Cumulus Issues

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This includes generic Oric talkings and things that are totaly unrelated but want to share with people here :)
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Chema
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Re: Cumulus Issues

Post by Chema »

I guess it is not a Cumulus issue. Maybe something related to my Oric itself and the timings for reading the keyboard. Not sure the method Twilighte used to read the keyboard in these two games, but Magnetix works for me, as Stormlord and Impossible Mission do.

The rest of the games I tested worked OK: 1337, Space:1999, Manic Miner, pinforic, SkoolDaze, Freecell, Hnefatafl, Krillys...

As we discussed about the needed timings quite recently, maybe it is something related to it. After all my Oric is an Oric-1 transformed into an Atmos with a kit, and also has the ROM 1.1a.

In Pulsoids, the I and H keys work, but fire and the rest don't... CTRL does nothing. Sometimes pressing a number starts the game, but then some unrelated keys (such as an arrow or a symbol) move the hero to the right and C seems to act as fire...

In Zip&Zap I could not manage to start the game.

It would be interesting to have a look at the keyboard scanning code, but I am not sure that the sources are availble.

A different matter is sound.

I recall watching a video on youtube of an Oric Nova with a disk interface loading Space:1999 and the sound was also distorted. Not my case, except in digitized sound in the demo, but I am not sure why the disc interface could interfere with sound replaying...

It would be interesting to explore this further, but I am not sure where to start.

Another interesting thing could be creating some kind of test program which loads data from a test disc and verifies it to test reliability and speed and compare.

Any other ideas?
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ibisum
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Re: Cumulus Issues

Post by ibisum »

First of all - you definitely don't have a 'standard' Oric setup. ;)

And second, yes - maybe we could use a profiling tool that can give us a bit of a clue about the various timing issues with everyones' Oric's .. seems like it would be useful.
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Re: Cumulus Issues

Post by Godzil »

You know chema all Atmos are Oric 1 with a 1.1(a) ROM. (And an Atmos case/keyboard of course ^^)

My father sold original at the time and most 1 they had in stock or return unit where converted to Amos using the tangerine/original international DIY upgrade kit (quite easy, 6 screw to remove, swap the ROM swap the case had tada! Done !

So even if you use a 1 keyboard you have a standard setup :)

The keyboard problems can come from the cumulus Asti add new stuff on the 6502 bus. Old microdisc use a variable resistor to try to match the phi signal because the MD need to not steal the bus wh the ULA is doing its stuff. A small drift/shirt with this could cause strange problems so it can cause some timing problem for software that are a bit picky on this..

Remember that some oric does not work correctly with even a genuine microdisc...
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Re: Cumulus Issues

Post by ibisum »

Godzil - do you know if the problem of using the keyboard while the Oric is performing a directory listing is 'normal', or if its a problem we have to address with the Cumulus somehow? Basically I have observed that any key input while the Oric is doing such a listing will hang the Oric, which will need a hard reset to recover. I'm just not sure if this is 'normal', an anomaly we can fix with Cumulus' code, or if its indeed a problem with my Atmos itself..
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Re: Cumulus Issues

Post by Godzil »

A hang? Wow, no sorry don't know about such a problem and never had this with my Microdisk (with or without HxC as a floppy) but on my "new" (read replacement) Atmos I have problem with the MD that could led to really strange things (But I don't remember a hard lock due to keyboard but who knows)

The big problem of the Oric is this expansion bus which would be marvellous and easy to use if this ** ULA wasn't doing CPU cycle steal.

But no I don't this such a lock is normal, are you the only people with this bug? I don't have mine (and I am pretty low in the list so I can't test for now ^^)

If you have an oscilloscope, looking at the quality of the Phi2 signal on both side could help a bit if the ULS's bus stealing is the culprit or not.
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Chema
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Re: Cumulus Issues

Post by Chema »

Godzil wrote:You know chema all Atmos are Oric 1 with a 1.1(a) ROM. (And an Atmos case/keyboard of course ^^)

My father sold original at the time and most 1 they had in stock or return unit where converted to Amos using the tangerine/original international DIY upgrade kit (quite easy, 6 screw to remove, swap the ROM swap the case had tada! Done !

So even if you use a 1 keyboard you have a standard setup :)
Yeah, I knew that, but also that the new keyboard connector had to be soldered and that my Oric ended up with some problems in some keys, so it had to be repared. In addition my speaker died 30 years ago don't know why. So I am not sure if the ROM versión (which is not the most usual one) or any small component is different or may have any issues.

But I agree that is not probable...

And my Atmos sticker was lost in all this process! :evil:
The keyboard problems can come from the cumulus Asti add new stuff on the 6502 bus. Old microdisc use a variable resistor to try to match the phi signal because the MD need to not steal the bus wh the ULA is doing its stuff. A small drift/shirt with this could cause strange problems so it can cause some timing problem for software that are a bit picky on this..

Remember that some orics does not work correctly with even a genuine microdisc...
This is the key point. Not sure why nobody else seem to have these problems (that is why I asked). The good thing is that now we have an Oric to test for these instabilities (mine).

I would need to check the keyboard reading routine Twilighte used in those games. My routines are based on them and Space:1999, 1337 and SkoolDaze work perfectly.

Also there seems to be no problem in loading data. Pinforic works nicely and does a huge use of disc reading. However I at least twice had to reset the oric twice because booting Sedoric got stuck.

As soon as I have time I will work on a test program. Then we'll see...
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Re: Cumulus Issues

Post by Symoon »

Ok, tried 2 cumulus on one Atmos and one Oric-1 (with the same bus card), so far no success. Both Orics fail booting at the pre-boot screen (scrambled).
Cumulus screen remains black.
Power is supposed to be 1000mA.

Will resume testing after dinner.
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Re: Cumulus Issues

Post by Symoon »

Ok, so.
Test 1: Changed the bus card to the second one, on an Oric-1. Oric still stopped at scrambled screen, but Cumulus now boots.
Test 2: Tried again with the 1st bus card (nothing else changed): Oric still stopped at scrambled screen, Cumulus not reacting.

Does this sound like a power too low? If so, can it explain the difference from one cumulus bus card to another ?
Ibisum, you seemed to have similar issues, I suspect I will have to find another power source. If so - next tests might be in 15 days ;)
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Re: Cumulus Issues

Post by Symoon »

Ok, as I seem to live a kind of nightmare, I'm going to describe exactly.

Found a 1200mA power source, plugged my 48K Oric-1.
Step 1 - Tried again with the working cumulus bus, but same problem: Cumulus boots, but not Oric.
Step 2 - Tried again, and suddenly the Oric booted with "no operating system". Great!
Step 3 - Inserted Sedoric in drive A, but no Oric reaction, still with "No operating system" after 1 minute.
Step 4 - Tried in the Cumulus menu to reset the Oric. When I confirmed ("yes") : back to scrambled boot screen and no more Oric reaction.

Ok, tried again, unplugged the Oric, got to setp 3 again. Wanted to try step 4 after 30 seconds, but when moving the Cumulus to press the buttons, it suddenly loaded Sedoric!
It felt strange, I moved it again (15cm further): Oric hanged.
Moved it again: Oric hard reset! And booted as if no more Cumulus was plugged.

Ok... I guessed something might be wrong with the cable, so I changed it.
Same thing: rather random boots but some success (managed to load several DSK files), and strange reactions when moving the Cumulus. It seemed to reset the Oric when moving in very specific locations, I could even hear different sounds too from the Oric speaker (not Oric music, but chips buzz), announcig what was going to happen: Oric reset or Cumulus starting reading the DSK files.

That was so crazy and possible to reproduce that I wanted to make a film of it, but since then, when I boot again, I got no more reaction of the Cumulus. Just like the 1st Cumulus board: Oric scrambles screen and no more Cumulus reaction, black screen. Tried again with an Atmos: no more reaction either.

I'm very sorry to write such strange report, and absolutely unable to explain further. I'll stop touching anything tonight and will try again tomorrow, I guess, if anyone can provide an advice on what to do :?
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Re: Cumulus Issues

Post by Symoon »

Couldn't resist trying again, moving the Cumulus well away from the power source cable and the screen cable (which is where it seemed to reset the Oric!).
Got the following picture, seems like the firmware has been affected.
IMG_3373.JPG
IMG_3373.JPG (66.93 KiB) Viewed 13787 times
Tried with my 2nd Cumulus and the display is normal but still strange things on the Oric screen.

Seems like there could be some electrical thing or whatever seriously disturbing it!

EDIT: Ok, flashed the corrupted Cumulus again and it's back to normal display. Also tested again the 1st Cumulus bus board and it now boots the Cumulus. But still those strange things when moving. I got it on video but it's hard to catch at the same time the Cumulus moving, the Oric screen display and the sounds (need me to remain silent). I'll make it available if it can help.
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Re: Cumulus Issues

Post by Symoon »

Yeah, 1st thing solved: the black screen Cumulus.
Ok, I feel stupid, but for the next ones: be careful, the width of the bus connector is not the same as the Oric one (smaller borders left and right). So you can (I did) plug the Cumulus bus shifted!
:cry:

Well I hope my other problems will be as easy as this one, I don't mind being stupid as long as it works in the end ;)
I seem to have better results tonight. Glad I captured on video the strange "moving" thing so I won't be called crazy ;)
Two machines on four tested so far seem to work (one having an alternate EPROM which doesn't work with Microdisc). Not counting the 16K Oric-1 which, as predicted, crashes when reading a disk.
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Re: Cumulus Issues

Post by Godzil »

Symoon: do you have any other IDE cable? You should try... The problem you mention seems like a faulty connection between your oric and the cumulus, there is a reset line and since it the cumulus that provide the boot rom to the oric, getting weird stuff at boot time could be a bus problem..
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Re: Cumulus Issues

Post by coco.oric »

It seems that Simon has received his cumulus a little bit before me (like him, tracking was cloudy since they arrived in france. it's said that they are arrived on friday but i've to quit my job early this friday to go back home so i'll discover them on monday)
I feel a little bit nervous when i see his adventure. I hope it'll be easier for me because i'm less experienced in hardware than him !
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Symoon
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Re: Cumulus Issues

Post by Symoon »

Coco.oric: don't feel nervous. I began but stupidly plugging it wrong though I wanted to be careful and checked here before doing anything. My fault.
I even suspect the 1st power source I used was OK.
Now I have this solved, I have to start again all the testing process. Yesterday night it seemed much better.

Godzil: I had done my tests with the 2 IDE cables I got indeed. As it didn't seem to happen yesterday night (after a few hours unused), I wonder if having plugged the bus in a wrong way could have affected something and made the whole thing easily sensitive for a while.
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Re: Cumulus Issues

Post by Chema »

Hi symoon. I also plugged it Wong the first time, but realized just before booting! Definitely something to be careful with.

One silly question. Have you plugged the cables firmly both into cumulus us and cumulus? I remembered you had to make some force to have them completely in their sockets, and I was quite afraid of damaging something.

I ask this because a faulty connection could well explain everything you are experiencing.

And, btw, I always have to reset the Oric from the cumulus whenever I change a disk image and I want the Oric to boot it.

Good luck, keep us informed!
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