exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

Hello,

I have an atari with 6 pieces of EPROMS. I have downloaded a rom version thats in a .img format and 192kb from https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/forum/viewt ... 627#p50625 .

Also have gotten an EPROM programmer that i have gotten to work (atleast read from chips), TL866II PLUS with minipro opensource software ().

Now my question is on burning this file. Do i need to split it into 6 pieces? How is that done ? When putting it in the Atari is the sequence like this?
------------------------------------
EPROM4 |
EPROM3 |
EPROM2 |
EPROM1 CPU |
------------------------------------

Thanks in advance
/zChris

Well, there is small program by P. Putnik that split ROMs in different config. Then you just load them each in individually into TL866 and burn them. The file extension gives the placement on the motherboard. LO2 and so on. Easiest to do this in an emulator, like Hatari.

Someone did a Windows tool called CartMan that does this kind of job. I can't remember if that tool did the byte swap though.

EDIT: Hmm.... Didn't someone make a tutorial or write about this on this forum? I might remember wrong...

Thanks for your answer DoG. Aftersom chatting on #atariscne i got it explained to me. But unfortunatly i used the tool split thats common on linux with -b 32KB instead of 32KiB and i was not observant enough to notice it produced 7 files instead of 6 before it was too late. So now i have orderd en Eprom UV ERASER from ebay :)

Best regards
/zChris

zChris wrote: 30 Jan 2021 21:41...So now i have orderd en Eprom UV ERASER from ebay...

Yeah, you are going to need that if your are planning to do some more hardware work :D There is also EEPROM that are electrically erasable but a bit more expensive. Then you don't have to use an UV light.

Yep, Cartman will indeed split ROMs and will also let you byteswap them.

A tool I'd definitely recommend.

By the way, depending on your motherboard revision it might be easier to go for 2 ROM chips instead of 6. You just have to change jumper on the motherboard. And with 2 ROM chips, you can go for eeprom or flash roms which will be cheap too (sst39sf010 are around 1.5€ each) and no need to go through UV to erase it.

olivier.jan wrote: 31 Jan 2021 10:07 By the way, depending on your motherboard revision it might be easier to go for 2 ROM chips instead of 6. You just have to change jumper on the motherboard. And with 2 ROM chips, you can go for eeprom or flash roms which will be cheap too (sst39sf010 are around 1.5€ each) and no need to go through UV to erase it.

If he has a 6 ROM board it is probably a ST(f,m) or a Mega and they only have 28 pin sockets. The sst39sf010 are 32 pin ROMs and need modification (solder some legs together and switch two pins) or an adapter board to be used in these Ataris. In some cases you also need to solder in a 74LS11 if that is not fitted from factory. Doable of course.

However, in a STe or MegaSTe the sockets are 32 pins. So both 28 pin (mask ROMs) and 32 pins ROMs can be fitted. Your sst39sf010 for example.

Great tip nonetheless.

Is it necesarry to byteswap the EmuTos image?

Alright, i have gotten my Eprom Eraser so i have been able to try to burn some rom.

I downloaded the 192kb version of EmuTOS 1.0.1. I then used this software https://github.com/TzOk83/CartMan to split the rom into HI and LO. After that i used the same program to split those in 32KiB pieces.

So now i have 3 of Lo and 3 of Hi which can be downloaded https://www.dropbox.com/s/jfh0yzxxazfgg ... s.zip?dl=0

I then burned em with https://github.com/vdudouyt/minipro. Put them into the Atari ST but i just get a White screen.

Any ideas what im missing ?

Best regards zChris

There are three possible problems here.

1. Splitting the ROMs into two and then splitting them into 32KB chunks may not work. I don't know this 100%, but since cartman allow you to split into 6 directly I can only assume you're not doing it that way as it doesn't label the file HI & LO
2. They need to be byte swapped before burning.
3. The ROMs are installed in the incorrect order.

The best tool I've found for splitting is ROMSPLIT by PPera as it will label your rom files correctly so you can put them in the correct location. You can run it easily under Hatari or STEEM to get the correct files for your needs.

Personally I use Hatari as the GEMDOS folder setup allows you to get files to and from your emulated ST for processing really easily. GEMDOS setup is done under the Hard Drive section in Hatari config.

I would suggest you make 2 sets, so take your 192K Emutos ROM and use cartman to make a byte swapped copy. Then use ROMSPLIT under Hatari to split the normal copy into 6, then do the same for the byte swapped ROM.

You will then have 2 sets of 6 ROMs, one byte swapped, one not. Burn one set and see if it works, if not, erase and burn the second set and see if it works. One set should work so long as you have them in the correct order.

The other thing is that whilst the open source software your using may be ok, I'd suggest you get the original software for your programmer, it's free to download and is pretty good.