drac030 Posted April 9, 2020 Author Share Posted April 9, 2020 Do you mean some kind of INIDOS a rebours? I think it can be quickly written, yes. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jacques Posted April 9, 2020 Share Posted April 9, 2020 Something that would disable CAR (here SDX) and do a reboot afterwards, so in fact what COLD /N does. With SELECT-key kept, loading/booting such tiny binary would allow immediately have QMEG OS menu back, but now with disabled SDX, instead loading it all the way to SDX prompt to do COLD /N. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted April 9, 2020 Share Posted April 9, 2020 So cartridges which disallow a disk boot no longer suppress SDX itself? That's what I'm seeing, anyway (SIDE cartridge loader no longer boots when U1MB SDX is enabled). Isn't this functionally a reversion to the behaviour of older SDX versions? Obviously the SIDE cart build of SDX always behaved this way (otherwise it would never have been possible to boot SDX from the SIDE cartridge; the loader would have always started instead). I think I like the new behaviour better, anyway. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jacques Posted April 9, 2020 Share Posted April 9, 2020 (edited) Another issue found... 1. Run SDX from SIDE (SDX mode) to command prompt. 2. Type CAR to switch to SIDE-loader. 3. Pressing SIDE button DOES not disable SIDE-loader anymore, resetting Atari always causes coming back to SIDE loader (can't switch back to Sparta without power off). Edited April 9, 2020 by Jacques Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted April 9, 2020 Share Posted April 9, 2020 2 minutes ago, Jacques said: Pressing SIDE button DOES not disable SIDE-loader anymore The button is supposed to re-enable the SIDE loader, not disable it. But it also resets the SDX bank to 0, so if you booted prior SDX version from the SIDE cart and ran the loader with 'CAR', pressing the button and then pressing reset would cause SDX to reappear (just tested with SDX 4.49c to be sure). I haven't flashed SDX 4.49 final to a SIDE2 yet; I'll see what happens when I do. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drac030 Posted April 9, 2020 Author Share Posted April 9, 2020 16 minutes ago, Jacques said: Something that would disable CAR (here SDX) and do a reboot afterwards, so in fact what COLD /N does. But to run such a binary you wold have to load an ATR with it to D1 anyways. If so, why not to have an AUTOEXEC.BAT with COLD/N command inside on that ATR? @flashjazzcat SDX should no longer allow initialization of other cartridges at boot. This was nonsense, as during init a cartridge may set up some values in the memory, which SDX, when continuing to start afterwards, overwrites. So now it is the CAR command which initializes and starts cartridges inserted into the SDX cartridge port. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jacques Posted April 9, 2020 Share Posted April 9, 2020 1 minute ago, drac030 said: But to run such a binary you wold have to load an ATR with it to D1 anyways. If so, why not to have an AUTOEXEC.BAT with COLD/N command inside on that ATR? Not really, with QMEG and SIO2SD you CAN boot BINARY from any D1-D8 drive (doesn't have to be ATR), so that would be a big help and spare a lot of time against booting SDX and only afterwards COLD/N in AUTOEXEC.BAT via SIO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted April 9, 2020 Share Posted April 9, 2020 (edited) 5 minutes ago, drac030 said: SDX should no longer allow initialization of other cartridges at boot. This was nonsense, as during init a cartridge may set up some values in the memory, which SDX, when continuing to start afterwards, overwrites. So now it is the CAR command which initializes and starts cartridges inserted into the SDX cartridge port. Understood. I consider this a sensible approach too. BTW: I just flashed SDX on the SIDE cart and I'm not seeing the behaviour Jacques described. I run the loader with CAR, run a game, press the button, and I get SDX back. If I boot with the switch in the 'loader' position, things of course proceed as normal (i.e. the button brings the loader back). This all makes sense. PS: I think what Jacques is almost looking for here is an 'on/off' button on the SIDE cartridge. The purpose of the SIDE cartridge in SDX mode is... to provide built-in SDX. On an U1MB machine, you can turn SDX right off and boot with no cartridge ROM at all, but you can't do this with a SIDE cartridge. You need to pull the cartridge, or boot SDX and then do a 'COLD /N'. That's the way I always looked at it, at least. Edited April 9, 2020 by flashjazzcat 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jacques Posted April 9, 2020 Share Posted April 9, 2020 7 minutes ago, flashjazzcat said: (...) if you booted prior SDX version from the SIDE cart and ran the loader with 'CAR', pressing the button and then pressing reset would cause SDX to reappear (just tested with SDX 4.49c to be sure). I haven't flashed SDX 4.49 final to a SIDE2 yet; I'll see what happens when I do. Try 4.49, please, because it definitely doesn't work like this for me on 4.49 and SIDE(1), the button doesn't allow to reappear SDX in such scenario anymore. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted April 9, 2020 Share Posted April 9, 2020 Just now, Jacques said: Try 4.49, please, because it definitely doesn't work like this for me on 4.49 and SIDE(1), the button doesn't allow to reappear SDX in such scenario anymore. See prior post: it's done, and behaves as I would expect given the changes explained. I will try with an emulated SIDE1 (I no longer have a real one, unfortunately). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted April 9, 2020 Share Posted April 9, 2020 5 minutes ago, Jacques said: Try 4.49, please, because it definitely doesn't work like this for me on 4.49 and SIDE(1), the button doesn't allow to reappear SDX in such scenario anymore. Works in Altirra. Anything else I can test? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jacques Posted April 9, 2020 Share Posted April 9, 2020 (edited) Can you repeat it without loading the game? So going into SIDE loader with CAR from SDX prompt, and then trying to reinstate SDX back (SIDE button->warm reset)? On real Atari there's no way out from SIDE loader in this scenario without power off, honestly, without or with QMEG and even its "COLD" reboot Edited April 9, 2020 by Jacques Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted April 9, 2020 Share Posted April 9, 2020 1 minute ago, Jacques said: Can you repeat it without loading the game? So going into SIDE loader with CAR from SDX prompt, and then trying to reinstate SDX back (SIDE button->warm reset)? Done... still boots SDX. I would expect this, since the button re-enables both ROMs (SDX and loader, the latter appearing as an external cartridge plugged into an imaginary pass-thru slot in the back of the SIDE cart). SDX not booting in these circumstances would be most puzzling. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drac030 Posted April 9, 2020 Author Share Posted April 9, 2020 (edited) 24 minutes ago, Jacques said: Not really, with QMEG and SIO2SD you CAN boot BINARY from any D1-D8 drive (doesn't have to be ATR), so that would be a big help and spare a lot of time against booting SDX and only afterwards COLD/N in AUTOEXEC.BAT via SIO. Yes, but I thought you were saying that SDX prevents QMEG from booting anything because it takes over and lands in the DOS prompt before the QMEG menu appears. If I misunderstood, please elaborate. For now I have written a small proggie which you put into your CONFIG.SYS/CFG file. If SELECT is not depressed, it does nothing. If SELECT is depressed, it disables SDX and does a cold reboot. Tell me if this is of any help. EDIT: sorry, bad program. Please refetch the attachment. dissdx.zip Edited April 9, 2020 by drac030 Attachmend replaced 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jacques Posted April 9, 2020 Share Posted April 9, 2020 8 minutes ago, flashjazzcat said: Done... still boots SDX. I would expect this, since the button re-enables both ROMs (SDX and loader, the latter appearing as an external cartridge plugged into an imaginary pass-thru slot in the back of the SIDE cart). SDX not booting in these circumstances would be most puzzling. Maybe the button on my SIDE1 is faulty or there's something different in it's firmware, I tried now on SIDE2 and it's like you wrote, no problem to reinstate SDX by using SIDE2 button. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted April 9, 2020 Share Posted April 9, 2020 Just now, Jacques said: Maybe the button on my SIDE1 is faulty or there's something different in it's firmware Yeah: the only other possibility is that on a real SIDE1, the button only reset the external ROM bank and not the SDX one (and I can't verify this myself any more). But even this wouldn't explain things working for you using an older SDX version. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jacques Posted April 9, 2020 Share Posted April 9, 2020 (edited) 58 minutes ago, drac030 said: For now I have written a small proggie which you put into your CONFIG.SYS/CFG file. If SELECT is not depressed, it does nothing. If SELECT is depressed, it disables SDX and does a cold reboot. Tell me if this is of any help. EDIT: sorry, bad program. Please refetch the attachment. dissdx.zip 199 B · 3 downloads Thank you Draco, this replaced attachment now works as expected and IS disabling SDX with SELECT depressed. It's useful, but still it takes a bit of time, because SDX needs to boot-up and then DEVICE DISSDX is preceeded with DEVICE SPARTA and DEVICE SIO in one of my .cfg files I created for this. If there would be additional standalone non-SDX binary that I could boot-up from QMEG directly and would act exactly the same as DISSDX, it would be perfect, but anyway, my life with 4.49 became easier already, thank you. Edited April 9, 2020 by Jacques Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drac030 Posted April 9, 2020 Author Share Posted April 9, 2020 22 minutes ago, Jacques said: If there would be additional standalone non-SDX binary that I could boot-up from QMEG directly and would act exactly the same as DISSDX, it would be perfect, I see, and it is possible to write such a program, but it would not be written so quickly considering the number of different SDX builds. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted April 9, 2020 Share Posted April 9, 2020 Well, thanks to @Jacques asking me to test things with SIDE1, I just discovered a small bug in version 4.0 of SIDE.SYS. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jacques Posted April 9, 2020 Share Posted April 9, 2020 15 minutes ago, flashjazzcat said: Well, thanks to @Jacques asking me to test things with SIDE1, I just discovered a small bug in version 4.0 of SIDE.SYS. Thanks! You're welcome I'm glad it helped elsewhere (as a SIDE-effect ?), while I'll still investigate what's wrong with my SIDE1. 24 minutes ago, drac030 said: I see, and it is possible to write such a program, but it would not be written so quickly considering the number of different SDX builds. Oh, I see... So in fact DISSDX.SYS uses SDX internal "COLD /N"-like mechanism present in each build, while such standalone binary would need handling for different SDX versions (I assume). Thanks for what I already have, then! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drac030 Posted April 9, 2020 Author Share Posted April 9, 2020 37 minutes ago, Jacques said: DISSDX.SYS uses SDX internal "COLD /N"-like mechanism present in each build, while such standalone binary would need handling for different SDX versions Yes, exactly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
E474 Posted April 9, 2020 Share Posted April 9, 2020 (edited) Posted in wrong thread, so I've deleted the post. Edited April 9, 2020 by E474 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted April 9, 2020 Share Posted April 9, 2020 The SELECT key held down at cold start and or warm reset is used to enter the MIO, please tell me this isn't being used for some other purpose and muck things up... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drac030 Posted April 9, 2020 Author Share Posted April 9, 2020 27 minutes ago, _The Doctor__ said: The SELECT key held down at cold start and or warm reset is used to enter the MIO, please tell me this isn't being used for some other purpose and muck things up... It is so, but I do not think Jacques has the MIO, and the program is just for him - and perhaps other QMEG users, who have a sudden problem, because SDX suddenly behaves under QMEG like under any other instance of Atari OS Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted April 9, 2020 Share Posted April 9, 2020 carden myself and others have both... please consider the masses. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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