A hand with a SIDE 1 cartridge?

[DyLucke]

Hello there, community.

It's been a very long time since my last post, despite i visit AtariAge normally, life has pushed me to be increasingly away from our hobby.
So i come here to ask for some aid about this matter.

Recently i salvaged on SIDE 1 unit i got from a local user that wasn't working at all.
Although i own several A8 computers, a couple of 800XLs and a couple of 65XEs, i always worked with my trusty SD Drive Nuxx i purchased here like a decade ago.

So i have NO idea about how SIDE works... I'm figuring out and i've already managed to know some things.

I got one small image of around 30MB for SIDE one form one thread, and i have to say it works quite well, but as you can figure, it's too tiny for a decent use nowadays.

I've tried several times to set a Trascend 1GB CF card, having it cleaned with SD Card Formatter, to FAT32.
However, it didn't work, i've tried several other CF cards i have lying around... Still no joy.

I know the card MUST be prepared in order to be able to drop the stuff into it and have it working using the SIDE loader, but it seems i can't manage to do it properly.
What am i missing? CF card model issues? Do i need a certain tool to prepare the CF before having it placed in the SIDE?

What about the other working mode? CF seems to boot SpartaDOS, but returns an error, 130 i believe.

I managed to download the flasher and the SIDE 1 upgrade flashrom, i placed it into the 128MB CF that works for me, but i wasn't able to flash the thing.
Flasher took returns a message of "unrecognised device"... I don't know why.

This unit seems to be from the very fist batch, assembled by Zaxon.
I recall i got one of these units back in the time, but i sold it after a while because it had no .atr support.

I've read that recent firmware has .atr support, however it's unclear for me if it depends on if you have the Ultimate 1mb expansion installed in your A8 or not.

Thank you everyone in advance.

 

[Beeblebrox]

Not had time to read your post in full but first stop - Can you confirm what firmware is installed on the SIDE1?  Drop an image of the loader screen here if you like.

 

If you don't have a Flashjazzcat firmware installed - which sounds like it is likely, you can here:

https://atari8.co.uk/firmware/side/

 

I don't know too much about the first Side cart (I have SIDE 3), so not sure if - with FJC's firmware - like SIDE3 - it gives you a limited ATR support without U1MB. I don't think you get any ATR support with the first SIDE cart.

 

EDIT: I see FJC has chimmed in so over to him 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 10, 2022 by Beeblebrox

[flashjazzcat]

ATR support for SIDE/SIDE2 still requires U1MB. The original SIDE cartridges had an issue with power delivery to the CF card, IIRC, which could be alleviated by a thick jumper wire, but since I long ago got rid of my last original SIDE cart, I can't recall the details. Recent loader and SDX/SIDE.SYS will work with the original cartridges, once any stability/power/card compatibility issues are overcome. Those carts were quite picky about CF cards, though, and I'd recommend Sandisk over Transcend or Kingston.

 

[DyLucke]

So .ATR requires U1MB, i expected it to be like that.
So, the device is picky about the cards. Hit and miss i guess. I'll take your word on Sandisk.

However, i would like to know if i'm doing as it should. The card must be formated to FAT32, right?
Not FAT16, exFAT or whatsoever.

Then, i just drop the stuff into the card and it should be working through the SIDE launcher menu.
That worked with the 128mb CF.

In any case, it seems i can't update to a more recent loader or flash the unit.

For what i've seen SIDE loader loads from the internal memory of the device, so the only thing i could do is to flash it... I guess.
I've loaded this file SIDE_Loader_4.0_070721_SDX_4.49e.zip
Found inside the following ones: side.rom and uflash.xex

AFAIK i should drop both files into the CF card, use the SIDE menu loader to load the .xex and then locate the .rom to flash the unit.

It just doesn't work. Once the uflash.xex menu comes in, it states that the device is not recognised. If i choose SIDE device manually, it just won't work.
No device connected.

What's happening here?

Thank you for the help.

 

[Beeblebrox]

Like I say can you confirm what firmware is installed? 

 

Drop an image here on the thread. 

 

 

[DyLucke]

A picture of the SIDE menu you mean?

By the way, good news i found a 4GB unbranded CF that works.
However, updating is still needed.

Don't mind the bad quality of the image, it's a LCD meant for testing purposes only.

Edited December 10, 2022 by DyLucke

[Beeblebrox]

OK so this so a very old firmware, pre fjc firmware. Upgrade via the link I posted earlier.

[flashjazzcat]

UFLASH can no longer detect SIDE1 (bug), although it works fine with SIDE2. Mount SIDE_FULL.ATR (with SIO2PC/RespeQt or similar) and run SIDE.COM to update the whole cartridge.

[DyLucke]

34 minutes ago, Beeblebrox said:

OK so this so a very old firmware, pre fjc firmware. Upgrade via the link I posted earlier.

SIDE_Loader_4.0_070721_SDX_4.49e.zip
I downloaded it before posting. Used uflash.xex and side.rom with no luck.

As FJC says it must be a bug or something.

I've extracted the SIDE_FULL.ATR file from the .zip and i've used the SD Drive Nuxx to load it. It's flashing the device now, so far so good. I'll report about the result later on.
Cheers!

[DyLucke]

It worked!

Now i will need to learn about all the new stuff that appeared on screen.

As for the SpartaDOS stuff... Is there any tutorial around to manage to get it working?

Thank you, both of you.

[Beeblebrox]

Great. Now u have the fjc firmware loaded, read the manual.

https://atari8.co.uk/firmware/side/

 

 

 

[flashjazzcat]

And for SpartaDOS X:

 

https://sdx.atari8.info/index.php?show=en_docs