Cumulus Preorder Thread

[ibisum]

Damn, I just got my PICKit2 set up today .. ah well, glad to hear it got sorted out!

[Dbug]

Damn, I just got my PICKit2 set up today .. ah well, glad to hear it got sorted out!

You can still do some testing and make sure it all works fine for you as well
Could you try to remove the sdcard or wiggle it while the update is in progress and make sure that you can't reach a point where the cumulus gets bricked?

[metadata]

Could you try to remove the sdcard or wiggle it while the update is in progress and make sure that you can't reach a point where the cumulus gets bricked?

That's the good thing about the bootloader. It protects itself in the memory and don't update this areas. So you can't brick your cumulus while updating.

[Xeron]

I've worked in embedded devlopmrent for years, and the way to have safe flash based firmware upgrades is to have a minimal first level bootloader that never changes which loads the main flash firmware. This first level bootloader should be able to load the second level loader from one of two locations. The updater should only modify the inactive region, then only mark it as active once the write has succeeded and been validated. The three flash regions (flb and the 2 slb regions) should all be in their own erase blocks so that writing one doesn't in any way affect the others. Hey presto, practocally brick proof updating.

apologies if this is already done on the cumulus or not qyite relevant.

[AndyGarton]

Really excited about getting one of these now it seems the final issues have been resolved, great work everybody involved, it's much appreciated

Is it the kind of setup that would allow some menu software running on the Oric which allows "automatic" loading of a DSK image? I'm imagining/dreaming of similar software on other systems, which hold a database of most (if not all) software even written for that machine, accessible via a nice visual menu front end. I'd actually be interested in coding that up myself if it could work in theory with Cumulus.

[Dbug]

Really excited about getting one of these now it seems the final issues have been resolved, great work everybody involved, it's much appreciated

Is it the kind of setup that would allow some menu software running on the Oric which allows "automatic" loading of a DSK image? I'm imagining/dreaming of similar software on other systems, which hold a database of most (if not all) software even written for that machine, accessible via a nice visual menu front end. I'd actually be interested in coding that up myself if it could work in theory with Cumulus.

I believe that the current firmware does not allow for that, but it's probably possible to device special extensions to allow the Oric to talk to the cumulus to automatically select DSK files, a bit like what a jukebox would do.
So yeah you could have a master DSK file with a list of all the software, including a reference to which DSK file they are one, and then using the new firmware could select the DSK you want and get it automatically inserted.

[coco.oric]

[More details about what Cumulus is at the end of the post]
This is the official Cumulus Preorder Thread, if you want to order one, please post a reply to this message or your risk being missed.
- coco.oric (2 sure, potentially 3)

Oops
Hi, i hope that i haven't been missed (due to my bad english level)
I confirm i wanted to have 3 of them if it is possible. (EDIT: FIXED)

Didier

[pinace]

Hello everyone from Spain!

Is it too late to order a disk drive?

I would order one if it is possible. (EDIT: DONE - Will depend on the abilities and stamina of our master solderer)

Regards and happy new year

Esteban.

[weirdocollector]

Hi everybody,

I'm writing from Italy, and I'd like to preorder one Cumulus unit. (EDIT: DONE)

Thanks a lot in advance for everything!

Fabio from Milan

[uniforix]

I'm definitely down for 1 please. (EDIT: DONE)

[metadata]

Hi everybody.
Let's get started with the boards. The first 4 boards are tested and ready to send out.
The bootloader works perfect and it is impossible to destroy the bootloader while updating the firmware. I tested this like power off while updating and upload the wrong firmware (there are two firmwares because of two diffenrent LCD drivers). After all tests the bootloader runs fine and i can upload the right firmware from the sd-card.
I test every board with the exact powercable and CumulusBus you get (execept the IDE-Cable) to load Sedoric3, the demo Barbitoric,the games Pulsoids and Space1999.

[ibisum]

metadata: are the new changes in the repository? Because I will try to build the firmware and load them on my boards, which have the previous version still.

[coco.oric]

clap clap clap
This are very good news

[Dbug]

Great news!

[Godzil]

I am a bit late on the subject, it is too late for the (pre)order?

If it's still open, I'll take one please (EDIT: DONE)