ST-IDE-ROM Dev Board v1 - BETA Testers

[PaulJ]

I see no difference with glitter or not. I also tried it with the Lightning card with no change. I'm assuming all you need to do is turn on glitter support in the performance section. Any idea's?

[exxos]

@rubber_jonnie *somewhere* maybe in my blog, I documented a glitter slowdown issue.. It might have been flashy clock... Point being neither hardware or firmware were geared up for the glitter. Everything is tested on a stock machine. Its just how I do my dev work by not worring about anything past a stock machine. Once the first version is tested working, then other work is done.

I guess a analogy is if I designed a car, I wouldn't design a gearbox, I would just have a fixed gear.. A gearbox is nice, but not needed to prove the design can work. Not designing a gear box reduces design complexibility and points of failure.

[czietz]

I'm assuming all you need to do is turn on glitter support in the performance section.

... and save these settings to HDDRIVER.SYS (or HDDRIVER.PRG if you load HDDRIVER from a floppy) and then reboot.

PS: Can you all please train your autocorrect to say "Blitter"? I doubt "glitter" would make any change in the IDE speed.

[PaulJ]

I'm assuming all you need to do is turn on glitter support in the performance section.

... and save these settings to HDDRIVER.SYS (or HDDRIVER.PRG if you load HDDRIVER from a floppy) and then reboot.

PS: Can you all please train your autocorrect to say "Blitter"? I doubt "glitter" would make any change in the IDE speed.

How does one train the spell changer? I gave up a long time ago insisting on BLITTER when the spell changer likes glitter. So my Atari machines now all have glitter installed. You'll be surprised at the performance bump you get with glitter.. no to mention my wife loves glitter.

I suspect I'll have a better chance of seeing and improvement with the Lightning than Exxos's IDE board so I'll go back and retest the Lightning. I do have glitter enabled in the performance section and saved.

[exxos]

Maybe people will understand the name now then,
https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/forum/viewt ... 180#p24610

[rubber_jonnie]

@rubber_jonnie *somewhere* maybe in my blog, I documented a glitter slowdown issue.. It might have been flashy clock... Point being neither hardware or firmware were geared up for the glitter. Everything is tested on a stock machine. Its just how I do my dev work by not worring about anything past a stock machine. Once the first version is tested working, then other work is done.

I guess a analogy is if I designed a car, I wouldn't design a gearbox, I would just have a fixed gear.. A gearbox is nice, but not needed to prove the design can work. Not designing a gear box reduces design complexibility and points of failure.

@exxos Yep,that makes sense to me.

[PaulJ]

Well it appears that when using the Lightning you see the glitter improvement.

Untitled.jpg (37.16 KiB) Viewed 3181 times

[exxos]

It seems there is some confusion over this project's development...

Very first post in this thread were the test boards which some people have built and tested over the past few months.. Those boards are only to be used on a stock system as they were literally a development board for getting the IDE interface up and going. They were in no way intended for anything else. It will not work with the blitter, it will not work with accelerators.. It is not a production board it is a test board!

The second IDE project is "Trudie"... https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/forum/viewt ... =73&t=2025 But this has been put on hold, as I just have too many projects ongoing to spend the time it needs... I have been somewhat busy with the H4's and flashyclock, SEC booster and about 20 other projects... I need to concentrate on one thing at a time and actually finish that project before moving on to the next, trying to keep all this straight in my head is just leading to many late nights and many mistakes. So I am just not going to continue working on multiple projects continuously all year round any more.

So I decided to revamp the original IDE design (the one at the start of this thread) and make it more of a production board which will at least get some simple IDE interfaces out there. Which is what this PCB is...

https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/forum/viewt ... 450#p33287

PCB's went off to be produced some weeks ago, but because of the China virus this is all got setback, And I do not expect them to arrive anytime soon. As they arrive they need to be built and tested (Icky is doing some preparation work for this currently).. I will likely have these as kits in my store at first , but ultimately they will likely build built up and tested.

[PaulJ]

@exxos , I'm not sure there was any confusion concerning your development IDE boards. They work great and have an additional feature where they provide the $e00000/$0000 decode signal. I'm not sure anyone expected more. As far as the driver 11.0 is concerned the glitter enhancement is ~5% on the Lightning card which is not detectable sitting there waiting for the test to complete. Just a novelty giving it a try. So I haven't seen anyone saying they expected more from the IDE card. Even if the IDE didn't function the card is an asset in that its a easy way to get a $e00000/$fc0000/$0000 decode signal. I was interested in obtaining your latest version because its foot print was changed to miss the case support on a mega. The two I have work great and are in constant use and provide all the functionality I require.

[exxos]

@PaulJ All the news is posted in this thread as it happens.. just keep a eye on it... I am sure the new version will "do more"... just we are waiting for several PCB's form China for various projects.. then we have to do the firmware.. and testing etc again. So its going to take some weeks.

The decode signal is what the TOS206 boards are for..It will decode TOS 206 & 104 space.. I am waiting for those PCB's as well... https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/forum/viewt ... 590#p33519