Cumulus Issues

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ibisum
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Re: Cumulus Issues

Post by ibisum »

Your power supply needs to be at *least* 1A when you're using it to power the Oric/Atmos with the Cumulus plugged in. I ran into similar issues as you did, but when I moved to a power supply that provided 1.2A, everything smoothed out - and I was able to play 1337 and Space:1999 without any hassle whatsoever. In fact, it was a very pleasant Saturday evening .. ;)
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Chema
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Re: Cumulus Issues

Post by Chema »

Yeah, well. That is, of course the first thing to check. The original PSU is not going to work.

Glad to hear they all worked for you ibisum!
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Re: Cumulus Issues

Post by metadata »

1337 and Space:1999 runs on my Oric1 and Atmos with the Cumulus. My Orics have all the original ROMs and no hardware modification. The Cumulus need about 300mA so you need a power supply with 1A or more. I you a cheap one at 9V with 1A. Make sure that you are not use one with 12V because the power regulator in the oric gets really hot at 12V.
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Re: Cumulus Issues

Post by Godzil »

Is the "Non SDHC card are not working" issue still relevant? I may take a look, when I have time, but it could be a mistake in the firmware, supporting SD card is not more difficult than SDHC one (but there are some slight difference in some SD register and how the card are made)


The long explanation is that SDHC card always replay that they use addressing in block of 512 bytes (if I remember correctly) where SD card can use block of multiple size, like direct addressing (1 block = 1 byte) or the 512 byte block one. Generally a software that only support one of the two class is that it does address SD card block correctly. Since the cumulus use pure software SD, it will be easy to correct.
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barnsey123
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Re: Cumulus Issues

Post by barnsey123 »

Godzil wrote:Is the "Non SDHC card are not working" issue still relevant? I may take a look, when I have time, but it could be a mistake in the firmware...
Every SDHC card I've tried works ok (4-5 different makes,classes,capacities).

I've tried 2 SD cards and both have failed (cumulus cannot see the files on the card).

Maybe this points to an issue. If it's possible to fix this in firmware then that would be cool. :)
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barnsey123
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Re: Cumulus Issues

Post by barnsey123 »

ibisum wrote:Your power supply needs to be at *least* 1A when you're using it to power the Oric/Atmos with the Cumulus plugged in. I ran into similar issues as you did, but when I moved to a power supply that provided 1.2A, everything smoothed out - and I was able to play 1337 and Space:1999 without any hassle whatsoever. In fact, it was a very pleasant Saturday evening .. ;)
My psu voltage is switch selectable ( and currently set to 9v ). When set to 9v the output current is 1100 mA. enough to support oric and cumulus?

I still have to let it warm up a bit first...
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ibisum
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Re: Cumulus Issues

Post by ibisum »

1100mA should be enough, but for the record my power supply is 1200mA, and it definitely doesn't need to warm up first. This goes for both my Cumulus/Atmos setup; I have two - one for the kids, one for me.. ;)

Could it also be an issue with your Cumulus, maybe?
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Re: Cumulus Issues

Post by Godzil »

barnsey123 wrote:
Godzil wrote:Is the "Non SDHC card are not working" issue still relevant? I may take a look, when I have time, but it could be a mistake in the firmware...
Every SDHC card I've tried works ok (4-5 different makes,classes,capacities).

I've tried 2 SD cards and both have failed (cumulus cannot see the files on the card).

Maybe this points to an issue. If it's possible to fix this in firmware then that would be cool. :)

What the size and brand of the failing SD card? (I ask this question not only to you but to everyone that have problem with)

I don't have a cumulus right now and can only look at the source code, there is no clear design flaw in the SD driver, but a simple mistake is easy to do. I'm looking on old code of mine for SD card that manage SD and SDHC cards.
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Chema
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Re: Cumulus Issues

Post by Chema »

Just received mine!!! It is beautiful. Thanks metadata!!

Unfortunately I could not test it with success. I only have old cards at hand and none was recognized.

Kingston 1G SD
Old Lexar 256M
Kingston microSD SDC4/4GB, class 4 I think.

Also made a quick test with my Sony 2G class 4, i think, card (with no dsk files in it) and also got a I/O error.

Have no newer cards to test with, so will try to get one and post again. But that is not what worries me most. My Oric boots to the No operating system... Message screen and then starts to make a quite hight buzz sound. Not during boot, not without Cumulus attached. I hit the keyboard and the clic sound is heard, so it is not hang or anything.

Should I worry?
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ibisum
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Re: Cumulus Issues

Post by ibisum »

Congratulations - great that you've got it!

Don't worry, thats just like if you had your floppy drive connected, but no boot disk.

When you find an SD card that works, mount SEDORIC.DSK (or actually whatever you like) in Drive A, and then boot your system ...

BTW, did you format your SD cards as FAT16 disks already?
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Chema
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Re: Cumulus Issues

Post by Chema »

FAT16? Should it be FAT16?? I would bet they are al FAT32....

Oh, and the buzz sound seems to come out of the speaker. It stopped working one day, thirty years ago, and I never looked into it. I get my audio through external speakers. So maybe I am hearing some kind of interference or something...
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ibisum
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Re: Cumulus Issues

Post by ibisum »

Could be that your speaker is just dead. I get a low buzz sound too when the Oric is hanging on the "No Operating System.." message, but I remember back in the day this was also normal, sometimes, when the Oric was hung.

FAT32 .. or FAT16. I seem to remember formatting my disk as FAT16, but I just realized I have long filenames, so that can't be right. Either way, have you tried doing a real full format on the SD card?
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Re: Cumulus Issues

Post by Godzil »

Chema: another "stupid" question do you have access to a computer under linux with a "native" SD card reader? (ie an internal one that is not using an USB port)

If yes could you please for each SD card do this:

ls /sys/bus/mmc/devices
find /sys/bus/mmc/devices/*/ -type f -exec "echo" "-n" "{}: " ";" -exec "cat" "{}" ";"

It could give precious information about the SD card

Thanks (same for all other people that have some unsupported non SDHC card)


Edit: the problem could come from other part also, if the SD card have a partition table or no, the formated FS (Fat16/FAT32, the use of vfat or not and so on..)
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Chema
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Re: Cumulus Issues

Post by Chema »

I will try a full format. It is worth a try. But other people reported issues with SD cards, so...

I have no access to a Linux system, Godzil, sorry.
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Re: Cumulus Issues

Post by Dbug »

That could be a valuable thing to add to the cumulus firmware: An option to show information about the card.
All my cards (SD/SDHC) are formated in FAT32 so that's definitely not the issue.
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