U1MB (old Bios) and it's car slots

[Stefan Both]

I could not find an answere yet, so I'm just asking. Those 4x  8k car slots. What is it good for / or / is there a collection of roms one could crawl?

I think I have missle command placed in one and Basic(c?) in the other slot. But there are another two slots left.

I never gave it much attention, but maybe it is useful somehow?

 

Stefan 

Edited December 26, 2022 by Stefan Both
Forgot picture

[Beeblebrox]

Had a quick look for old (Candle's)  U1MB firmware instructions. Couldn't really find anything. I've always just upgraded to FJC's firmware as it's a far more advanced and user friendly/useful bios. (All due respect to Candle).

 

So for the other slots you can flash 8k roms for other OS roms and game roms I believe. 

 

Which U1MB board do you have installed BTW? If in doubt take and upload a pic. The really old revision boards are black I believe. 

Edited December 26, 2022 by Beeblebrox

[flashjazzcat]

The 'XEGS game slots' become active when the XEGS jumper on the U1MB is closed and the XEGS OS is used. The selected game ROM will then run when the keyboard of an actual XEGS machine is disconnected, or if SELECT is held during power-up on a non-XEGS machine with the XEGS OS and the XEGS jumper closed. You could put any 8K ROM in there, but a game (Asteroids, Star Raiders, etc) might be more appropriate. Of course, you can still access the XEGS ROMs without the XEGS OS by manipulating PORTB directly.

 

The BASIC slots all function as per internal BASIC on the XL/XE, and any 8K application ROM is an ideal candidate (I have the Atari Assembler Editor, Altirra BASIC, etc, pre-installed in my firmware distros).

 

The functionality of these 8K ROM slots (of which there are eight in total) is identical regardless of which U1MB firmware is in use, other than the fact the newer firmware allows suppression of the internal BASIC ROM (so one can boot with BASIC disabled without having to hold down OPTION). The newer firmware also greys out the XEGS ROM slot selection when the XEGS jumper is left open (since any selection will otherwise be ignored).

 

Very old U1MB boards have a bug which makes at least one of the BASIC slots inaccessible, IIRC; this requires a CPLD JED update to fix.

Edited December 26, 2022 by flashjazzcat

[Stefan Both]

3 hours ago, Beeblebrox said:

...which U1MB board do you have installed BTW? If in doubt take and upload a pic. The really old revision boards are black I believe. 

It's not the oldest version.

@flashjazzcat got it some years ago in his hands to fix a (my) try to flash it.

 

Do you have a suggestion, which Roms are most useful?

 

Stefan 

[flashjazzcat]

1 minute ago, Stefan Both said:

Do you have a suggestion, which Roms are most useful?

I don't know if this question is for me, but see my previous post.

 

[gozar]

Besides the other recommendations, I have Deluxe Invaders in one of the slots.