TF536 EmuTOS and TOS2.06

[zChris]

As far as i understand TF536 needs either EmuTOS or TOS2.06.

An Atari ST(fm) needs a decoder board to be able to use Tos2.06. But a user, i think it was @agranlund on this board have made a version of EmuTOS you can have on a disc and boot and it gets loaded into RAM to be used that way.

So my question now is. Will TF536 be able to be used without a decoder board on Atari ST(fm) if you use the EmuTOS in ram option? Or is the decoder mandatory?

/zChris

[exxos]

You might be able to use the 192K version of EMUTOS in ROM, but the TF536 isn't likely going to boot on below TOS206 to enable you to run EMUTOS from RAM. So would need a decoder to run TOS206 to be able to load EMUTOS into RAM in that case.

OTOH, if you have 192K EMUTOS in ROM, it may well boot the TF536, so you can then run 256K EMUTOS in RAM

[JezC]

It wasn't just loading EmuTOS from floppy...he also had a ROM image (a cut-down version of EmuTOS) to boot with.

So, he made a 192k EmuTOS boot ROM which you program into EPROM(s) & fit in place of the normal TOS & that then loads the full EmuTOS from disc (located in the auto folder?).

I've been successfully using this to boot up one of my boards with a TF536 fitted for quite some time.

So, no - the decoder isn't mandatory to use the TF536 on an ST

[agranlund]

It wasn't just loading EmuTOS from floppy...he also had a ROM image (a cut-down version of EmuTOS) to boot with.

So, he made a 192k EmuTOS boot ROM which you program into EPROM(s) & fit in place of the normal TOS & that then loads the full EmuTOS from disc (located in the auto folder?).

I've been successfully using this to boot up one of my boards with a TF536 fitted for quite some time.

So, no - the decoder isn't mandatory to use the TF536 on an ST

Yep that setup should work fine.
The boot rom build should be available here somewhere.
It's very similar to the official 192Kb rom image but with the boot screen removed so that you don't have to sit through two of them at startup.
I don't remember exactly but I believe I also enabled some stuff that normally isn't enabled in the 192k version of EmuTOS.

And then you just stick an official 256/512k .PRG version of EmuTOS in the AUTO folder and off you go


Sometime in the new year I want to add an option to maprom to let it load any rom image stored on disk - this could be useful if you wanted to use the PAK/3 TOS without having to burn it to rom etc.
...or TOS2.06 if you're nuts

[zChris]

When you are talking about the boot rom. What i imagine is that you have a chip with the bootrom modified onto it andd that replaces the TOS chip?

/zChris

[agranlund]

When you are talking about the boot rom. What i imagine is that you have a chip with the bootrom modified onto it andd that replaces the TOS chip?

/zChris

Yes exactly that.
It's basically a slightly modified EmuTOS 192k version replacing the TOS chips.
It doesn't require a decoder to be used on the ST, but you still need some way of burning those chips and putting them in your machine.

This rom doesn't really do anything useful in itself, it may not even have a desktop actually, but it will automatically run the programs that are in the AUTO folder of your boot drive - so you put the proper 256 or 512k version of EmuTOS as the first item in that auto folder.

[agranlund]

I've been successfully using this to boot up one of my boards with a TF536 fitted for quite some time.

Here's a .PRG version of EmuTOS I just built from 1.0-ish sources.

emutos.prg.zip

(240.43 KiB) Downloaded 159 times

It lives almost exclusively in fastram so it's quite a bit faster than the normal ones.
Another rather nice benefit is that it leaves a ton more of the lower ST-RAM free so it should have a bigger success rate with those older games that has a habit of stomping all over the TOS area.

For example the Klaz release of Defender of the Crown runs fine from this build but not the official ones.
And that's about all that I have tested so I would backup your existing and tested emutos before replacing anything with this one


Sourcecode is unchanged, I just built it like this:

Code: Select all

make DEF="-DSTATIC_ALT_RAM_ADDRESS=0x01000000" CPUFLAGS="-m68030" prg

[JezC]

When you are talking about the boot rom. What i imagine is that you have a chip with the bootrom modified onto it andd that replaces the TOS chip?

/zChris

@zChris Found the link I posted with the original files (including the 192k boot images from @agranlund...
https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/forum/viewt ... 627#p50625

So depending on whether you have a 2x ROM or 6x ROM setup you could program up some EPROMs & replace the existing TOS 1.x (6x ROM version is easy as you can then use 6x 27C256 EPROMs...with 2x ROM version you would need an adaptor to convert from 32 pin EPROMs to the 28 pin sockets - or change the links for the ROM size & use 6x EPROMs)

Do you know whether you have 2x ROMs or 6x ROMs in your ST at present?

[WiseGreasyBastard]

A little while ago I split the v1 192k emutos with PP's romspli2.prg with a view to testing a TF536 with it.
I get a boot screen and then an error message, same with a 68k cpu so it's not a TF536 issue. I haven't had the bench space or the time to try and resolve the issue

The rom images are attached, perhaps you'll have better luck than me with them.

emutos.v1.192k.6.chip.rom.zip

(121.22 KiB) Downloaded 167 times

[agranlund]

A little while ago I split the v1 192k emutos with PP's romspli2.prg with a view to testing a TF536 with it.
I get a boot screen and then an error message, same with a 68k cpu so it's not a TF536 issue. I haven't had the bench space or the time to try and resolve the issue

The normal 192k version might not be configured to support 020+ CPUs, the MMU, TT-RAM and so on.

I built the boot-rom version with these options:

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-DFULL_INITINFO=0 -DINITINFO_DURATION=0 -DCONF_WITH_ADVANCED_CPU -DCONF_WITH_IDE=1 -DCONF_WITH_TTRAM=1 -DCONF_WITH_ALT_RAM=1 -DCONF_WITH_68030_PMMU=1 -DCONF_WITH_SCSI=1

Basically adding support for advanced CPU's, altram, MMU, IDE + SCSI drives. Enough to get it running the stuff in the AUTO folder, or reach the text based console.
(The desktop was excluded to make it fit into 192k)

Code: Select all

WITH_AES=0 WITH_CLI=1

Another 192k option is KAOS1.04. It did run last time I checked, and maprom supported it, but that TOS cannot use or launch programs in fastram so it's a bit of a waste of accelerator(*)
But maybe you can use it as a means of starting EmuTOS ram version.

(*) Someone could certainly make a "driver" utility to add the missing bios functions, patches the internal memory allocator & program launcher - that would for sure be a fun coding challenge but maybe not very useful unless you are a die-hard KAOS1.04 fan
Like TOS2.06, it is not cache aware so you need to disable the cache.
And if you somehow made it recognise fastram it would proceed to have the same issues with the blitter as TOS2.06 has - solved by either removing/disabling the blitter or running blitfix.prg (which may or may not then need additional code to support TOS1.04).