How to config VHD for New Acorn Atom Core

juandyzz · Unread post by **juandyzz** » Fri Dec 25, 2020 2:36 pm

Hi all, Merry Christmas!!!, I have downloaded the latest core for Acorn Atom and Im getting a little crazy because is not possible to make boot.VHD to work.
I have downloaded the blank.zip file, I have decompressed it and I have attached it to my windows 10.
Once I can see the mounted VHD disc I copy all the files that comes in AtomsoftwareArchiveV11.zip.
detach the VHD from windows copy the boot.vhd to the SD of the mister and try to load from it and cannot run *MENU.
Does anybody knows what im doing wrong??
thank you very much in adnvance.

tontonkaloun · Unread post by **tontonkaloun** » Fri Dec 25, 2020 3:02 pm

juandyzz wrote: ↑Fri Dec 25, 2020 2:36 pm Hi all, Merry Christmas!!!, I have downloaded the latest core for Acorn Atom and Im getting a little crazy because is not possible to make boot.VHD to work.
I have downloaded the blank.zip file, I have decompressed it and I have attached it to my windows 10.
Once I can see the mounted VHD disc I copy all the files that comes in AtomsoftwareArchiveV11.zip.
detach the VHD from windows copy the boot.vhd to the SD of the mister and try to load from it and cannot run *MENU.
Does anybody knows what im doing wrong??
thank you very much in adnvance.

Hello

Shift + F10 to start on the vhd
Ctrl + F10 to quit

breiztiger · Unread post by **breiztiger** » Fri Dec 25, 2020 3:12 pm

hi

i get a disk fault after shift+f10

what is wrong ... can somebody help me please ?

tontonkaloun · Unread post by **tontonkaloun** » Fri Dec 25, 2020 3:17 pm

My vhd

breiztiger · Unread post by **breiztiger** » Fri Dec 25, 2020 3:23 pm

thanks

but the same, when i type shift+F10 DISK FAULT ERROR 102

is there a special config to start ? or a rom file ?

jca · Unread post by **jca** » Fri Dec 25, 2020 3:48 pm

Having also some problems here.
I could not figure out how to access the disk in Atom mode, I switched to BBC mode which boots MOS 3.0. Finding good documentation is really hard. From bits and pieces found on the internet I managed the following:
Type *dir, this load the disk catalog in memory but does not display anything
Type *cat, this displays the contents of the disk
Type *cat <directory name> to display the contents of a directory.
There are *load and *run commands but so far I have been unable to run anything. First I do not know how to fully qualify a file so I made another VHD with the contents of the TD directory in the root of the VHD as there seems to be some games like SpaceWar. I am still unable to run anything.

jca · Unread post by **jca** » Fri Dec 25, 2020 4:02 pm

This core is little bit mysterious, in particular regarding the roms built in the core. The link to AtomFPGA by David Banks (Hoglet) is not very useful but looking on the internet I found an interesting link. It has nothing to do with the MISTer core, I do not know if it has anything useful for us but nether the less it is interesting.
https://stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8350

juandyzz · Unread post by **juandyzz** » Fri Dec 25, 2020 4:47 pm

I think something is wrong with the core , because if you type *help it prompts that SSD is n/a.
So the core it's not detecting boot.vhd.
Regards

tontonkaloun · Unread post by **tontonkaloun** » Fri Dec 25, 2020 6:08 pm

breiztiger wrote: ↑Fri Dec 25, 2020 3:23 pm thanks

but the same, when i type shift+F10 DISK FAULT ERROR 102

is there a special config to start ? or a rom file ?

it's incredible ? How do you transfer the file?
no special config and no bootrom

just the core and the folder with the boot.vhd file

oldgit · Unread post by **oldgit** » Fri Dec 25, 2020 6:23 pm

I have just downloaded the blank.zip and the archive AtomSoftwareArchive_20200512_1005_V11.zip
unzipped both
Disk Management - Action - Attach vhd - browse to blank.vhd and attach - opens as new drive letter.
Copy all files and folders from the unzipped archive to the new drive letter.
Right click drive letter in explorer and eject.
Rename blank.vhd to boot.vhd and place in AcornAtom folder on sd.

Merry Christmas
Dave

It would appear that someone else has already tried this and it still is not working.
Will give it more attention after the festivities.

Alkadian · Unread post by **Alkadian** » Sat Dec 26, 2020 10:50 am

tontonkaloun wrote: ↑Fri Dec 25, 2020 3:17 pmMy vhd

Thanks for that tontonkaloun, your file works perfectly fine. All I did was just to press Shift + F10 and the main menu booted up. This is a very nice core

breiztiger · Unread post by **breiztiger** » Sat Dec 26, 2020 10:53 am

hi i transfert from windows with smb

when i type SHIFT+F10 i have this screen

: 20201226_122808-screen.png (784 Bytes) Viewed 11161 times

Alkadian · Unread post by **Alkadian** » Sat Dec 26, 2020 11:01 am

oldgit wrote: ↑Fri Dec 25, 2020 6:23 pm I have just downloaded the blank.zip and the archive AtomSoftwareArchive_20200512_1005_V11.zip
unzipped both
Disk Management - Action - Attach vhd - browse to blank.vhd and attach - opens as new drive letter.
Copy all files and folders from the unzipped archive to the new drive letter.
Right click drive letter in explorer and eject.
Rename blank.vhd to boot.vhd and place in AcornAtom folder on sd.

Merry Christmas
Dave

It would appear that someone else has already tried this and it still is not working.
Will give it more attention after the festivities.

Thanks for this very cool core oldgit! Your instructions worked like a charm and I did manage to get a working boot.vhd. I believe that the user tontonkaloun has also got the same files in his .vhd file that so kindly shared in his previous post.

Alkadian · Unread post by **Alkadian** » Sat Dec 26, 2020 11:29 am

breiztiger wrote: ↑Sat Dec 26, 2020 10:53 am hi i transfert from windows with smb

That's very odd. It worked perfectly in my case. Did you try to transfer the file with WinSCP?

Alkadian · Unread post by **Alkadian** » Sat Dec 26, 2020 11:33 am

breiztiger wrote: ↑Sat Dec 26, 2020 10:53 am hi i transfert from windows with smb

when i type SHIFT+F10 i have this screen

20201226_122808-screen.png

That seems to me that somehow you are still using the empty .vhd file (blank.zip) that you have downloaded from github. In fact there are no files in it. Did you make sure you are using the correct file shared by tontonkaloun?

breiztiger · Unread post by **breiztiger** » Sat Dec 26, 2020 11:42 am

yes i have (two times)

when i read this vhd with 7zip for example i see files in it

Alkadian · Unread post by **Alkadian** » Sat Dec 26, 2020 11:45 am

Just to confirm, did you place the .vhd in the folder/media/fat/games/AcornAtom?

Which software are you using in windows?

tontonkaloun · Sat Dec 26, 2020 11:49 am

You must prefer the transfer by ftp!
Don't have two Acorn folders on your SD card? (/AcornAtom and /games /AcornAtom)

it's better to have one

JamesH · Unread post by **JamesH** » Sat Dec 26, 2020 11:51 am

Hmm, something weird going on. No matter how I create (using blank.vhd template or from scratch or using prebuilt one posted above) or how I transfer it to the MiSTer (scp/rsync, physically removing sdcard and inserting it into laptop), it does not work for me. Usually I get the same ERROR 102, but sometimes *CAT starts printing the directory and sometimes it even finishes (mostly fails with "DISK FAULT"). *MENU never works, constant ERROR 102.

Would be happy to try any troubleshooting steps, cannot think of anything on my own as the FAT based VHDs I created for other cores did work without any issues.

Just to confirm, does it have to be FAT32 or FAT16?

breiztiger · Unread post by **breiztiger** » Sat Dec 26, 2020 11:54 am

yes only one directory in games (the core take in right place, when you select mount *.vhd i see it)

just transfert with filezilla

the same ;-(

juandyzz · Unread post by **juandyzz** » Sat Dec 26, 2020 1:17 pm

same to me , I have transferred by multiple ways , but i got the same result....

juandyzz · Unread post by **juandyzz** » Sat Dec 26, 2020 1:18 pm

same to me , I have transferred by multiple ways , but i got the same result....

JamesH · Unread post by **JamesH** » Sat Dec 26, 2020 2:40 pm

Had some time to play with it, and as I am no expert it may not mean much, but it looks like the VHD is not always properly mounted or disconnected frequently. Sometimes *HELP still says "CARD TYPE: N/A" after mounting VHD. Once sometimes goes wrong, *HELP command sometime seem choose MMC for CARD TYPE, flipping it from the original SD/SDHC. Also, while *INFO MENU often works, *FATINFO rarely returns anything (sometimes it's literally nothing and sometimes it's DISK FAULT, ERROR 102). And quite often it just fails unable to finish the command:

Code: Select all

>*INFO MENU
MENU                DISK FAULT
ERROR 102
>

Had SDRAM test running for a while just in case, no errors detected. Digial I/O board and USB hub (PCB).

jca · Unread post by **jca** » Sat Dec 26, 2020 3:00 pm

It is really hard to find any good documentation on this Atom, see my previous post regarding using *dir, *cat, *load and *run when the core is in BBC mode.
Now I must admit that I missed the Shift+F10 in the readme of the core. Thanks to tontonkaloun for the Shift+F10. Although I created a vhd using AtomSoftwareArchive_20151119_V9.zip which I am sure would have worked I downloaded the boot.vhd posted in this thread and it works perfectly. I have used WSFTP LE and now WinSCP: I never had a problem transferring files. Just make sure that you set your transfers to BINARY.

kathleen · Unread post by **kathleen** » Sat Dec 26, 2020 4:05 pm

Hi all, I have also the similar issue on my side. I do not get DISK FAULT but NOT READY instead, but also with ERROR 102 once I push SHIFT+F10 after having selected the boot.vhd from toton of course. I think I tried everything, reuploaded the mister main, I used FileZilla for the transfer by paying attention that binary was selected but always same issue :
>*MENU
NOT READY
ERROR 102.
I'm completely lost because I do not understand what I did wrong.

Alkadian · Unread post by **Alkadian** » Sat Dec 26, 2020 4:17 pm

Maybe it won't help, but did you try to press reset from the core menu?

breiztiger · Unread post by **breiztiger** » Sat Dec 26, 2020 4:35 pm

aaahh i'm not alone

kathleen · Unread post by **kathleen** » Sat Dec 26, 2020 4:36 pm

Yes I did, I tried the reset from the core menu, also pressed F10 a couple of seconds to make the reset and same issue. I get always not ready. I'm now wondering if the loading of the boot.vhd happens really

Alkadian · Unread post by **Alkadian** » Sat Dec 26, 2020 4:42 pm

It's very odd indeed. I have tried to start from scratch with a new vhd file again and transferred the file via WinSCP and it booted correctly. I can't think of anything else I am afraid.

tontonkaloun · Unread post by **tontonkaloun** » Sat Dec 26, 2020 4:52 pm

kathleen wrote: ↑Sat Dec 26, 2020 4:05 pm Hi all, I have also the similar issue on my side. I do not get DISK FAULT but NOT READY instead, but also with ERROR 102 once I push SHIFT+F10 after having selected the boot.vhd from toton of course. I think I tried everything, reuploaded the mister main, I used FileZilla for the transfer by paying attention that binary was selected but always same issue :
>*MENU
NOT READY
ERROR 102.
I'm completely lost because I do not understand what I did wrong.

Hello

I can reproduce your issue if the disk is not loaded

MiSTer FPGA Forum

How to config VHD for New Acorn Atom Core

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