exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

I haven't used emutos in any great extent. So don't know if there are issues or not.. I don't know if you have tried just basic TOS to see if the same odd things happen or not?

exxos wrote: 12 Apr 2021 01:56 I haven't used emutos in any great extent. So don't know if there are issues or not.. I don't know if you have tried just basic TOS to see if the same odd things happen or not ?

EmuTOS is fine. I showed that in the first part of my post. It even lets you see hidden windows files from transfers.

My Atari came with TOS 1.00. It was awful. I couldn't even copy a floppy disk with disk swapping.

I've still got those ROMS lol

I'm not following what combos are and are not working...in relation to what problem..

Does ultrasatan not let you format a floppy using 104 and emutos ?

You had issues with vanishing partitions at some point ?

Has ultrasatan been tried on a different ST ?

exxos wrote: 12 Apr 2021 02:15 I'm not following what combos are and are not working...in relation to what problem..

Does ultrasatan not let you format a floppy using 104 and emutos ?

You had issues with vanishing partitions at some point ?

Has ultrasatan been tried on a different ST ?

A floppy formatted to 720K on windows 10 will work with EmuTOS on the Atari allowing you to swap files between machines. This is the same for TOS 1.04 but ONLY if I unplug my UltraSatan from the Hard Disk port, otherwise a file copied to floppy disk on the Atari will NOT open on the PC.

I'm starting to suspect windows with the vanishing partitions but I always back everything up.

The UltraSATAN is a bit of a DMA bus killer. It's obviously not using open collector chips on the bus which means that it and the DMA chip are constantly fighting on the bus. The US has caused no end of floppy problems as the DMA chip is getting weak.

Can I ask if your machine has had the mandatory fixes applied? You might need the bus pull-up resistor packs changing in order for the US and FDD to co-exist properly.

With regards to using 1.44Mb floppies as 720kb, yes you can but you run the risk of data loss because the magnetic media is different on HD floppies and requires a stronger magnetic field in order to change magnetic state.

A 720kb FDD may struggle to change the magnetic state and cause data loss or corruption.

I'm not saying it won't work as I used it a lot over the years, but be aware of the possible consequences.

rubber_jonnie wrote: 12 Apr 2021 09:27 Can I ask if your machine has had the mandatory fixes applied? You might need the bus pull-up resistor packs changing in order for the US and FDD to co-exist properly.

Actually, it won't help a great deal. The US is far stronger than the pull-ups and clamps the ACSI/DMA bus to 3V whatever sized pull-ups you use. Maybe there are some 3V zeners on the lines or something but you'll never get more than 3V with an US connected, at least the Lotharek version. I've investigated this a great deal last year.

If that was the case then nobody's ultrasatan would work... Clamping to 3v isn't a issue anyway.

exxos wrote: 12 Apr 2021 09:58 If that was the case then nobody's ultrasatan would work... Clamping to 3v isn't a issue anyway.

My old DMA chip couldn't pull the bus data lines down well enough with the US plugged in, causing issues with the floppy. Swapping the DMA chip helped as the new one was stronger.

rubber_jonnie wrote: 12 Apr 2021 09:27 Can I ask if your machine has had the mandatory fixes applied? You might need the bus pull-up resistor packs changing in order for the US and FDD to co-exist properly.

With regards to using 1.44Mb floppies as 720kb, yes you can but you run the risk of data loss because the magnetic media is different on HD floppies and requires a stronger magnetic field in order to change magnetic state.

A 720kb FDD may struggle to change the magnetic state and cause data loss or corruption.

I'm not saying it won't work as I used it a lot over the years, but be aware of the possible consequences.

Hi. yeah, all fixes done. I've got around it by always formatting my floppy disks in EmuTOS and just leaving my configuration as is (UltraSatan plugged in) I can use disks when using my Games SD card on the UltraSatan which is only partitioned (no extra start up things) and using TOS 1.04 with no problems, but again these disks are formatted using EmuTOS. I can also run the stock machine with the UltraSatan left plugged in with either disks formatted on EmuTOS or a disk that already has programs on it.

With this setup life is pretty good. The mandatory fixes seem to have sorted the data corruption on the SD cards I was getting. Partitions sometimes dissapear, so I have everything cloned on the PC so I can just write it back to a freshly formatted/partitioned SD card. The more I swap between systems the more likely this is, which is why I've gotten a PC/Atari floppy drive to do small swaps like MIDI files and screen grabs.

This setup is pretty reliable. I'm definitely okay with it. May try HD driver at some point and see how that fares.

If I try to format using stock Atari disk formatter it just creates so much bad potential and since I need the UltraSatan for the setups I want I've decided to just go with what makes that happiest.

This is something I can live with as I would say reliability is 95% and often more.