Side3 RTC and Spartados X

[flashjazzcat]

40 minutes ago, reifsnyderb said:

If I understand correctly, I will be able to copy the XEX flasher (and SpartaDOSX ROM image) onto the SD card, insert the SD card into the the SIDE3, run the XEX flasher, and upgrade SpartaDOSX? 

Correct.

40 minutes ago, reifsnyderb said:

Is this a case of either converting an already existing program or adding a new feature to the program?

I'm using the SIDE3 Loader flasher (which I wrote along with Candle) as a starting point, but since SDX lives in the higher banks (requiring 10-bit bank number addressing), I need to make a non-trivial amount of changes. I was in the process of writing a flasher for the External U1MB prototype anyway (although I'm waiting on some info from Candle there), so it's kind of a timely exercise.

[flashjazzcat]

On 7/22/2023 at 4:50 PM, reifsnyderb said:

If I understand correctly, I will be able to copy the XEX flasher (and SpartaDOSX ROM image) onto the SD card, insert the SD card into the the SIDE3, run the XEX flasher, and upgrade SpartaDOSX?

Try this:

sdx449g.xex

 

Hot off the press, so to speak, but I've tested it with all three generations of SIDE3 here (launching the flasher directly from the loader), and it worked on all of them. If the SIDE3 flash ROM isn't meaningfully identified, probably best to stop there and report back to me.

 

Spent two hours trying to get the thing to boot cleanly into the newly flashed SDX ROM after the update is complete, and finally discovered (using EYE2.COM) that the order of writing to the control and banking registers is important in order for the ROM to show up. Funny the things you learn. By pure chance, never ran into that problem during the past three years and it's a quirk of real hardware and apparently not replicated in emulation.

[flashjazzcat]

Users might be interested to know of another method of flashing SIDE3's SDX ROM (which I overlooked until now) without recourse to the ATR. Simply extract FLASHER.COM and the SDX ROM file from the ATR and place both in a SDFS-formatted APT HDD partition (accessible with SIDE3.SYS which automatically installs when you boot SDX from the cart) on your SD card. The partition can have any drive number you like. Make that partition the default drive, then type FLASHER, and type 'Y' when asked if you want to use SpartaDOS IO.

Edited July 23, 2023 by flashjazzcat

[reifsnyderb]

4 hours ago, flashjazzcat said:

Try this:

sdx449g.xex 451 kB · 2 downloads

 

Hot off the press, so to speak, but I've tested it with all three generations of SIDE3 here (launching the flasher directly from the loader), and it worked on all of them. If the SIDE3 flash ROM isn't meaningfully identified, probably best to stop there and report back to me.

 

Spent two hours trying to get the thing to boot cleanly into the newly flashed SDX ROM after the update is complete, and finally discovered (using EYE2.COM) that the order of writing to the control and banking registers is important in order for the ROM to show up. Funny the things you learn. By pure chance, never ran into that problem during the past three years and it's a quirk of real hardware and apparently not replicated in emulation.

The upgrade worked.  Thanks!

 

Thank you also for getting this out so fast!

 

I had one "snag" but due to the nature of my hardware it isn't awfully surprising.  I had to pull my 1090 CX85 Numeric Keypad card to get the flasher to work.  I probably need to look into the ROM on the card a little more closely as I've noticed the card isn't working with SDX, either.  Basically, with this card, pressing a key generates an IRQ, which results in the card based IRQ handler running.  The IRQ handler, on the 1090 card, then puts the ATASCII value in CH.  The card works with BASIC, DOS 2.5, and others.  This card only has an IRQ registered with the OS and is otherwise not registered.

 

 

 

 

Edited July 23, 2023 by reifsnyderb

[reifsnyderb]

Update:  After a little more troubleshooting, I find that the CX85 card works fine if I boot straight into SDX as opposed to via the loader.  So, there's a work-around.   🙂

 

[flashjazzcat]

11 hours ago, reifsnyderb said:

I had to pull my 1090 CX85 Numeric Keypad card to get the flasher to work.

7 hours ago, reifsnyderb said:

After a little more troubleshooting, I find that the CX85 card works fine if I boot straight into SDX as opposed to via the loader.  So, there's a work-around.

I'm at a bit of a loss to advise here, since you don't mention the exact nature of the crash/compatibility issue with SDX or the flashing tool. I assume the device's firmware is on an external PBI ROM and raises an IRQ on the external bus?

[reifsnyderb]

2 hours ago, flashjazzcat said:

I'm at a bit of a loss to advise here, since you don't mention the exact nature of the crash/compatibility issue with SDX or the flashing tool. I assume the device's firmware is on an external PBI ROM and raises an IRQ on the external bus?

Correct, The device's firmware is on an external PBI ROM and signals with an IRQ.  Going from memory here, if the card is installed, the flasher program asked me to press Y or N to continue and also had a message to press a key to exit below it.  Pressing anything exited the program.  When I removed the card, I only had the message to press Y or N to continue and was able to upgrade SDX.  Oddly, all that was needed for the flasher problem to fail was to have the card inserted.  I didn't need to press a key on the keypad.

[flashjazzcat]

4 minutes ago, reifsnyderb said:

Oddly, all that was needed for the flasher problem to fail was to have the card inserted.

It sounds like it was unable to find the ROM and put the flash chip into auto-select mode. I'd have to see a photograph or verbatim description of what the flasher actually reported on the screen.

Edited July 24, 2023 by flashjazzcat

[reifsnyderb]

3 minutes ago, flashjazzcat said:

It sounds like it was unable to find the ROM and put the flash chip into auto-select mode. I'd have to see a photograph or verbatim description of what the flasher actually reported on the screen.

I just ran the flasher program, with the card inserted, and this is what's on the screen:

 

 

SIDE3 SpartaDOS X Flash Tool v.1.0

(C)2023, FJC and Candle O'Sin

 

SIDE3 flash ROM: MX29LV640ET

 

Flash SDX 4.49g? (Y/N):

Press a key to exit

 

 

The cursor is immediately after the "t" on the last line.  Pressing a key results in the program exiting.

 

[flashjazzcat]

15 minutes ago, reifsnyderb said:

I just ran the flasher program, with the card inserted, and this is what's on the screen:

 

 

SIDE3 SpartaDOS X Flash Tool v.1.0

(C)2023, FJC and Candle O'Sin

 

SIDE3 flash ROM: MX29LV640ET

 

Flash SDX 4.49g? (Y/N):

Press a key to exit

 

 

The cursor is immediately after the "t" on the last line.  Pressing a key results in the program exiting.

 

So it received a spurious pending keystroke which wasn't 'Y' as soon as it polled the keyboard. Since you had to remove a numeric keypad board to overcome the problem, I think that explains it. An application shouldn't have to clear CH before opening 'K:' for input.

Edited July 24, 2023 by flashjazzcat

[reifsnyderb]

29 minutes ago, flashjazzcat said:

So it received a spurious pending keystroke which wasn't 'Y' as soon as it polled the keyboard. Since you had to remove a numeric keypad board to overcome the problem, I think that explains it. An application shouldn't have to clear CH before opening 'K:' for input.

Your logic makes some sense in that maybe the value of CH is being changed.  I'll check the source code for the keyboard IRQ handler.  The only thing that isn't making sense is that the numeric keyboard driver does not do anything to CH unless an IRQ is set by pressing a key on the keypad.  No key was ever pressed.  Clearly the presence of the card is changing something.

[flashjazzcat]

Yeah. I experienced something similar many years ago when the original SIDE loader was being developed. It wasn't clearing CH after launching an XEX. UFLASH - for example - would experience a pending keystroke immediately upon launch, which was harmless in that case, but annoying (you could hear the key-click as soon as the application called the OS get key routine). You may be able to hear the same thing when the flasher starts up. The solution in the case of the loader was to properly clear CH before starting the XEX.