New experimental DFB1 firmware (October 2022)

[Badwolf]

Hi guys,

The below should, I hope, be a stability improvement over the current firmware doing the rounds.

This gives the SDRAM controller a bit more overhead on write which means it should still work when the underlying clock is down at 8MHz which is, I think, one of the EmuTOS start-up issues.

This version works well for me with both EmuTOS and TOS in flash.

1MB and 512kB flash chips are supported, but for now only the lower 512kB is usable (this is as I've not invented a way to flash the upper half yet!)

If I don't hear of any problems in a few days, I'll make this the new release version.

BW

[markus0321]

This generally works fine for me. Thanks for you for a good job :-)
I have detected a problem, probably related to the latest version of the maprom program. When I run it with EmuTOS installed correctly in the flash memory on the DFB1 board, the error appears as in the attached photo. I would like to use it because of acceleration by mapping ROM to TT-RAM but it doesn't work for me :-(
EmuTOS is programmed with the official version 1.2.1

IMG_20221019_075844.jpg

[Badwolf]

This generally works fine for me. Thanks for you for a good job :-)

Thanks.

I have detected a problem, probably related to the latest version of the maprom program. When I run it with EmuTOS installed correctly in the flash memory on the DFB1 board, the error appears as in the attached photo. I would like to use it because of acceleration by mapping ROM to TT-RAM but it doesn't work for me :-(
EmuTOS is programmed with the official version 1.2.1

I don't use MAPROM myself, but will give it a try later. I use FASTRAM.PRG, personally, as the ROM is already accelerated 2x.

I can see it's trying to execute code at E8xxxx, which is beyond the ROM range, so something is amiss there. Please confirm you're using the EmuTOS 512k image and not the 1MB image?

Does this also happen with TOS 4.04 flashed?

BW.

[markus0321]

I don't use MAPROM myself, but will give it a try later. I use FASTRAM.PRG, personally, as the ROM is already accelerated 2x.

I noticed that in TT-RAM it is still 2 times faster than in Flash. :D

I can see it's trying to execute code at E8xxxx, which is beyond the ROM range, so something is amiss there. Please confirm you're using the EmuTOS 512k image and not the 1MB image?

This is exactly how I used EmuTOS 512kB from the official distribution.

Does this also happen with TOS 4.04 flashed?

No, maprom works normally on TOS4.04, but provided that I also have TOS.404 on the Falcon motherboard

[Badwolf]

No, maprom works normally on TOS4.04, but provided that I also have TOS.404 on the Falcon motherboard

Ah, that could be the blitter -- the blitter draws the Atari logo on the screen under TOS4.04 and it obviously can't 'see' the flash ROM, so if you have TOS4.04 in flash and something else in ROM, you'll get a mess at boot-up. Should work once NVDI loads up, though.

That could partially explain your other issue (at https://exxosforum.co.uk/forum/viewtopi ... 517#p92517)

That might indiciate, however, sound like at certain points both the flash and onboard ROM are driving the bus. That could well be a bug if I can prove that.

BW

[markus0321]

No, maprom works normally on TOS4.04, but provided that I also have TOS.404 on the Falcon motherboard

Ah, that could be the blitter -- the blitter draws the Atari logo on the screen under TOS4.04 and it obviously can't 'see' the flash ROM, so if you have TOS4.04 in flash and something else in ROM, you'll get a mess at boot-up. Should work once NVDI loads up, though.

That could partially explain your other issue (at https://exxosforum.co.uk/forum/viewtopi ... 517#p92517)

That might indiciate, however, sound like at certain points both the flash and onboard ROM are driving the bus. That could well be a bug if I can prove that.

BW

Yes exactly! After loading NVDI, the image repairs itself. If I do not use NVDI, I have the image as in the picture.

IMG_20221018_010209.jpg

[Badwolf]

Yes exactly! After loading NVDI, the image repairs itself. If I do not use NVDI, I have the image as in the picture.

You must use NVDI (or another VDI replacement that doesn't use the blitter) with TOS4+TT-RAM -- there is no way around that, I'm afraid.

BW

[Badwolf]

I have detected a problem, probably related to the latest version of the maprom program. When I run it with EmuTOS installed correctly in the flash memory on the DFB1 board, the error appears as in the attached photo.

OK, I can reproduce this with the latest MAPROM and EmuTOS in flash. Not sure if this is a MAPROM or hardware problem yet, though.

BW

[Badwolf]

OK, I can reproduce this with the latest MAPROM and EmuTOS in flash. Not sure if this is a MAPROM or hardware problem yet, though.

It's MAPROM.

The (attached) older version works, and this has been raised as an issue.

BW

[Badwolf]

This version of the firmware is now part of the 1.0 release:

https://github.com/dh219/DFB/releases

BW