. 

Hm, yesterday I tested the flash via ACE from v17 without issues. Did you see the "update complete" screen? You can always recover with a ST-Link/v2 dongle --- check my first post in this thread for details.

[DirtyHairy]

As a followup to @Dreammary misfortune: I retested multiple updates from SD between v16 -- v18 with downloads fresh from github, and it went without a hitch, so I think the update is safe to apply. However, this is just one sample, so until more people report success, a bit of caution might still be in order

[+-^CrossBow^-]

So as promised I pulled out my daily driver 7800 and fired up Xenophobe, Phoenix, and DigDug on it. Far as I know I have the UCA 2.17 build.

 

All three games load up and play just fine for me. The ONLY issue I had was that at some point in Xenophobe I suddenly couldn't fire off any shots anymore? But then after I got hit by one of the aliens and fell down, I could shoot again? So I'm not exactly sure what happened there but it only happened just the once. Either way, all three games loaded up fine and I was able to play through them.

 

My daily driver 7800 is a an A1 series unit. I do NOT know which CPU I have in there as I actually stuck heatsinks onto all four of the main chips a few years back before I took any pics of it for archives. So... yeah, no idea which Sally I have in it but I've never really had any compatibility issues with any games. Loads up Robot Tank and my Super Charger works on it too.

 

[phoenixdownita]

4 hours ago, -^CrossBow^- said:

So as promised I pulled out my daily driver 7800 and fired up Xenophobe, Phoenix, and DigDug on it. Far as I know I have the UCA 2.17 build.

 

All three games load up and play just fine for me. The ONLY issue I had was that at some point in Xenophobe I suddenly couldn't fire off any shots anymore? But then after I got hit by one of the aliens and fell down, I could shoot again? So I'm not exactly sure what happened there but it only happened just the once. Either way, all three games loaded up fine and I was able to play through them.

 

My daily driver 7800 is a an A1 series unit. I do NOT know which CPU I have in there as I actually stuck heatsinks onto all four of the main chips a few years back before I took any pics of it for archives. So... yeah, no idea which Sally I have in it but I've never really had any compatibility issues with any games. Loads up Robot Tank and my Super Charger works on it too.

 

Thanks for checking.

In due time maybe you can try a couple alternative 7800 revisions.

 

At least the std unocart fw works for me ( will give v18 a try soon) … pity because the UCA has a better UI allowing to navigate the SD list much easier thanks to the smaller font.

[phoenixdownita]

On 9/12/2023 at 1:04 PM, DirtyHairy said:

Long time no see 😏 I have release firmware v18. This brings a few updates to the emulated BIOS that fix Survival Island and probably other supercharger games. You can find the release on github. Have fun!

I think the UCAs 2.3.14 <-> 2.3.17 had a few tweaks from @Al_Nafuur, are they part of v18?

 

Is it hard to build the rollbackTo and upgradeTo binaries to round trip with then latest UCA? ( like when @ZackAttack did the v17 <-> 2.3.14 up/downgrader binaries )

[+-^CrossBow^-]

11 hours ago, phoenixdownita said:

Thanks for checking.

In due time maybe you can try a couple alternative 7800 revisions.

 

At least the std unocart fw works for me ( will give v18 a try soon) … pity because the UCA has a better UI allowing to navigate the SD list much easier thanks to the smaller font.

I went back and tested with my lab 7800. That is an A3 model and it has the timing circuit disabled and no issues with those 3 games. I even played some Xenophobe and everything was fine. I'm still bad at the 2600 version but it played without issues as did the other games.

 

So that is both an A1 that doesn't have the extra circuit at all and an A3 that does but disabled working fine with the UCA FW 2.17. 

 

So yeah, if a version with the new v18 stuff added comes out, I'm going to give that try to see if the Supercharger stuff is better as that build addresses.

 

[DirtyHairy]

13 hours ago, phoenixdownita said:

I think the UCAs 2.3.14 <-> 2.3.17 had a few tweaks from @Al_Nafuur, are they part of v18?

 

Is it hard to build the rollbackTo and upgradeTo binaries to round trip with then latest UCA? ( like when @ZackAttack did the v17 <-> 2.3.14 up/downgrader binaries )

No, the only relevant change is the fixed supercharger BIOS stub. What tweaks?

[+bent_pin]

Wonder if a 7800 diag cart could be made to identify the revision number of the console and the presence of an enable extra timing circuit.

[+-^CrossBow^-]

4 minutes ago, bent_pin said:

Wonder if a 7800 diag cart could be made to identify the revision number of the console and the presence of an enable extra timing circuit.

Not sure about that, but I can tell you that @SpiceWare's old Parrot Demo that uses Bus stuffing, refuses to work properly on any 7800 that has that timing circuit in place. With it enabled, the code is running but the screen is a scrambled mess. As soon as you clip the capacitor lead and disable that circuit, the parrot comes into view instantly. So I actually use that demo to get a pretty accurate measure of a 7800 having that circuit in place or not.

[+sramirez2008]

"UPDATE COMPLETE" v18 is working as expected for me. I tested Pink Panther, Phoenix, Zenophobe, Dig Dug and Communist Mutants. 
 

Note: Guess I need to test Survival Island next.