Altirra 2.10 released

[flashjazzcat]

Regarding the hot key for the menu: Help + Reset (i.e. F6 and F5).

[Mclaneinc]

Regarding the hot key for the menu: Help + Reset (i.e. F6 and F5).

 

Yes I read the manual after a bit but it does not seem to work (for me) on the emulated 1MB Support...

 

Probably me, sure I turned off everything Phaeron said to have off but will triple check.

 

And thanks for the help Jon on the SIDE bit on the previous page, I've not read it as yet but will be on it..Many thanks..

 

EDIT: Found out why the f%+F6 wasn't working, had the keyboard set on cooked keys instead of raw key presses..Works fine now.

Edited September 18, 2012 by Mclaneinc

[Mclaneinc]

Got my partition up and running thanks...

 

Damn you can't use the H: devices to copy the atr's

 

Tried but none were recognised (even tho Phaeron said to make sure they were off)

 

Will play more later

 

Again, thanks..

[Mclaneinc]

Hmm...Got an atr on to c: and put matr.com on C: ran it and it just went back to the cli..

 

?

 

Atr is deffo on c:

[atari8warez]

You need a special build of Altirra that has it:

http://www.virtualdu...-2.20-u1mb5.zip

http://www.virtualdu...0-u1mb5-src.zip

 

I hadn't merged it back into mainline yet as I still need to clean a couple of things up, but it mostly works. You need to set the hardware configuration to XL/XE + 1088K + Ultimate1MB, then set the ROM image for it in the ROM images dialog.

 

Current caveats:

• You need an initial ROM image to start since Altirra doesn't have a placeholder ROM to boot a flasher disk.
  
• The keyboard mode must be switched from cooked keys to raw keys for the Help+Reset menu shortcut to work.
  
• All hooked devices must be disabled, including H:, printer, and RS-232. The problem is that Ultimate1MB occupies all of the address spaces that Altirra normally uses for CIO device hooks.
  
• VBXE, Covox, and SoundBoard emulation must be disabled as the decode hookups to U1MB are not implemented yet. Having these enabled will break the boot or PBI BIOSes.
  
• PBI button functionality is not yet accessible because Altirra doesn't emulate the SIDE menu button.
  
• Fast boot should be disabled as the fast boot code doesn't know how to deal with the kernel ROM bank switching.
  

 

Thank you for the detailed reply Avery this will be very helpful... and thank you for adding this support to Altirra.. which is IMO the one and only A8 emu i will ever need and use (no offense to other emu authors, they also do a great job but I prefer Altirra). And your responsiveness when it comes to support is unbeatable.. I am also a fan of your VirtualDub, another great piece of software.

 

I have one other question about the ROMs used in Altirra in general. Do they need a special format to work with Altirra or can i simply dump the U1MB and use the generated .rom file as is. I remember Candle, in one of his U1MB threads, has once submitted a v1.0 U1MB Bios rom saying that it is in Altirra loadable format.

 

Edit; Avery I guess you can disregard my last question. I tried it already with my U1MB rom file and it loads just fine.

Edited September 18, 2012 by atari8warez

[atari8warez]

@Phaeron

 

I don't know if this is something related to my laptop keyboard but F2, F3, and F4, F6 do not work (raw or cooked mode). For example when i am in the Self Test menu i can not select or start any of the tests using F3 and F4, or jump from self-test to U1MB Setup Menu using F6, or when I am booting i can not disable BASIC using F4.

 

Once I am at the SDX command line though, F2, F3, F4 work the same as arrow keys: down, left, right respectively, F6 seems to do nothing?

 

All my keyboard mappings are at the default, no customization at all. By the way those keys never worked for me before either, so this is not related to the U1MB pre-release. I am kinda stumped, and don't know what to do to get these keys working.

 

EDIT: I tried Altirra with my WinXP PC and the keys work fine there... so this must be something related to my laptop keyboard.

But I have seen some other problem with the XP, menu items look strange (see attached photo). These are fine with version 1.9 (which I also have on my XP machine). I wonder if its font related?

Edited September 18, 2012 by atari8warez

[flashjazzcat]

Hmm...Got an atr on to c: and put matr.com on C: ran it and it just went back to the cli..

 

Because there are no ATRs in the FAT32 partition of the disk. Here, we're not taking the approach of putting the ATR inside the Atari file system; the ATRs go into the FAT32 partition of your CF card (read the blurb I wrote earlier on about imaging CF cards, etc). MATR will pick up a FAT32 partition entry in the MBR of the disk and will list all the ATR files it can find (if it finds none, it goes back to the CLI, which I guess isn't too intuitive).

 

The point of doing things this way is to cut out the laborious process of getting ATRs into the Atari partitions in the first place. You just copy them onto the FAT partition of a CF card, bung the card into the SIDE cart or Incognito, do what you need to do, then you can copy the (changed) ATRs back off the card on the PC.

[atari8warez]

@Phaeron

 

EDIT: I tried Altirra with my WinXP PC and the keys work fine there... so this must be something related to my laptop keyboard.

 

SOLVED: I unchecked the "Enable Function Keys" and the keys work fine now. I think the wording threw me off or maybe I did interpret the menu option wrong.

[Mclaneinc]

Thanks for the reply Jon, yes, silly me had not consumed that bit of info..

 

Must be the painkillers..

 

Cheers..

[serj]

discovered a small error in the interface emulator - not working option "standard video".

I also found out why not loaded two-disc, a demonstration program "numen" - was to blame option "randomize memory at cold reset".

it is not clear why, but without the option "randomize memory at cold reset" does not want to run the game "flappy".

without this option in the game you can not make a shot.

perhaps it is also a mistake?

see this video:

[phaeron]

IIRC, these are both cases where the program assumes the value of memory without explicitly setting it. This is known as "uninitialized memory" and is considered a bug in the program. In one case, the program is depending on memory values to be set by DOS, and in the other case, by the default state of the DRAM chips on cold power up. Neither of these are guaranteed or good assumptions to make. In the latter case, it can even depend on the model of Atari hardware since different DRAM chip configurations will have different power-on patterns. For the DOS case I might be able to emulate it if it's a reasonable dependency, but it'd have to depend on what exact memory locations are being read.

 

The "randomize memory at cold reset" option, by the way, is for debugging purposes -- it's meant to help catch this type of bug.

[atari8warez]

Phaeron, have a question about U1MB emulation.

 

I just tried the DLT SpartaDos X flasher with Altirra and the flasher starts and displays the message "Warning Flash not found". This behavior is unlike the one I've seen with the real hardware (the flash is detected with real hw). I suppose this is because the flash chip A29040 is not emulated in Altirra. Am I right in my assumption or do I do something wrong? By the way SDX is enabled in the U1MB setup.

 

Ray

Edited September 23, 2012 by atari8warez

[+wood_jl]

I'm not nearly as "advanced" as most of you, posting in this thread, and I haven't been using emulator very much, recently. I've always used Atari800Win.

 

Yesterday, I tried Altirra for the first time. (I'm behind all of you, obviously) HOLY SMOKES, WHAT A FULL-FEATURED, MASTERFUL PIECE OF SOFTWARE!

There are so many features, even more than I can fathom. The AVI video recording is just OVER THE TOP!!!

 

Thank you phaeron, for creating/releasing this. It's genius!

 

I only used it for a few minutes, but the first thing I tried that didn't work correctly on A800Win worked perfectly!

[phaeron]

wood_jl:

Glad you like it. I'm surprised about your reaction to video recording, though, because Atari800WinPlus has that too.

 

Ray:

Yes, this is a known issue... but you just gave me the clue to solving it. The problem is that Altirra currently emulates an Am29F040B for Ultimate1MB. There is a banking problem in the existing flashers that prevents them from working with this chip, as they are using values appropriate for 16K banks instead of 8K banks... but, the A29040 doesn't check as many address bits and for it the bank register values don't matter. I'm working on switching to A29040 mode now. There's a problem with sporadic multiple sector erase timeouts that I'm trying to get tracked down, though.

[atari8warez]

Avery:

 

Great, I'll wait for the new code to test it again... And oh, when you say "a known issue" is there a thread somewhere on AA (or elsewhere) regarding U1MB emulation so that I can follow it.

Edited September 25, 2012 by atari8warez

[phaeron]

Nah, it's just been an issue I had been scratching my head trying to solve.

 

This version emulates the A29040 and can run the flashers:

http://www.virtualdub.org/beta/Altirra-2.20-test6.zip

http://www.virtualdub.org/beta/Altirra-2.20-test6-src.zip

 

There appears to be a timing problem that can occasionally cause flashing to fail. This is due to the flasher taking too long to issue multiple sector erase commands and exceeding the 50 microsecond window in the spec, which Altirra currently strictly enforces. When this happens, the flash erase will hang. I haven't gotten word back on whether this has been happening in the wild.

 

Also, if you are running a PBI-enabled U1MB BIOS, make sure PBI support is turned off before you attempt to reflash the BIOS. I have seen a problem under emulation where the flasher will erase the part of the flash that contains the PBI routines and then attempt to read from disk, resulting in a crash when the OS tries to invoke the nuked PBI code during the programming phase. Fortunately, bricking an emulator is not hard to recover from.

[atari8warez]

That was fast...will try the new code ASAP..... thank you Avery...

[Mclaneinc]

I see the Ultimate settings are in this beta, does that mean it all works together and nothing needs to be turned off?

[flashjazzcat]

I see the Ultimate settings are in this beta, does that mean it all works together and nothing needs to be turned off?

 

You'll still need to disable VBXE - it certainly has issues with the PBI emulation.

[+wood_jl]

wood_jl:

Glad you like it. I'm surprised about your reaction to video recording, though, because Atari800WinPlus has that too.

 

:dunce: :dunce: Well, don't I feel like a dunce. After I read this, I went to A800win and tried it. It creates an AVI file with no picture, just audio. My ignorance of that feature notwithstanding, I still can't record with A800win. Well, I don't have to worry with that, now. I used your emulator to capture the video and create my new "avatar." I'll think of your emulator every time I see it!

 

Sometimes when I'm in the mood for some quick Pokey tunes, I'd fire up the "Composer's Jukebox II" (AMS player) and the screen is garbled in A800win. I'm somewhat-ignorant, but I can't imagine that being too sophisticated of a program, graphically. Works great in Altirra!

[atari8warez]

@Phaeron

 

I've tested the new release and the flash chip is now detected and the flash performed succesfuly . I noted one thing, well actually couple of things that seemed to go bad after the flash though. I am not sure if these are related to the flasher, the emulator, or me

I made a video of it for you to observe. What happens is:

 

After the flash and after the computer reboots (i imagine it's a warm reboot by the flasher) if I type BASIC i can go to BASIC. If I type COLD and do a cold boot from SDX I can still go to BASIC after the computer reboots into SDX, but if I use Shift-F5 for a cold boot, BASIC is no longer accessible after I drop back to SDX. The other problem is the U1MB menu is no longer accessible with F6+F5 combination. In fact it is not accessible in any way until I exit and restart the emulator.

 

(trying this on my real machine still gives me shivers so I didn't try it with real hw on my 130XE)

 

Here's the link to the video.

 

The other thing I noticed is when the U1MB is setup to go to the Missile Command when one types BASIC (i.e. Basic slot is: CAR1 option is set in the U1MB Setup Menu). I perform the flash and the computer reboots and starts with Missile Command. If i press F5 (warm boot) from the Missile Command screen, I get the Altirra Error screen. Note that System/Firmware/BASIC (Boot without Option Key) option is unchecked when this happens.

 

Anyway, hope the video helps you figure out what is really happening...

Edited September 25, 2012 by atari8warez

[Roydea6]

If your HDD image file has a FAT32 partition, you can go ahead and write it to a real CF card (with - for example - a hex editor), or mount the image (somehow) and format said partition on the PC and fill it with ATR files. Then reverse the procedure (i.e. mount the card in Altirra, or image the card again and mount it), and you'll be able to mount ATR files by running MATR at the SDX prompt (or DOS menu if you're using a different DOS - note FDISK and MATR should work with most DOSes now).

 

If you browse to an ATR, press enter, then select a drive number from the list (usually "A:"), then come out of MATR and do a "COLD /N", the system should boot from the ATR. Full R/W support is provided, at approximately half the read speed and a quarter of the write speed of a real APT partition of the equivalent density. So you can boot and use productivity software on an ATR in the FAT32 partition, or even boot from an ATR image of a 32MB APT partition. Backing up real APT partitions becomes somewhat more convenient: mount an empty 32MB quad-density ATR and then sector copy the whole partition across to the ATR on the Atari.

 

After mounting an atr with 'matr.com' as partition 'b' while in SDX and reading copying with the emulator I can't get back to the 'MATR.COM' dialog to unmount the mounted partition. Restarting the emulator "COLD" command doesn't unmount the partition either.

Edited September 25, 2012 by rdea6

[Mclaneinc]

@Jon, thanks for the answer....I wasn't sure as there was only one version out and I know how fast people like you and Avery are at getting things fixed.

 

@Phaeron, small gripe re the drive sounds, its most likely me but one of the samples is more like a nasty thud than the stepper (I think its meant to be the sound of the stepper motor)

 

Just too loud compared to the others, quite a thump over speakers, more like the sound you got on a badly scratched LP when the needle hit it.

 

(for me that is)

Edited September 25, 2012 by Mclaneinc

[flashjazzcat]

After mounting an atr with 'matr.com' as partition 'b' while in SDX and reading copying with the emulator I can't get back to the 'MATR.COM' dialog to unmount the mounted partition. Restarting the emulator "COLD" command doesn't unmount the partition either.

 

No, COLD won't un-mount the partition because this is one of the envisaged ways to boot the ATR you've just mounted (usually if you mount in on drive 1). Shift+Reset, however, reloads the original partition table from the HDD (or it should, at least), and will take the mounted ATRs off-line. MATR won't even un-mount partitions yet (IIRC): there's a fair bit of work still to do, but I seem to be campaigning on several fronts at the moment.

[phaeron]

I see the Ultimate settings are in this beta, does that mean it all works together and nothing needs to be turned off?

 

Heh... no, that stuff is still broken.

 

After the flash and after the computer reboots (i imagine it's a warm reboot by the flasher) if I type BASIC i can go to BASIC. If I type COLD and do a cold boot from SDX I can still go to BASIC after the computer reboots into SDX, but if I use Shift-F5 for a cold boot, BASIC is no longer accessible after I drop back to SDX. The other problem is the U1MB menu is no longer accessible with F6+F5 combination. In fact it is not accessible in any way until I exit and restart the emulator.

 

All of this sounds like something peculiar to what you are flashing. In particular, it sounds like what you would get if you had accidentally flashed an OS directly onto the $50000-53FFF BIOS range. That flash range is mapped on reset and does execute like a regular OS kernel ROM ($5000-57FF, $C000-CFFF, and $D800-FFFF), but the problem is that it is only active while config is unlocked. A large portion of U1MB acts funny before config lock, and one of the symptoms that you will get is that the BASIC ROM does not map properly. You need U1MB specific BIOS code in this range that at least configures and locks the U1MB registers to bootstrap one of the normal kernels in the $70000-7FFFF range.

 

By the way, where did you get that flasher utility? The only versions of the DLT flasher I have found for U1MB are for flashing SDX into banks 0-31 and the BIOS at banks 40-41. Your flasher in the video is flashing banks 32-63.

 

@Phaeron, small gripe re the drive sounds, its most likely me but one of the samples is more like a nasty thud than the stepper (I think its meant to be the sound of the stepper motor)

 

Yeah, getting that sample right is tricky. It needs to be loud enough so that you can hear it with single tracks and not too loud when it cascades on a seek. I might have to play around with varying the volume on it. It is a bit loud as I can hear the Windows 7 audio system ducking a bit when it plays.

 

By the way, which drive emulation mode are you using? There are three separate samples for 810, 1050, and XF551 mode.