Final Expansion :: 512KB SRAM + 512KB EEPROM + SD Card (2GB)

for(;;) · Post by **for(;;)** » Sat Aug 08, 2009 1:50 pm

Zorro has almost completed translation of the construction manual. He wrote he'd finish it on Sunday or Monday.

Diddl · Post by **Diddl** » Tue Sep 01, 2009 3:13 am

Vic20-Ian wrote:Beta kit arrived today!

Very well packed, nicely presented and invoiced.

Circuit board looks high quality. Good high quality chip holders (turned pin type)

Looks very high quality overall and appreciate the "Nerve Food Gummi Bears for self builders"

Looking forward to building next few days.

Hi Ian

What about your beta kit? It's working fine? Do you enjoy Jiffy Speed of Disk Loader?

Vic20-Ian · Post by **Vic20-Ian** » Sat Sep 05, 2009 5:32 am

Well after a minor hiccup with my crappy soldering iron, a trip to Maplin in the UK while on holiday and purchase of a new temperature controlled soldering station assembly is complete.

It is a little fiddly, particularly the SD card slot at the beginning.

I managed to damage SD card detect by physically pressing too hard while soldering the SD slot. It failed the resistance change checks with card inserted and removed. The SD was soldered and ok and connected to the Atmel pin but would not drop to ground with SD card inserted. This would have meant not SD card reading. Solution - I soldered a wire from the Atmel pin 16 to ground so the SD card is always present. I see no problem doing this as I will never remove the SD card to change it while the Vic is switched on anyway.

The cartridge was inserted and the Vic switched on (I used a poor quality Vic I have kicking around in case of any failures.

Load"$",8 brought up the SD card directory

Load "FE3Flash",8 and run flashed the firmware to the cartridge.

Reset on the card brought up the memory config and disk loader and I played with the 3 demo programs.

Very good bit of kit. I look forward to playing with the flash memory this afternoon and creating my personal games library cartridge!

Thanks and praise to Diddl and For for all their help and very clear instructions.

Detailed review to follow soon.

Diddl · Post by **Diddl** » Sat Sep 05, 2009 11:03 am

Oh, a real Odyssee! But you was successful - very fine!!

you have a PM!

Vic20-Ian · Post by **Vic20-Ian** » Fri Sep 25, 2009 5:18 am

What a great piece of kit! I love this thing. I wish I had this years ago.

SD Cart support on cartridge pcb is a real bonus, no loose Uiec dangling waiting to be stood on by the kids.

Loading times are fast thanks to SJ support

Cartridge menus - easy to understand and laid out well with more critical functions on Shifted F keys. Standards like F8 to go back to previous menu make for slick user experience and easy learning

Loading from Dos wedge under basic is nicely implemented

Loading from Cartridge browser is also good but requires some configuration as follows:

Each disk you want to load from menu requires a config script written in basic for each program on the disk image.
e.g.
10 title
20 configure memory
30 load part 1 to $a000
40 load part 2 to $6000
50 reset
60 next title etc.

Pros
You do it only once
Once set it is foolproof requiring just enter to load the program
Ready to flash to rom

Cons
Could be tedious with large collections
Not dynamic - needs to be edited on the vic or vice to add a program to the disk if you want to see it on the menu

Compared with easy load it looks initially clunky, however, once you have scripted to load from disk you don't need to do anything ever again and you are also ready to flash this package to the rom if you want even faster loading.

No more need to easy load, reset, configure memory, old, run.

Flash to rom is as easy and loading a game. Select flash to rom, select a disk from the SD card, select a program on the disk, enter flashes to rom and confirms ok, enter again returns to the menu to pick another program to flash. You can create the multi cart of your choice in your play order.

e.g. a page of Minter games, a page of Griner or a page of Shoot 'em up, a page of maze etc.

Writing to rom is by serial addition only at the moment but a package backup and restore with editing is planned for future releases.

This weekend I will be planning some tests with Easyload and SD2Browser from NBLA000 to see if flashing this to the number one rom spot will make quick and dirty addition of d64 files to the SD more accessible for othose times when you don't want to write a script or be bothered with wedge commands.

More reviews to come when I get more time to play!

Download the FE3 bin image in the firmware and have a go in the latest version of vice.

http://www.forum64.de/wbb3/index.php?pa ... feb5d8fc3d

orion70 · Post by **orion70** » Fri Sep 25, 2009 6:37 am

Vic20-Ian wrote:Download the FE3 bin image in the firmware and have a go in the latest version of vice.

http://www.forum64.de/wbb3/index.php?pa ... feb5d8fc3d

Der Zutritt zu dieser Seite ist Ihnen leider verwehrt. Sie besitzen nicht die notwendigen Zugriffsrechte, um diese Seite aufrufen zu können.

Diddl · Post by **Diddl** » Fri Sep 25, 2009 7:06 am

This is Forum64 and it requires registration.

Take it from my Homepage: http://vc20final.t-winkler.net/zip/

This is newest Vice: xvic-v2.1.16-xvic-cartridge-r21429.exe

This is actual Firmware: FE3FirmwareR017b.zip

In firmware zip you will always find a Vice imagefile.

orion70 · Post by **orion70** » Fri Sep 25, 2009 7:14 am

OK thanks- how do I use it in VICE ? (File -> Attach Cartridge Image -> Final Expansion Image... does not seem to work).

Diddl · Post by **Diddl** » Fri Sep 25, 2009 7:19 am

Works fine for me?

Did you use file "fe3vice-r017b.bin" from zip file?

orion70 · Post by **orion70** » Fri Sep 25, 2009 7:23 am

Used the .prg file... The .bin loads correctly. Thanks.

Vic20-Ian · Post by **Vic20-Ian** » Sat Sep 26, 2009 2:31 am

Orion, what do you think ?

orion70 · Post by **orion70** » Sat Sep 26, 2009 2:52 am

I'm not able to provide a feedback yet, as I didn't have time to test it deeply. It looks promising though... More to say in the next few days.

nbla000 · Post by **nbla000** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 5:49 am

Vic20-Ian wrote:Orion, what do you think ?

I've tested it on Emulation (I'm waiting real hardware for real tests from vic20-Ian

) btw seems to me that the firmware has not yet the ability to remove items from flash, I'm wrong ? may I just remove everything ? and how ? may I change the order of the items in flash ?

There will be new firmware updates ?

orion70 · Post by **orion70** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 7:33 am

nbla000 wrote:btw seems to me that the firmware has not yet the ability to remove items from flash, I'm wrong?

Same impression. However, the wedge functionality is impressive, and menus are clear and friendly (F8 etc). I'll seriously think about the opportunity of buying a FE3 as soon as I find someone helping me in assembling it.

for(;;) · Post by **for(;;)** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 8:29 am

nbla000 wrote:seems to me that the firmware has not yet the ability to remove items from flash, I'm wrong ? may I just remove everything ? and how ? may I change the order of the items in flash ?

There will be new firmware updates ?

The flash memory chip can erase large blocks only (IHMO 64 KB), so deleting a single item is not possible.

At the moment, you could remove everything (should be at FE Utilities) and add what you would like to keep later.

You can't change the order at the moment.

Diddl is now out for holidays for two weeks, I'm sure, he'll add new features if requests come.

In theory, it might be possible to deliver the impression of deleting a single item by adding some extra info (deleted) and to delete a large block only "real" if space is needed. But for me, this seems to me a larger task - won't be done in a minute.
At least, the use of such additional info in the flash directory might enable changing the (displayed) order as well.

Denial

Final Expansion :: 512KB SRAM + 512KB EEPROM + SD Card (2GB)

Beta kit built and tested

FE3 Beta test and feedback on use

Re: FE3 Beta test and feedback on use