SIDE 3 preorder

[fenrock]

16 hours ago, flashjazzcat said:

I unreservedly recommend all three seasons of 'Bottom'. It's no doubt on Netflix.

 

The misfiring cattle-prod "trick or treating" was one of the funniest things I have ever seen on TV.

As well as the attempt to make a video for You've Been Framed where he throws darts at Eddie's head.

 

Ah, the memories.

I've got the live shows on DVD somewhere.

 

Edited November 3, 2020 by fenrock

[TGB1718]

25 minutes ago, fenrock said:

I've got the live shows on DVD somewhere

Me too, they are a riot, need to find them and watch again.

 

Now I think about it they maybe on VHS Video

 

Edited November 3, 2020 by TGB1718

[flashjazzcat]

23 minutes ago, fenrock said:

I've got the live shows on DVD somewhere.

Same here. Just sorry I never got to attend any of them.

 

Check out 'The Dangerous Brothers' and 'Mr. Jolly Lives Next Door' as well. I met Rik once at a book signing and the man was an absolute human dynamo of fun.

[TGB1718]

1 minute ago, flashjazzcat said:

I met Rik once at a book signing

You met a comedy God ?

[fenrock]

14 minutes ago, flashjazzcat said:

Check out 'The Dangerous Brothers' and 'Mr. Jolly Lives Next Door' as well.

I'd forgotten about The Dangerous Brothers!

I remember an interview with Ade saying how his and Rik's humour was quite violent. Even The Young Ones showed early elements of it.

[Frankie]

On 10/16/2020 at 2:15 PM, flashjazzcat said:

Nice one: I knew it. Thanks for confirming. What kind of card is the problematic one? I guess we're gonna have to compile a list of to-be-avoided media.

After I updated the side loader I started getting issues again. Tried another card,same thing. I have attached an image of the card. let me know how it works for you.

GAMES.img

[flashjazzcat]

14 hours ago, Frankie said:

fter I updated the side loader I started getting issues again. Tried another card,same thing. I have attached an image of the card. let me know how it works for you.

Thanks for that. What issues am I looking for?

 

Tip: if you ZIP down the image you can save a bit on upload/download time. Hmmm... scratch that. It's still 3.12GB zipped.

 

Thanks to fenrock, I can confirm there's a bug in the U1MB SIDE3 PBI BIOS concerning writes to disk images (ATRs). I guess this one somehow crept through the beta testing. ?

Edited November 5, 2020 by flashjazzcat

[flashjazzcat]

31 minutes ago, flashjazzcat said:

Thanks for that. What issues am I looking for?

The image appears to work here, so presumably you're encountering media or machine-specific IO errors which I can't reproduce?

[Frankie]

34 minutes ago, flashjazzcat said:

The image appears to work here, so presumably you're encountering media or machine-specific IO errors which I can't reproduce?

When I try and use the side loader I only see about 1/2 the directories. If I press Ctrl+D it will refresh and load some more. If I do it again, some disappear. 

[flashjazzcat]

6 minutes ago, Frankie said:

When I try and use the side loader I only see about 1/2 the directories. If I press Ctrl+D it will refresh and load some more. If I do it again, some disappear. 

Yep: intermittent IO problems. This may be relevant:

We already know than in rarer cases, the cartridge will boot to a black screen or even not be detected at all on a minority of setups, experience IO issues depending on the SD card brand and vintage (although that issue appears to have been largely addressed by the firmware update with the chip select fix) and whether or not there are other upgrades present in the machine. Last night I heard of IO problems and loader crashes in the presence of Turbo Freezer, and observable IO errors on one machine and not another.

 

So - I will venture there is some work to do when it comes to broad hardware stability.

[Jimbaloid]

On 10/24/2020 at 3:07 PM, mdivancic said:

Another thing to try is replace the 74LS08 with a 74F08 to fix stability issues with flash devices. My 800xl went from crazy unstable with a Side2 to completely stable with simple fix.

This has worked for me too - as discussed here early last week, I have 3 Atari machines of which 2 work perfectly with SIDE3 (once FJC fixed the SD compatibility issue), but the other one (Rev A 800XL) has been giving issues such as booting to BASIC or self-test, config reset messages, failure to load car files...

 

Replacing the 74LS08 with the fast logic equivalent 74F08 as suggested has resolved these issues.

 

To be clear, there were no known issues with the machine previously; I have a good variety of cartridges that all worked fine with this machine. It was also easy for me to try this as conveniently this chip was already in a socket.

 

Edited November 6, 2020 by Jimbaloid
edit for accuracy

[+Larry]

Is there a comparison somewhere of SIDE2 vs SIDE3 features? Preferably side by side (no pun intended)?   I have a SIDE2, so wonder what more I'll get with SIDE3.

[flashjazzcat]

11 minutes ago, Larry said:

Is there a comparison somewhere of SIDE2 vs SIDE3 features?

Check out Phil's 'A8 loading devices' chart (PDF) at the top of this thread:

But, in short, SIDE3 emulates cartridges, while SIDE2 does not. SIDE3 uses SD cards, SIDE2 uses CF cards (or CF/SD adapters). That's about it.

 

[KPeter]

Jon, are there some new updates on SIDE3 ? (Side3clk.sys missing ... OSS ROM, CAR for Basic XE is not really functional)

Thank you,

Peter

[flashjazzcat]

49 minutes ago, KPeter said:

Side3clk.sys missing

Is it? Have DLT released any new SDX images for SIDE3? I cannot release private test ROMs.

50 minutes ago, KPeter said:

OSS ROM, CAR for Basic XE is not really functional

You mean extensions don't work with OSS type 034M BASIC XE 4.22? I have no idea why this is, I am afraid.

 

And no; no updates as yet.

[Sinjinhawke]

Once a finished version of SDX is available for the SIDE3 is the process to upgrade as simple as the SIDE3 updates have been so far.  Never owned a previous version of the SIDE.

[flashjazzcat]

12 hours ago, Sinjinhawke said:

Once a finished version of SDX is available for the SIDE3 is the process to upgrade as simple as the SIDE3 updates have been so far.

Pretty much, yes. You get a flasher ATR (disk image) which you can boot over SIO2XXX or even straight from SIDE3 if you have U1MB (in the latter case, the 512KB update is performed rather quickly).

[theloneraider]

Just flashed the new bios (221020_RC) and it's working just how I always wanted it to after an initial mis-step that was probably SD card compatibility. Have settled on some bog standard Sandisk 8GB cards and they work a treat I'm happy to say.

 

I can now boot with the SIDE3/PBI bios from U1MB and set my cart as MAC 65 then switch to and from SDX no problem at all with unfettered access to the 'hard' drives on the SD card 

 

Looking forward to the full release!

Edited November 10, 2020 by theloneraider

[flashjazzcat]

6 minutes ago, theloneraider said:

Looking forward to the full release!

Great! I'll get onto that auto-run cart facility once some current ongoing issues are fixed up; looks like that facility will be useful to you.

[Mclaneinc]

On 11/3/2020 at 1:44 PM, flashjazzcat said:

I met Rik once at a book signing and the man was an absolute human dynamo of fun.

 

I met him at Chiswick Sainsburys, he would always park his big white but old Merc sideways on the disabled bays, every time..

 

He was in a rush so it was just a "love your stuff, big fan" type of talk while he ogled my missus...Seemed a nice bloke..(apart from ogling my wife..)

Edited November 10, 2020 by Mclaneinc

[flashjazzcat]

8 minutes ago, Mclaneinc said:

Seemed a nice bloke..(apart from ogling my wife..)

You should both feel blessed and profoundly honoured.

[Frankie]

On 11/5/2020 at 9:53 AM, flashjazzcat said:

Yep: intermittent IO problems. This may be relevant:

We already know than in rarer cases, the cartridge will boot to a black screen or even not be detected at all on a minority of setups, experience IO issues depending on the SD card brand and vintage (although that issue appears to have been largely addressed by the firmware update with the chip select fix) and whether or not there are other upgrades present in the machine. Last night I heard of IO problems and loader crashes in the presence of Turbo Freezer, and observable IO errors on one machine and not another.

 

So - I will venture there is some work to do when it comes to broad hardware stability.

 

I have two  800xl's I tried it in and it worked fine with those. It's my 1200XL with an Antonia board that is giving me the problems. I have already replaced the 74LS08 with a 74F08 but that didn't help. Side 1 and Side 2 both work in it so I'll just keep the Side 3 for my 800's.

[flashjazzcat]

3 minutes ago, Frankie said:

It's my 1200XL with an Antonia board that is giving me the problems.

I don't have Antonia here, unfortunately, but I do have several 1200XLs. SIDE3 received routine testing in a stock 1200XL, but I'm sure this thread will present news of changes/workarounds/mitigations for stability issues going forward.

[Mclaneinc]

26 minutes ago, flashjazzcat said:

You should both feel blessed and profoundly honoured.

We went to a taping of Blankety Blank with Les Dawson, part the way through he came in to the audience, headed straight to where we were and did the Cosmo Smallpiece "Knickers, Knackers, Knockers routine straight to my wife, made her day. We both cried with laughter, wish I had time to chat with him other than saying a big thank you.

 

Another genius gone but like Rik, not forgotten..

 

But enough, back on topic...:)

Edited November 10, 2020 by Mclaneinc

[flashjazzcat]

6 minutes ago, Mclaneinc said:

Another genius gone but like Rik, not forgotten..

Yep: really talented, funny people.