Help getting ao486 to run

[SpaceCowboy850]

Okay, I'm a 4 day old with MiSTer, so apologies. My end goal is to get this running:
viewtopic.php?f=13&t=1156&sid=f70359170 ... ede79d0f5c

However, right now I can't even get ao486 to even put me at a DOS prompt.

I just pulled the latest ao486 today from here:
https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/ao486_MiSTer

As the previous version was from May that was on the card. So now I have the Sept 7th version, which went from displaying garbage on the screen to actual text. boot0.rom and boot1.rom have been placed in the \ao486 folder, and the latest RBF has been placed in the _Computer/ao486 folder. (I've tried it in the root, that doesn't make a difference either)

However, this is where my efforts stall.

I've tried to load the VHD from ... is it improper to say where I pulled a VHD from? Not sure the etiquette. Anyways, it seemed reputable. Just a small 10MB DOS VHD with CD support.

That doesn't load.

I found the DOS 6.22 disk images.

Those don't load.

I tried to make my own VHD in Windows 10 (a small 100MB partition) (Using Disk Management, formatted as FAT32)

Can't do anything with that.

I'm drawing blanks on what I'm doing wrong.

I mount the .img (for the DOS disks) or the vhd as primary, I then hit "reset and apply hdd" changes (whatever the bottom option is), and the result is the same

Code: Select all

Booting from Hard Disk...
Boot Failed:  could not read the boot disk

Booting from Floppy...
Boot failed:  could not read the boot disk

FATAL:  No more boot devices.

I feel like I'm missing something really dumb or I've skipped a step. Any help?

[Cebion]

Well you need a startup disk. After that you can install dos with the image files.

[breiztiger]

do you have update main and linux part ?

[SpaceCowboy850]

Okay - so I need to figure out how to acquire/make a startup disk. I thought the DOS img files would already be this way. I remember you needing to format the DOS disks to be bootable, and all the OS Install disks (at least the first one), were formatted in this way, so you just pop it in, reboot, and start installing.

Okay - off to figure out how to do that part...

[flynnsbit]

Search archive.org for "ao486". There are also some really good youtube channels that have an intro to AO486 and the build. Even the ones from 2018 still apply.

[SpaceCowboy850]

So I found this, which has a link to a boot disk - but I get the same behavior from ao486 when I try to mount and restart the HDD - failed to find a boot disk. I'm confused because it seems like I should just need to load this image to get to a C prompt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrB4eukTqIQ

I also found this:

https://archive.org/details/petop-10-ao-486.7z

Which also does not work.

I've downloaded VirtualBox but I haven't had a chance to study it completely - but is going through VirtualBox _mandatory_ to get the above imgs/vhds to mount and load? Especially that YouTube link, I would expect that to at least give me a prompt. It makes me think I don't have a file in the right place to have a boot disk even run.

Here is where I have everything:
\_Computer\ao486_20200907.rbf
\games\ao486\AO486_floppy.img
\games\ao486\boot0.rom
\games\ao486\boot1.rom

And that's all I have really. I've tried placing the .rbf file in \ao486_20200907.rbf

I've tried placing the roms in a \bootrom\boot0.rom and \bootrom\boot1.rom, but that didn't help either.

I'm mounting the img or vhd, I've switched the boot order between FDD and HDD, but that doesn't matter either. Then I always "reset and apply hdd" after I think I've mounted everything. But nothing I do seems to find a bootable drive, but the youtube video above makes me think that is exactly what I'm trying to load.

Sorry just when I search for ao486 help, I feel like a lot of the help is directed to points _after_ the one I'm stuck on, which is just getting to a C prompt. It just feels like I should be able to download a vhd or img that can just boot, even if there are no games, or find instructions on how to make that.

I have a baby at home, so I'm not able to research this stuff as deeply/uninterrupted as I used to...

Right now I've got another computer I might just install exoDos on and forget about MiSTer for 486. It's not that I need "hardware accuracy", it's just nice having a format that doesn't change unless I specify so I know 10, 20+ years from now, this MiSTer box will play all the games I put on it now.

[HMPoweredMan]

You have to approach it like a real computer.

Generate a vhd in disk manager on windows. It cannot exceed 2GB per partition.

This will simulate a blank hard drive.
When you mount this drive and reboot DOS from the core you'll get the no boot device error you've gotten

You need to install DOS on the empty hard drive.
https://winworldpc.com/download/c38fc38 ... 11c3a4c2ac

Download the DOS 6.22 floppy images and put them where you have your vhd. Mount the first floppy. Reboot DOS and it should load as a boot disk and prompt you to install.

[desin24]

what about
https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/ao486_MiSTer
-How to install

[SpaceCowboy850]

@HMPoweredMan

Thanks for the post! So that's what I find confusing.

"
You need to install DOS on the empty hard drive.
https://winworldpc.com/download/c38fc38 ... 11c3a4c2ac

Download the DOS 6.22 floppy images and put them where you have your vhd. Mount the first floppy.
"

I've done exactly this, and when I mount the first disk1.img, and reboot, that is not found as a bootable drive. I'm thinking I might try to go back to a release prior to this to see if I'm hitting a bug of some sort with this Sept 7th release.

Maybe I'm mounting wrong? I select
"Mount A: *.IMG" with the keyboard
I select Disk1.img (well, "disk1" since extensions are hidden), and I hit "enter" and the MiSTer overlay goes away. I press the OSD button on the physical box to bring up the menu again and hit "reset and apply HDD"

I get

"
Booting from Hard Disk...
Boot failed: could not read the boot disk

Booting from Floppy...
Boot failed: could not read the boot disk

Fatal: No more boot devices.
"

[flynnsbit]

Sent you a link to an img file or floppy and a hard disk one to test that I know works with the latest release.

[rhester72]

Make sure you're configured to boot from floppy first (it's a configuration setting in the MiSTer core)

[HMPoweredMan]

Yeah boot order should be FDD / HDD

[SpaceCowboy850]

From here:
http://dionysus.dk/software/DOS/

I tried to boot FreeDOS_Floppy.img by selecting
Mount A: *.IMG

I select "FreeDOS_Floppy.img"
Boot Order: FDD/HDD

Finally - "Reset and Apply HDD"

Same error.

20200913_211846.jpg (2.9 MiB) Viewed 12272 times

I'm concerned that the date reported is 02-16-2017, but the bios is 09-07-2020

I don't have a realtime clock installed or connected to the internet - is that a requirement for ao486?

[SpaceCowboy850]

My Mister came preassembled - and _should_ have
Digital I/O board
DE10-NANO w 128MB
USB HUB

Just in case I don't meet a hardware requirement for running ao486 that I've missed.

I've gotten the NES, SNES, GB, GBA, TI-99/4A, Apple II cores all running. It is the ao486 one that is just refusing to do anything.

When I first got it, the ao486 would just display colorful noise. It was using a May .rbf file. When I updated to the Sept 07, 2020, I could get the above text going. Maybe there are drivers that need to be updated as well that I'm missing?

[HMPoweredMan]

It looks like you don't have a vhd hard drive mounted.
After the Options line it should list your HDD.

When you mount the primary hard drive I'm not sure it's stays mounted when you reset the core unless you save settings in the second menu.

Either that or something is wrong with the vhd file you are using.

Could also be a read/write issue with those files on your SD card? Just spitballing. If you have those files open on the PC or over the network, the core won't be able to mount them.

[Chris23235]

Sounds like something is wrong with your floppy disk image. Did you unpack it? I don't know what happens, when you give the core a zipped image. How do you transfer the file to the MiSTer. To be sure that everything works fine pop out the SD card of the MiSTer and put it into your computer to manually copy the img file over to the SD card.

EDIT: Did you update the Main to the latest? It is not sufficient to just update the core. To do so run the updater script to bring you MiSTer to the latest Main and Linux version.

[Cebion]

And don't forget the startup disk

[desin24]

get the AO486_floppy.7z
from http://dionysus.dk/software/DOS/
unpack it on the pc
copy the AO486_floppy.img into the AO486 folder on the SD card

start the AO486 core
select the AO486_floppy.img as disk A
select boot order FDD/HDD
reset CTRL/ALT/ALTGR

done

[SpaceCowboy850]

EDIT: Did you update the Main to the latest? It is not sufficient to just update the core. To do so run the updater script to bring you MiSTer to the latest Main and Linux version.

DING DING DING!!! We have a winner!

As soon as I read that waking up this morning, I was like "That has got to be it". I didn't realize I needed to update MiSTer main with the core. I found the "updater" script in MiSTer, plugged an ethernet cable in, and ran the update, and lo and behold, these imgs and vhds are mounting!

I knew it was something "prereq" that I had failed to do, but since I hadn't set this card up, I was struggling to figure out what that was.

Thanks for all the help, I think I can figure it out from here.

[Chris23235]

Good to hear

[breiztiger]

that what i tell you

viewtopic.php?p=10151#p10151

[SpaceCowboy850]

that what i tell you

viewtopic.php?p=10151#p10151

Ah, I guess I didn't understand the question at the time.

[throAU]

I had luck with just using the current FreeDOS bootable ISO, and booting the installer from CDROM. I had issues with the FreeDOS installer floppy picking up that the CDROM image was present otherwise, so took a punt that the self-bootable CDROM image would work, and it did.

I'm not sure of FreeDOS game compatibility vs. MS-DOS, so this is a bit of an experiment for me but so far most of the things I tried work.

As other posted above, generate a blank VHD either with DD under macOS or linux, or Disk manager in windows, set that up as your first drive in the mister and install your OS to that.