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 Post subject: Stability Testing
PostPosted: Fri Dec 17, 2010 2:07 pm 

Joined: Wed Mar 04, 2009 7:27 am
Posts: 98
Location: United Kingdom
Working on the (now almost complete) SpartaDOS X MyIDE driver has provided me with a greater insight into instability issues with this interface. With any parallel device on the Atari 8-bit, instability is usually down to timing issues. MyIDE is no exception, and it's probably no better or worse than any PBI device in that respect.

The SDX driver will be issued with IDEDIAG, which is a diagnostic utility (written for SpartaDOS X) designed to quickly establish whether the MyIDE interface and attached media are working stably. The program can differentiate between read and write errors, and will ultimately be able to diagnose DRQ problems and false writes, etc. Most of these issues point to timing problems on the Atari.

Later, I'll release a general version of this utility which will work with any DOS, and irrespective of whether there's a driver loaded. It should be very revealing to find out just how many interfaces are truly 100% stable...



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 Post subject: Re: Stability Testing
PostPosted: Fri Dec 17, 2010 8:01 pm 

Joined: Sun Feb 19, 2006 1:33 pm
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Looking forward to testing this out. This could be a great help in finding a "proper" fix for all machines.


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 Post subject: Re: Stability Testing
PostPosted: Sat Jan 29, 2011 8:49 am 

Joined: Mon Jun 21, 2004 7:53 am
Posts: 354
Really good stuff, FJC!

I have a recent "war story" about that. I have an 800XL that I really like (really nice keyboard). It has a Newell 256K upgrade in it. If I plug in a PBI device with the single XL rom OS, then the PBI device is stable. If I also plugged in a multi-eprom OS or the AtariMax 32-in-1 module, then I would immediately get errors and corruption of the HD. Neither the Bob Puff mod 1 or 2 had any effect. So I swapped out the cpu, and now have total stability. (I have seen another case where mod #1 was enough to fix the problem -- on an XE that I have.)

Have you decided on the "best" stability fix?

-Larry

flashjazzcat wrote:
Working on the (now almost complete) SpartaDOS X MyIDE driver has provided me with a greater insight into instability issues with this interface. With any parallel device on the Atari 8-bit, instability is usually down to timing issues. MyIDE is no exception, and it's probably no better or worse than any PBI device in that respect.

The SDX driver will be issued with IDEDIAG, which is a diagnostic utility (written for SpartaDOS X) designed to quickly establish whether the MyIDE interface and attached media are working stably. The program can differentiate between read and write errors, and will ultimately be able to diagnose DRQ problems and false writes, etc. Most of these issues point to timing problems on the Atari.

Later, I'll release a general version of this utility which will work with any DOS, and irrespective of whether there's a driver loaded. It should be very revealing to find out just how many interfaces are truly 100% stable...


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 Post subject: Re: Stability Testing
PostPosted: Sat Jan 29, 2011 3:42 pm 

Joined: Wed Mar 04, 2009 7:27 am
Posts: 98
Location: United Kingdom
thewhiz wrote:
Have you decided on the "best" stability fix?

Not yet. At the moment, I'm using Mathy's mod (creating a new Phi2 from a slightly delayed Phi1), but connected only to the cartridge clock pin. My (2005) MyIDE cart is unstable if I run the whole system off the new signal. I have a various ICs I've ordered for the purposes of experimentation, but I haven't had time to work on it yet. I also obtained one of the new MyIDE/Flash carts over Christmas, and that's unstable on all my machines. It would be nice to find a timing mod which works with IDEa, the original MyIDE interface, and the new flash cart. I may be asking for the moon...

MetalGuy66 at AA tells us that different mods inside the machine alter the capacitance of the system, and thus tend to upset/rectify problems with timing of their own accord. You might have a modded machine which works fine with MyIDE until you fit some RAM upgrade, which knocks the whole thing off balance again.



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 Post subject: Re: Stability Testing
PostPosted: Sat Jan 29, 2011 9:27 pm 
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Joined: Fri Aug 29, 2003 4:37 pm
Posts: 230
Location: Arizona USA
I finally got around to adding the 600xl fix to my 600XL connected pin 1 and pin 4 for 74ls08. And now IDEDIAG progam reports no errors. Previously I got all the partitions written and was able to boot the 600xl. And now it seems much more stable..



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 Post subject: Re: Stability Testing
PostPosted: Sun Jan 30, 2011 10:44 am 

Joined: Wed Mar 04, 2009 7:27 am
Posts: 98
Location: United Kingdom
That's good to hear. I'll try that with one of my XLs. At the moment I only have one machine which works with the old MyIDE cart, and none which work with the MyIDE/Flash.



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