Life, the universe & everything...Atari (well, mostly)

[JezC]

I think it's a Falcon IDE problem -- unlike the ASCI and SCSI ports, it's a 16 bit bus. Atari chose to do everything big-endian whereas the convention everywhere else is little-endian.

So you can either byteswap in software, which is, I think, what breaks auto-boot, or people have had success with twisted cables (swapping the bytes physically).

I've knocked up this little board to play with, but haven't received it yet on account of the Chinese new year.

BW

Yes, that makes sense - hope you get time to try that board once it arrives!

In the meantime, I've uncovered another old external HDD - a System Solutions one with an ICD Link 2 plugged into an older SCSI 1 50 way connector so if I can find my SCSI 2 to SCSI 1 lead, I might have a relatively simple way to transfer data...

I do fancy the dual IDE connectors/adapters still as a final solution though, so will try to source a suitable cable & take it from there.

[stephen_usher]

Surely you mean centronics SCSI connector and HD50 SCSI connector?

The HD50 connector isn't SCSI2 as that's merely a protocol change. There were quite a few machines with HD50 connectors but used the SCSI1 protocol, such as all the Sun SPARCstations up until the SPARCstation 20.

[JezC]

Surely you mean centronics SCSI connector and HD50 SCSI connector?

The HD50 connector isn't SCSI2 as that's merely a protocol change. There were quite a few machines with HD50 connectors but used the SCSI1 protocol, such as all the Sun SPARCstations up until the SPARCstation 20.

Probably, yes...

[rubber_jonnie]

Ok, so I use HDDRIVER and though I don't have a Falcon, I do have a CosmosEx and Ultrasatan and in both cases I used the HDD utilities to set up my SD cards and I can boot to ST and also insert my SD cards into a Windows PC and see all partitions and transfer data to and from the SD card in both scenarios.

I think it's a Falcon IDE problem -- unlike the ASCI and SCSI ports, it's a 16 bit bus. Atari chose to do everything big-endian whereas the convention everywhere else is little-endian.

So you can either byteswap in software, which is, I think, what breaks auto-boot, or people have had success with twisted cables (swapping the bytes physically).

Yes, you could well be right there, it may be a Falcon specific problem only. Nice little adapter BTW.

[JezC]

Ok, my 3 x 44 way IDE cable arrived today, so now I hope to be able to connect both an SD card (SD2IDE) and CF card to the IDE at the same time.

I can't see an easy way to change the SD2IDE between master & slave modes, so I'll plump for SD as master & CF as slave as my first test.

Note that the idea here is to ease the file transfer between PC and Falcon (so I'm hoping to have the SD card as the boot-able drive & the CF card to be used for transferring files from PC to the Falcon SD card)...

You never know, it might just work!

[JezC]

Ok, my 3 x 44 way IDE cable arrived today, so now I hope to be able to connect both an SD card (SD2IDE) and CF card to the IDE at the same time.

I can't see an easy way to change the SD2IDE between master & slave modes, so I'll plump for SD as master & CF as slave as my first test.

Note that the idea here is to ease the file transfer between PC and Falcon (so I'm hoping to have the SD card as the boot-able drive & the CF card to be used for transferring files from PC to the Falcon SD card)...

You never know, it might just work!

Nope...not going to be that easy...

Here are some notes for when i next get a few minutes to revisit this...

I formatted the CF card (all 32 Meg of it) on my Win 7 PC but HD Driver doesn't appear to be detecting it at boot-up (it is still booting off the SD card OK & seeing both partitions on there).

Running HDDRUTIL.APP is showing the S card OK but not the CF card (set as slave via the jumper on the CF card adaptor: pins 2 & 3 shorted with a jumper - maybe that isn't correct though as that particular CF card adaptor had no jumper fitted).

I probably need to dig out the other CF card adaptor & booting CF card (works on my H4 board) & check that...but I'll need to remember that the CF card that boots on the H4 won't work on the Falcon...

Anyway, that's all i have time for tonight...will try to come back to this in the next day or two...

[JezC]

Anyway, that's all i have time for tonight...will try to come back to this in the next day or two...

Well, had a trawl through the net for info on this & eventually found that the cause of the problem is the 32MB CF card (marked as CANON) isn't compatible with my Falcon...using a 256MB Lexar Media card works fine with SD as master & CF card as slave

So, next steps are to check if that 32MB card works in my H4/H5 systems (at some point) & then try my 2GB, 4GB & 8GB CF cards to see which (if any) of those work on the Falcon...

Quite relieved that I can get it to work at all though! I now have a practical way forward for the short-term at least

[JezC]

So, next steps are to check if that 32MB card works in my H4/H5 systems (at some point) & then try my 2GB, 4GB & 8GB CF cards to see which (if any) of those work on the Falcon...

Can't find the 2G card but the 8G does appear on the Falcon OK. I remembered that the 4G card was from @PhilC so I'know that works on the H4/H5 & since the 8G works on the Falcon then I seem to be sorted.

Just need to swap the H4/H5 onto the bench in place of the Falcon & check if the 32M works on that...

[JezC]

Ok, so a totally different topic from the recent ones...

I've started to try and resurrect an STE with external Blitter (ready to be a candidate for testing/fiting an accelerator).

This has a non-Exxos TOS switcher (1.06/2.06) but is otherwise stock (upgraded to 4M with 8 chip SIMMs).

With 1.06, it runs stably for at least an hour (not tried any longer than about 70 minutes thus far) but just switching it to 2.06 & it reboots after a few minutes. I can then switch it back to 1.06 & it will again run for an hour or so.

This is pretty repeatable and happens with the original PSU and an Exxos one, so I don't think it's PSU-related either.

So, I'm not expecting it to be a problem with the STE itself, just the switcher or TOS 2.06 EPROMs.

I'll try to erase & re-program the EPROMs & see if that makes any difference (and possibly swap them to the sockets holding the 1.06 EPROMs)...

[JezC]

Just a quick thanks to @exxos & his support staff (i.e. Dawn) for the really fast shipping of my latest order.

Ordered late on Sunday & package received today!