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Electron UPURS User Manual - Retro-kit

1. aiwa 27 UPLOAD REQS isaac aes saa aaa aaa AA KA DER a DER a a ihi 27 Extracting ROM images using UPXROM cccccccssssssscceccesesseeeecceseaaeeeeccesesaaeeeeeeessesaaeeeecessesaaees 28 USACE SS TA RSE SaaS SSAA SS TAN SAN ANE E RUT E BE NGA a EN 28 Listing CUPFENTIROMS assistants aia aaa es 28 Exporting a single ROM kisas sadasane kna os sri jala a b e alaa a TAI E AA Dae Sean e 28 Eiee AS E ov a A eta 30 About YEE FES eee eatin a eee tle 30 Decompressing a UEF TIES SSAA aaa 30 UPCFS CompatibilitV eee aR E ASAE 30 0 0 aia ea r ASAR 31 Supported commands with UPCFS ss ssssssssssssseseessessesssesssssssssssesseeeeeeee ens 32 Loading a program from UEF on an Electron 2222222 32 Loading ANOS AA nga a aa gan nih A a aaa aan anaa E 32 2 601 0812 662 aa aid a a agan 32 Reporting issues With UEF TIES dasan aaa eag aaa a ak Na da ka aa lae KE a ak kaja Aa 33 Troubleshooting ae Jaka aan NA E aaa a AA GAN ag A aa a A a Ea a a AE a AN a EA Ga ga A A GAN AE aas 34 General CONNECTIVITY ISSUES sasaran inaa ah a gag aaa aa aa aa Kan a aa naga NG La nak ba Eh naen ana aia a aga nane 34 RESOLURION asasaran ga aaa a aa
2. Tick the Reading and Writing checkboxes Tick the checkbox Apply settings when opening You should also e Uncheck the Hex Output box e Ensure the file type for Send File is set to Plain e Select No Line End e Set Char Delay to Oms When all the correct settings have been selected click the Open Device button to establish communications between the virtual COM port and the Electron 1 This is the device name assigned by the operating system and should match the device name returned by the dmesg command previously issued You will need to precede the device name assigned with dev You may have to type the device name as the drop down list may only contain physical RS232 ports found on your system 16 Using UPURS An overview The UPURS suite has six commands allowing a user to image and create floppy discs and to load data received directly from the User Port into memory or Sideways RAM SRAM and also to extract images of Sideways ROM or RAM banks In addition to the disc based utilities UPURS also provides a way of accessing UEF images of data cassettes to load and run programs and data directly from a PC into an Acorn Electron UPURS accomplishes this feature by providing a pseudo file system that mimics the Electron s native Cassette File System CFS e UPSSD lt drv gt e UPDSD lt drv gt e UPXSSD lt drv gt F I e UPXSSD lt drv gt 14 18 e UPXDSD lt drv gt F I e UPXDSD lt drv gt
3. 14 18 e UPLOAD lt addr gt e UPLOAD e UPLOAD R lt id gt e UPXROM e UPXROM lt rom_id gt e UPXROM lt low gt lt high gt e UPCFS Creates a floppy disc with the contents of the SSD image being sent Creates a floppy disc with the contents of the DSD image being sent Exports the image of a physical SSD to the connecting computer Exports the image of a physical SSD to the connecting computer Exports the image of a physical DSD to the connecting computer Exports the image of a physical DSD to the connecting computer Receives data and places it into the Electrons memory at addr Receives data and places it into the Electrons memory at Receives data and places it directly into the chosen SRAM bank id Lists all currently installed ROMs Exports the ROM located in the specified ROM bank Exports an inclusive range of ROM banks from low to high Prepares the Electron to accept UEF files by intercepting the CFS Using the suite should involve a similar process on all connected operating systems the main differences between interacting with different operating systems will be briefly described in particular in how this relates to receiving and sending files using the UPxSD and UPXxSD utilities 17 Creating a physical floppy disc on the Acorn Electron from a received disc image UPSSD lt drv gt UPDSD lt drv gt There are two commands within the UPURS suite that are designed to create a floppy d
4. Close the serial connection to the Electron using the currently active parameters When all the correct settings have been selected click the Open button to establish communications between the virtual COM port and the Electron 14 Software for Linux For the purposes of testing the suite with Linux Cutecom was selected as it offers a Graphical User Interface and is very easy to configure It may not be installed by default as part of your Linux distribution but can be obtained from the usual sources If using a Ubuntu distribution for example the Ubuntu Software Center application can be used to locate download and install it with a few mouse clicks Once Cutecom is installed launch the application with the following command from a Terminal window S sudo cutecom You will be prompted for your password for authentication and once entered correctly the Cutecom application will be opened with Super User privileges A screen similar to figure 7 should appear CuteCom Momemartvvtest ssa Input Send nie ET wo line end 3 Char delay fo ms Fig 7 The Cutecom GUI 15 Configuring the settings Confirm the parameters are as shown in the above screenshot specifically Device Type the appropriate Virtual Com port name e g dev ttyUSBO Baud Set this to 115200 Baud Data bits Set this to 8 bits Stop bits Set this to 1 Parity Set this to none Handshaking Tick the Hardware checkbox Open for
5. Electron issue the command UPXROM with the switch The resulting list will identify the ROM RAM banks in use and the name of the ROM image that is occupying each bank as shown in the listing below Banks that are empty are indicated by the use of the banks that are in use have the name of the ROM image listed SRAM banks are indicated by the use of w rather than Slogger PEGASUS 8 BASIC gt UPXROM 7 PEGASUS 466 1 862 T2PEG466 2 862 UPURS 1 6E UPURS 1 6E 8 1 2 3 4 3 6 f 8 9 A B D E F gt NOTE On the Electron the ROM slots 8 and 9 are always occupied by the keyboard and BASIC always occupies slots 10 and 11 amp 0A and amp 0B When using UPXROM the process is similar to that when using the UPXSSD and UPXDSD and the same procedure should be used when choosing the file to which the ROM images should be saved on the connecting computer when preparing to receive the data from the Electron 28 To export an 8K ROM e g NFS 3 60 which resides in the sideways ROM bank 7 would use the following command UPXROM 7 To export a 16K ROM e g DNFS 1 20 which resides in the sideways ROM bank 11 would use the following command UPXROM B Once the connecting computer is ready to receive the ROM image s press the SPACE BAR to commence sending the ROM images Exporting multiple ROMs Advanced users UPXROM can be used to export multiple ROMs to a single file where all R
6. required for the use of the UPURS socket D1 D2 R3 R4 and PL3 38 Assembly of the Electron User Port expansion The first thing to do is ensure that the board is entirely clean and free of grease and other contaminants A quick clean with Isopropyl Alcohol does the trick Begin populating the board with the passive electronic components Normally when building up a PCB you start with the IC sockets and headers but on this occasion it is easier to start with the passive electronic components The 1N5817 diodes are quite tricky to fit as their leads only just fit through the holes on the board The leads must also be bent as close to the diodes body as possible for a neat fit If you aren t intending on fitting the battery holder which is optional the diode D3 does not need to be fitted and a tinned copper wire link can be used in its place 39 By splaying the components leads they re held in place ready for soldering Solder each point and trim the leads off once completed You can see the solder work of the passive components after they ve been soldered and trimmed in the photo below 40 The next stage is to fit all of the decoupling capacitors If your capacitors have a narrower lead spacing than required using a set of fine nose pliers manually bend the leads to the correct shape for fitting Again splaying the leads on the solder side helps to retain the loose components in place prior to soldering Sol
7. suite provides a set of tools for the transfer of data to and from the BBC Micro series of computers using a high speed serial link and now thanks to the Electron User Port expansion board UPURS can be used with the Acorn Electron computer too The combination of User Port expansion hardware UPURS software and a USB to RS 232 serial cable means that the implementation of the RS 232 link runs at an impressive 115 200 Baud both to and from the Acorn Electron Differing from the BBC Micro slightly the high speed serial link is implemented directly into the Electron User Ports expansion board However the custom cable designed to connect to the BBC Microcomputers User Port can also be used with the Electron User Port expansion board if preferred The accompanying software is designed to import and export single sided disc ssd and double sided disc dsd images that are used to archive software for the Acorn Electron Advanced features of UPURS allow data to be loaded directly into the memory of the Electron and for ROM banks to be exported out to a connected computer The sections of the guide referring to the Linux operating system were created whilst testing UPURS using the Ubuntu 11 04 distribution Kernel Version 2 6 38 8 installed on an x36 32 bit PC This specific Linux distribution and kernel version is not a prerequisite it simply happens to be the version that the tests were conducted with for the transfer utilities Other versio
8. the original disc 22 I 14 and 18 Creating a full disc image from a corrupt or irregular floppy disc The parameters I 14 and I8 are used to perform disc imaging I gnoring any errors that may be encountered during the read process This allows a disc with missing out of sequence or invalid tracks to be imaged The use of I is the equivalent of using UPXSSD without any parameters producing a contiguous image of the used area of the floppy disc as determined by the inspection of a valid Track O directory list 14 and 18 implicitly uses the F parameter thereby imaging an entire 40 or 80 track disc respectively If a read error is encountered when attempting to read Track O with option I the imaging process will fail whereas I4 and 18 will image the entire disc regardless of the presence of a corrupt track 0 Where a track cannot be read valid track data will be sent to the receiving PC but will contain a contiguous block of bytes of the value amp FA Acorn Electron Slogger PEGASUS 468 BASIC UPADSD 8 I Insert disc set PC to Rx press 5 0 5 Imaging 62464 bytes 66 8 4 Finished Fig 13 Use of the parameter on a floppy disc with faulty tracks When UPXSSD encounters a fault on the floppy disc it is reading if the I 14 or 18 parameter are used the error is reported but the imaging process continues regardless in an effo
9. ELECTRON USER PORT AND USER GUIDE User Ports and UPURS serial connection for the Acorn Electron by Martin B Contents 61 feeves cat pa A aaa a Aa aa a KA EES A E aa a a a pa teers 5 What VOU NCC rece anata E ajaga DAN SSE Desa BEER Beane EA AE E a BO a E aa En 5 THE SEN alp OKE aaa aa aan E stents EN aa a a aaa EEN A a IN TE EA Sa a AG E a aa aa ng a Ba aan EE E a a 6 Serial Port ASSISMIMENKS sarasa anaa na sS E aa aa aaa Roa Take 6 Installing the UPURS suite in the Acorn Electron cccssssssscsccecceeceececeecesecescesseeeeeeeceeaaeeasaasaeaaesaeees 7 Notes on USING UPURS from iSC ccccsccsccscececceececeeccesceseseseeeeseeeasaeaaecaeeeeceeeeeeeeeeseesseessessseeseeeseeaaea 7 Installing UPURS to Sideways RAM 7 Getting up and running with UPURS and an FTDI USB to RS232 Cable sass sss 8 Installing the FTDI drivers in WindOWS cccccccccecceccesceseeeseeeneeseeceaaeaaecaeeeeeeeeeeeesseeseessesseneseesseeeaaea 8 Uninstalling older FTDI Arivers Sasan 8 Installing the latest FTDI drivers for Windows ccccccecceeceseeseseseeessecncaaeaaecaeeeeeeeeeeeeecesecessenesess 11 Installing the FTDI drivers in LINUX ccccccccecscceccecceeeecceccesceseeeceesecesasaesaeaaeaaeceeeeeeeeeeeceseeesesseeeeeees 12 PC SIde SONWALE os sasana anak Gae anaa E Ga eae a WG BAN ANGGE ce
10. FS and then attempt to load the next stage of the program Typically this behaviour results in the Cassette Motor relay being enabled UPCES is different in operation to the other commands in the UPURS suite in that it is not in itself a command used to transfer data from the PC to the Electron Instead issuing the command UPCFS configures the Electron in such a way that the traditional Cassette Filing System CFS commands are intercepted by UPURS and the Electron believes it is accepting data directly from the build in CFS When the UPCFS command is issued the Electron will initialise its memory settings and then pass control back to the user at the prompt Acorn Electron Slogger PEGASUS 4686 BASIC gt UPCFS UPURS UEF FS Ver 1 98 251112 gt The UPCFS system will then recognise and intercept the standard suite of commands that are used by the CFS to load and run programs and data 31 Supported commands with UPCFS The UPCFS system is read only and supports the following commands e RUN e LOAD e e CAT e OPT e CHAIN e LOAD e OPENIN e OPENUP read only e BGET e CLOSE e INPUT EOF Loading a program from UEF on an Electron The loading of any particular program from a UEF is entirely dependent on the type of program that is contained by that UEF and often the UEF filename may give a hint as to which command you should use to load the application e g e West_RUN_E uef uses RUN
11. OMs are exported out as 16K images regardless of their actual size and the use of is ignored The resulting exported file will be 16K lt number of roms exported gt in size A file should be created on the connecting computer to which all the data sent from the Electron should be saved and the instructions for this can be found in the section covering UPXSSD and UPXDSD To export multiple ROMs the following command line is used UPXROM lt rom_id_low gt lt rom_id_high gt The low and high ROM ids form a range signifying the beginning and end ROM banks to export Example UPXROM 1A This command will export ALL ROM banks from bank 1 to amp A inclusive Including those ROM banks that are currently unoccupied After issuing the command on the Electron ensure that the connecting computer is ready to receive the data and logging is enabled before finally pressing the SPACE BAR on the Electron to initiate the send function A set of ROM banks exported in this way will require manual extraction of individual ROM images from the single contiguous file using a Hex editor such as HxD which has a file splitting tool built in or 2 32 which allows a selected block of data to be written directly to a file When extracting ROMs from a contiguous file in this way each exported ROM bank starts at an offset of amp 4000 from the beginning of the file i e The first bank exported will be at address amp 0000 the second bank in the e
12. after the successful installation of the new drivers Once the software is extracted there should be a new folder on the desktop called FTClean Open the folder and double click on the file listed as FTClean or FTClean exe 788 FTDI AN Chip Fig 4 The Windows XP FTDI driver clean up tool By clicking on the Clean System button the utility will search for and uninstall the FTDI drivers and remove all related registry entries 10 Installing the latest FTDI drivers for Windows Windows Vista and 7 installation procedure 1 WUL D Nt 10 Download the drivers Unzip the driver distribution to C UPURSdrivers for example Open device manager as detailed in the Uninstall procedure for Windows Vista and 7 Plug in the USB RS232 cable Choose Skip obtaining driver software from Windows Update in the Driver Software installation popup If this does not appear check the installer icon near the clock in the task bar In Device Manager locate the USB Serial Port listed in Other devices Right click on the USB Serial Port entry and choose Update Driver Software Choose to Browse for driver software and locate the driver folder C UPURSdrivers before clicking Next The driver install should then proceed please choose to accept any changes that the driver installation may require Once completed the device USB Serial Port COMx will be
13. ase Ga ee eaaa ga aaa hk 13 Software f r WiINGOWS sstart ag TE aa D KEN EEE KE aja a aa gak aa EE ada na aa aa aka 13 CONFIQUNING the settings anaa aaa aaa Kaga KANGEN aa agan 14 S ftwarefor LIU Kee asana Aan Aa aa Gg NG a a NANG NANANG vases ditt da dss SEE ade E aaa a a E ad aa ga a 15 60 the Setting Serten dag ajan a Ga a A nada Janganan a esa 16 Usine UPURS is cesses vas ea aa Ba NAN GA Na aana 17 saa aaa ss aaa DN A E TAG AGA NAMA AA TAA NG MAE A GK ab aa a 17 Creating a physical floppy disc on the Acorn Electron from a received disc image 18 Creating a disc image from a physical floppy GiSC cccceccccccccecceccecesscescessseeseceeesaaaaeaaeaseesaeeeeeeees 20 FOP WANGOWS secs sabane est ca cass NI a aaa da Ba BE Sian a Tag aaa ARS 20 LINUX EET KANA EAE TA Aa Aa Rah A 21 Advanced OPTIONS soca daa a a aa NG da a aa aa ala a ag Nak e 22 WPXSSD sarasa aaa aa a aka RE LEA ke Gi aia a na a E TAB A oe 24 Using UPLOAD Ng aaa ai a aaa R 25 UPLOAD lt a i akan aana aan Gana aa Gaga miha aa a a Ga a ia gan an an ah wata ha A GEK 26 UPLOAD Ossian E a
14. at you wish to load into Sideways RAM on the Electron Following the selection of the file press the SPACE BAR on the Electron to start the transfer The sending PC should indicate the progress with the software s progress bar On success the Electron should state Transfer OK and return to a prompt Once the transfer into a sideways RAM bank has been completed use CTRL BREAK to reset the Electron and initialise the newly loaded ROM image and type HELP at the prompt to confirm that the ROM image has been loaded successfully NOTE Uploading a ROM image to any other SRAM bank where it is already in use will result in the original ROM image in the designated bank being overwritten UPLOAD does not check to see if you are overwriting the SRAM bank that UPURS is currently occupying If you attempt to UPLOAD an alternate ROM image to the same bank that UPURS currently occupies the transfer will hang and the SRAM bank will be corrupted 27 UPXROM UPXROM lt rom_id gt UPXROM lt rom_id_low gt lt rom_id_high gt UPXROM supports the export of ROM images from designated ROM banks or sideways RAM banks Individual ROMs can be exported as 8K or 16K files by use of the attribute which signifies that the image should be written out as an 8K file The banks to be exported are indicated by the rom_id which must be a hexadecimal numeric value between 0 and F To list the current ROM images that are installed in the
15. atsan 34 Clear to Send responds but data will not transfer correctly 22 34 Resolution rasanan a nip Na GENG ENEG a bbe asides ss AG ag aa a RSS 34 Electron reports NO Rx Datal aia pad b aaa san an a A a gg a aa ASAS es 34 6 aes A aa A ana ga PA Aa a Dan aaa na aa a age a 34 When receiving data the screen went blank and now the computer is behaving oddly 35 35 After receiving data press BREAK and see a Bad SUM 222 35 RESOLUTION Secs sakanan NGE a EA ENGGA aaa eS 35 When listing the ROMs in my BBC Micro with UPKROM see duplicate entries and the listing differs from ROMS Rar 35 ReSOlUtIORN SENSORS ARES AAR 35 When writing to a floppy see a Write error message ccccccccscsccceccecceceeceeseeseeesseeeneesectssaaeaaees 35 Resolution Ti ee ESRAR ORM RESA 35 When using UPDSD see a Write error but UPSSD works just fine with the same disC 36 RESONIH ON onic Meta et Ea heating On a aa eet a tees eats A ak aaa a ents 36 UPURS reports Track No gt 79 when try to write an image to my floppy GiSC 36 Resolution SRSA SAAR Gb ee ie aA a ARES 36 My disc image transfers are losing bytes when transferring using UPXSSD or UPXDSD 36 36 My disc image transfers are gaining bytes when transferr
16. ca le 1 Sytem Took O Tek Schore Ha E Viewer 4 impre gi Paved tciden lt y Disk dives 5 2 By Deiptey A Dene Manager IR Human Deces 5 DE ATIATAPI Bf Dah NJ neon dexe Jy Serxet and hpg tom ndoh A Mae and other pembina devices Be Montes QO paten oF PonsiCOM amp LPT P mawoh serial Pon COMB Puctooth Sert Poet COMB FP USE Sena Pon COMM D Procession Q Soh rebat a game controler tem dees 6 Urewernat senal Bus Fig 3 Navigating through the device manager To then uninstall the drivers right click on the USB Serial Port COMx entry and choose Uninstall ensuring that the Delete the driver software for this device has been checked in the confirmation popup Once uninstalled unplug the USB RS232 cable Windows XP Uninstalling any previous versions of the FTDI drivers under Windows KP is relatively straight forward A small utility called FTClean is available from FTDI can be used to uninstall the drivers and clean the related registry entries thereby ensuring a clean install of the latest drivers FTClean can be downloaded from FTDI at the following address http www ftdichip com Resources Utilities FTClean zi Once downloaded the contents of the zip file should be extracted to the desktop The software once used need not be kept and as such can be deleted
17. cules on the PC every key press that is made whilst data is being transferred is incorporated into the data transfer process This means you can intentionally cause a Chunk Type error simply by pressing keys on the PC keyboard whilst a transfer is in progress The second reason for a Chunk Type error is when UPCFS encounters a UEF chunk of a type that it was not expecting The byte value in the error response from UPCFS indicates the value of the two bytes that describe the UEF Chunk type The third reason for the Chunk Type error is usually due to the software that is being loaded using a cassette format that is encoded into the UEF These custom encodings are usually down to copy protection methods that have been employed Resolution Attempt to re load the UEF in question If the UEF loads without issue then it s likely that there was extraneous data on the serial port when the transfer began or a key was pressed on the keyboard during transfer Some software titles fail on the same block with the same Chunk Type error and byte value It s likely that the UEF is of a custom format or has copy protection techniques that are incompatible with the current version of UPCFS Please report these errors using the online error reporting form http www retro kit co uk UPCFS Report UPCFS appears to work but then the cassette motor relay clicks Some software titles reset the system vectors that UPCFS intercepts to enab
18. der and trim the capacitors in place like the resistors and diodes previously Use Blu Tack to secure the sockets in place ready for soldering doing each socket in turn 41 In order to speed the process of soldering all the sockets in place using the Blu Tack technique to hold one in place simply tack each one by soldering one pin on opposite corners of the socket 42 Tacking the opposite corner successfully fixes the socket in place ready for soldering all the other pins but don t solder all the pins until I ve tacked every socket onto the board This will make the job quicker to complete as you can solder all the remaining pins in one go Once each socket has been tacked into place revisit each socket in turn completing the job 43 Using the same Blu Tack technique solder the headers to the board Finally the User Port and UPURS sockets need to be fitted onto the solder side of the board soldering them on the component side Fitting the 9 pin D type socket can be tricky as the pins can be slightly out of line and require some gentle persuasion in order to get them to fit through the holes As the pins are offset it s more difficult to fit than the two User Port sockets 44 Finally after soldering all the socket pins use a large quantity of solder to ensure that there is no play in the mounting of the 9 pin D type socket on the board Here s the completed board ready for cleaning with Isopropyl a
19. e from the Future Technologies Devices International Ltd website which is listed at the beginning of this guide With the FTDI driver properly installed connect the USB to Serial adaptor cable to a spare USB port on your Linux system It should be automatically recognised and attached to a Virtual COM port within the operating system To confirm the FTDI cable is recognised by your system type the following command in a Terminal window S dmesg grep FTDI The system should respond with an output similar to figure 5 martin mga linux dmesg grep FTDI 9440 662069 USB Serial support registered for USB Serial Device 9440 662175 ftdi sio 6 1 1 0 USB Serial Device converter detected 9440 665200 usb 6 1 USB Serial Device converter now attached to ttyUSBO 9440 665231 ftdi sio v1 6 0 USB Serial Converters Driver martin mga linux J Fig 5 The output from this example confirms that the operating system has detected the FTDI USB Serial adaptor and has assigned it to the Virtual Com Port ttyUSBO 12 PC side software Any suitable communications software capable of communicating over an RS 232 connection and logging received data to a file should be suitable for use with the UPURS suite Software for Windows The author currently recommends the Hercules SETUP Utility which is available for free from HW group at the following address http www hw group com products hercules index_en html Hercules SETUP util
20. e of data If the connecting computer were to become disconnected from the Electron or the send was not initiated on the connecting computer before pressing the SPACE BAR on the Electron this error would be thrown Resolution Power off the Electron and re check all of the connections before powering on again ensuring that all connections are good Ensure that the transfer procedure is done in the correct order For more details see the section covering UPSSD and UPDSD 34 When receiving data the screen went blank and now the computer is behaving oddly This can occur when a buffer overrun occurs where the Electron s memory is overwritten with NULL data thereby setting the system flags incorrectly The buffer overrun can be triggered if the software on the connecting computer does not reset the RS 232 Tx Data line and it is left high rather than the correct idle state of low Resolution Power off the Electron and wait for a few seconds before turning it back on again when power is restored the Electron should behave correctly After receiving data I press BREAK and see a Bad Sum error This can occur to the Electron when the value of PAGE on the computer is higher than UPURS uses memory above amp 0E00 and this can be allocated as filing system workspace on some computers so when the BREAK key is pressed and the ROMs are initialised they can report this error due to the fact that UPURS has corrupted their w
21. fore being packaged for download on the Internet as a Zip file UPCFS does not support compressed UEF files and they must be de compressed before transferring them to an Electron Decompressing a UEF file UEF files that can be found on the Internet are usually packaged as a Zip file The UEF is then extracted and used with an emulator as it is For use with UPCFS a second decompression stage must be carried out Tools such as Winzip can be used to accomplish this second decompression stage The process of preparing a UEF file for use with UPCFS is as follows Download the UEF zip file package from the Internet Extract the UEF filename uef from the zip package Rename the extracted UEF file to filename uef gz by adding the gz file extension PWN Extract the gzip d uef filename uef from the gz file Once the file is extracted and decompressed it is ready for use with UPCFS UPCFS Compatibility UPCFS aims to be as compatible as possible with the original Acorn CFS system however there are several programs that employ copy protection schemes or use particular techniques that can interfere with the UPCFS system rendering them incompatible At the time of writing UPCFS for the Electron has not been fully tuned so compatibility may not be as good as it will be with future releases of the UPURS ROM image 30 Many of the failures are experienced when UPCFS is overridden by custom software loaders that re engage the Acorn C
22. in order to show the data loading process without overwriting the image data with output from UPLOAD Send rc file mow Press arny keu to end trans fer Beast T C E a Fig 14 UPLOAD 3000 command issued waiting for data Fig 15 Data received and loaded between the values of amp 3000 and amp 6BFF NOTE The address value passed to UPLOAD must always be the address of a page boundary within the Electron s memory so must always be of the format amp xx00 For example amp 0E00 and amp 3000 are both okay but amp 0E20 and amp 3040 cannot be used 26 UPLOAD UPLOAD is similar to UPLOAD lt addr gt except it is fixed to the address of amp OEOO allowing images of programs to be uploaded into memory on Electron s with a page of amp OEOO which is common for DFS based file systems UPLOAD R lt id gt To load a ROM image directly into Sideways RAM begins by issuing the command UPLOAD R lt id gt The value of id must be between the hexadecimal values of O and amp F and be a valid bank of Sideways RAM Acorn Electron Slogger PEGASUS 8 BASIC gt UPLOAD R7 Purging link Send PC file amp hit lt Space gt Fig 16 UPLOAD awaiting data from the connected computer When you see the Buffer open message move to the connected computer and ensure that the Serial Port has been OPENed before then choosing the Send a File option and browse to the ROM image file th
23. ing to the connected computer using the data settings for the Hercules software outlined above choose the Log to File feature from the context menu available on the right click of your mouse Choose a suitable name for the disc image e g test ssd and click open HEX Enable CR LF Enable Local Echo Delete EOL NVT Enable lt Special Chars gt Transmit EOL Enable Log Enable Ctrl L Log to File gt Overwrite LOG File Send File 2 Log to File Nana e asia Mone Hide Recieved Data Ctrl H Copy to Clipboard Ctrl C Send Clipboard As Text max 1024 Bytes Ctrl V Clear Window Fig 10 Configuring the Log to file options using the Hercules menu Next use the key combination of CTRL L or the context menu option of Log Enable to begin logging any data received by the connected computer to the file test ssd then Open the Serial connection to the Electron before finally moving back to the Electron press the SPACE BAR to commence sending data to the connected computer Where UPXDSD is used the value of drv must be between 0 and 1 20 When the Electron completes the sending process it is important to check that the number of bytes transmitted by the Electron is the same as the number received by the destination PC Where the number of bytes are different please refer to the troubleshooting guide for further information If the byte counts are the same use CTRL L ke
24. ing using UPXSSD or UPXDSD 37 PAIONO hue q PARETAN nag aa E eA La ma a ag D E as Weber shh het BA a a Pn en 37 UPCFS reports Chunk Type XXYY when attempting to load a program u 37 Resolutio istic ek saa Allee A eel ade eed tet etn eta ee ee eed ede lean 37 UPCFS appears to work but then the cassette motor relay CliCKS assesses 37 RESON OM ec asas ena an ee aaa lee eae eee ala ae 37 Building the Electron User Port ExpansiOn ccccsscsssssssssscceceeeeecceeeeceseessessseesseesauseesseeasauaaeaaesseeeeeeees 38 Parts isti asas cates ft aE Saa 38 Optional Pantsis sasada gabagen Peeve aa n Sessa chase Ka ahaha ta AAS Peeve bd an ais eae anes akak 38 Assembly of the Electron User Port expansion ccccccssecssscsecaeccecceeceeeeeeeseeseessesssneseesesesaeaaeeas 39 Fitting the battery components cccccssssscssecceeeecceeeeceeeceseeseeeseeeeesseeseeeaeaaeaaeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeseeeseeeseeeees 47 Programming for the Electron User Port cccccecssssssscsscaecceeceeeeceeceeceesessseesseeeesseasauaaeaaesaeeeeeeeseeeesess 48 Technical differences between the BBC Micro and Electron User Ports 2 222 48 SCHEMatl CS sas ied seins Ra ss 49 366101 2 the Ad a ah a E eee behead a a ee 51 Introduction The UPURS
25. ion of the drivers are identified as version 2 08 24 The following instructions cover removing any existing FTDI drivers from a Windows PC and then installing version 2 08 24 Uninstalling older FTDI drivers Windows Vista and Windows 7 Due to the introduction of Windows Resource Protection with Windows Vista the un installation of the FTDI drivers must be done manually The easiest method of un installing the drivers is with the USB RS232 cable plugged into the PC at the time and these instructions will cover that method of uninstalling the FTDI drivers To uninstall the drivers from Windows they must be removed using the Device Manager To access the Device Manager open the Start Menu and right click on the My Computer or Computer entry and choose the Manage option Open Mage amp Map sehecrk drrve_ Disconnect network deve Show on Deiitog Rename Pepene Fig 2 Opening the Computer Management console in Windows Vista and 7 The Computer Management console should open and the Device Manager can be found under the System Tools section Navigate through the device manager and expand the section covering Ports COM amp LPT If the USB RS232 cable is plugged in an entry should be listed as USB Serial Port COMx where x is the virtual COM port that has been created on the machine when the drivers were originally installed wel 060 e E compe Management Lo
26. isc image from the data received over the RS 232 link called UPSSD and UPDSD The process to send a disc image to the Electron is the same for both ssd and dsd disc images with the exception of the choice of command on the Electron itself This manual will only cover the commands used to create a Single Sided floppy disc To create a double sided floppy disc simply replace UPSSD with UPDSD in the command below To create a floppy disc from the contents of an SSD image on the connected computer the following command must be issued at the Electron s command line UPSSD lt drv gt where drv can be a value between 0 and 3 NOTE When issuing this command be careful to ensure that the floppy disc to be written to is pre formatted The disc maybe either blank or contain data however any data on the disc will be overwritten Acorn Electron Slogger PEGASUS 8 BASIC gt UPSSD 6 Purging link Insert disc send PC file amp hit lt Space gt Receiving Transfer Ended gt Fig 8 UPSSD showing the process of receiving data from the connected computer Ensure that a floppy is inserted into the correct floppy drive on the Electron and then move across to the connected computer system On the connected computer using the RS 232 terminal software the serial connection must be OPENed if it hasn t been already before choosing the option Send a File or Send File Where UPDSD is used the val
27. ity by HW group com So UDP Setup Serial TCP Client TCP Server UDP Test Mode About Received Sent data Serial Name coma X Baud 115200 Data size 8 v Parity none z Handshake RATS CTS bd Mode Free z A Open c A 8 56 8 5 r AT Hwa Fw update Send I HEX Send H Il amar TT HEX Send wwu HW groupcom Hercules SETUP atility HEX 5 Version 3 2 4 Modem lines Fig 6 The Hercules Serial tab The Serial tab of the Hercules utility can be used as a simple serial port terminal for the RS 232 standard It s similar to the Hyperterminal application but with some extended functions Parameters e Set the parameters of the connection speed parity handshake e Set the mode of operation Free PortStore test Data Setup e Set and display the value of the signal on each modem line i e on each RS 232 pin e Send and display messages or commands to and from remote device e Firmware update of device N A 13 Other parameters in Right click menu e Display special characters in ASCII HEX or DEC e Log the communication to a file e Create and send atest file Configuring the settings Name Choose the appropriate RS 232 COM port e g COM4 Baud Set this to 115200 Baud Data size Set this to 8 bits Parity Set this to none Handshake Set this to RTS CTS Mode Set this to Free Open Close button Open and
28. lcohol followed by population with the integrated circuits and testing 1 ae 6 2 8 hs 6 9 T 0000000 pe Seal a 0000000000000 OREO 99000 019000000 099 o zO 7 00000064 00900000 1 45 The final result with all excess flux removed with IPA and the chips fitted IC8 is not connected and could be used to add extra logic if required in the future 000000090 6 o 9 bai 5 5 5 5 3 5 b 2 r TTT ULL The jumper positions are in the default states and each jumper is configured as follows Jumper East West JP1 RAM Write protect Read Write Read Only JP2 Disable EPROM ROM Enabled ROM Disabled JP3 32K RAM chip and EPROMS 16KB or under 32KB EPROM Fitting the battery components With respect to fitting the battery components there is a minor error in the PCB layout which must be corrected by fitting alternate battery components to those indicated on the PCB Rather than fitting a CR1225 holder a modified CR2032 battery holder must be fitted The modification adjusts the pins to match the polarity of the holder to that of the PCB To achieve the modification the negative pin must be cut off and a short piece of wire attached directly to the negative spring contact which can then be soldered to the negative terminal on the PCB The positive terminal of the battery holder can then be so
29. ldered into place to the positive connection on the PCB For extra stability attach a piece of double sided adhesive foam between the 6522 socket and where the CR2032 battery holder will fit 47 Once soldered into place use a piece of insulation tape to prevent short circuits when a battery is not fitted in the holder Programming for the Electron User Port The Electron User Port expansion board provides two full user ports that behave identically to the User Port implementation on the BBC Micro and it is recommended that you reference the extensive information about programming the User Port in general from sources such as the BBC Micro Advanced User Guide Technical differences between the BBC Micro and Electron User Ports The technical difference between the BBC Micro and Electron User Ports are simply down to the base addresses of the hardware being different to fit in with the respective memory maps of the machines Where the BBC Micro has a base address of amp FE60 for the User VIA which controls the User and Printer Port the Electron User Ports have a base address of amp FCBO As both the A and B ports of the 6522 VIA are available to the user in full the following addresses should provide enough information to get started with programming them Port A and UPURS socket Port B 0 port amp FCB1 amp FCBO Data Direction Register amp FCB3 amp FCB2 The Electron Plus 1 expansion already has a Printe
30. le loading UEFs over the User Port causing the system to revert to the true Cassette Filing System When a custom loader does this and attempts to load the next section of the title it engages the Electron s internal systems and the Cassette Motor relay engages Resolution Titles that do this are currently incompatible with UPCFS Please report the titles using the online error reporting form http www retro kit co uk UPCFS Report 37 Building the Electron User Port Expansion Parts list The parts list below details all of the components required to build the entire User Port Expansion board Depending on the functionality required some parts are optional PCB ID Part Quantity IC1 6522 1 IC2 74LS30 1 IC3 74LS04N 1 1C4 74LSO2N 1 ICS 74 08 1 06 74LS393 1 IC7 EPROM SRAM 270128 or 1 27C256 or 62256 IC8 Spare Not fitted 0 D1 D2 1N4148 2 D3 1N5817 1 D4 BAT42 1 R1 220R 1 R2 4 4k7 3 C1 220pF 1 C2 C9 100nF 8 B1 CR2032 1 Bih Holder for CR2032 1 1 3 Jumper header 3 way 0 1 3 PL1 PL2 R A IDC 20 way 2 PL3 R A 9 way D type 1 IC1s DIL IC socket 40 way 1 IC2s IC6s DIL IC socket 14 way 5 IC7s DIL IC socket 28 way 1 IC8s Spare not fitted 0 Optional Parts Battery backup The following parts are optional and only required for battery backup B1 Bih D3 D4 and R4 UPURS socket The following parts are optional and only
31. listed in the Ports COM amp LPT section of the device manager and be ready to use Make a note of the COM port listed as you will require this information later Windows XP installation procedure 1 2 3 4 4 10 Download the drivers Unzip the driver distribution to C UPURSdrivers for example Plug in the USB RS232 cable In the Found new Hardware Wizard choose No not this time when telling Windows to use Windows Update and click Next At the next screen choose Install from a list or a specific location and click Next Choose Don t search will choose the driver to install and click Next In the Common hardware types selection scroll down and choose Ports COM amp LPT and click Next Choose Have Disk and navigate to where the drivers were unzipped e g C UPURSdrivers The device to be installed should be listed Click Next followed by Continue Anyway Once installed a second device should be found to install this second driver repeat the process from Step 4 onwards after which the driver installation should be complete 11 Installing the FTDI drivers in Linux From Kernel version 2 6 31 and later the FTDI driver is already pre installed in Linux distributions If you are using a Linux kernel that predates this version you will need to install the FTDI driver as a prerequisite step The driver is availabl
32. n described in the section covering the use of the UPxSD commands The process for UPLOAD is similar to that of the UPxSD commands except where those commands write the received data directly to a floppy disc UPLOAD writes data to an area of RAM UPLOAD lt addr gt and UPLOAD do not support the writing of data across the TUBE to the Second Processor memory space NOTE When using UPLOAD please make a careful note of the size of the file that is being sent to the Electron If the file is too large to fit into the Electron s memory the data may overwrite critical areas of the Electron s memory map and possibly even wrap around to amp 0000 causing system settings to be overwritten resulting in significant data corruption and requiring the Electron to be powered off and on again in order to restore normal function The maximum size of file that can be safely received is therefore dependent on the values of PAGE and HIMEM or if writing data directly to the screen the values of PAGE and amp 7FFF 25 UPLOAD lt addr gt To load an image or file directly into an address within the Electron s memory you can issue the UPLOAD command with a hexadecimal address of the beginning of the memory space you wish to upload the data to For example to UPLOAD a data file into MODE 2 screen memory you can issue the commands MODE 2 UPLOAD 3000 NB The example screenshots below use MODE 2 with a graphics and text window defined
33. ng a variant of the 82801 Southbridge I O controller hub AND the machine is under a high I O or CPU load Data loss can occur at any point through the transfer and appears random Resolution To avoid data loss in the first situation simply follow the correct procedure as this manual sets out In the second situation when using UPURS with an Intel 82801 Southbridge I O controller hub it is essential that your PC is under as little load as possible Perfect transfers are achievable if the I O and CPU load are reduced to a minimum To do this simply close as many applications as possible and limit network and disk usage whilst transferring data to the PC 36 My disc image transfers are gaining bytes when transferring using UPXSSD or UPXDSD This issue can occur when using any terminal programs to either send or receive data with file logging enabled In send mode the terminal won t differentiate between typed characters anda spooled file and in receive or log mode the log will capture all communications activity between the two devices whether sent or received and whether typed or via a file Resolution When performing send or receive with terminal communications it is important to do nothing other than the required actions whilst a log at either side is in progress UPCFS reports Chunk Type XXYY when attempting to load a program This issue can occur of a several different reasons When using Serial Terminal software such as Her
34. ns of Linux are likely to work just as well What you need To operate the UPURS suite with the Electron you need the following items A copy of the UPURS for Electron ROM image on EPROM An Acorn Electron with an Acorn Plus 1 or similar expansion unit An Electron User Port expansion board A PC with a suitable USB to RS 232 serial cable FTDI chipset based cables are recommended 5 Acomputer with MS Windows Apple OS X Linux or any other suitable operating system supporting the use of a USB to RS 232 serial cable with FTDI chipset 6 Suitable PC side software to operate the serial interface 7 Ifyou wish to use the disc based utilities that UPURS provides you need a disc interface that is compatible with the Acorn Electron supporting the DFS filing system PWN PR The serial port When using the UPURS port on the Electron User Port Expansion the author only recommends USB based serial cables that use the FTDI USB RS 232 chipset Drivers for an FTDI chipset based USB to RS 232 cable supporting Windows Linux and Mac OS X can be found on the FTDI website at the following address http www ftdichip com Drivers VCP htm Suitable cables are currently available from Tronisoft Ltd and USBnow at the following address 0 9m cable from Tronisoft Ltd 1 8m cable from USBnow Serial Port assignments With a USB to RS 232 serial adapter the serial port COM port assignments are set at the time of installation by the operating
35. orkspace Resolution If you cannot lower the value of PAGE to amp 0E00 or below by disabling some ROMs when you see the Bad Sum error press CTRL BREAK to hard reset your Electron When listing the ROMs in my BBC Micro with UPXROM I see duplicate entries and the listing differs from ROMS This occurs in Electrons that do not have ROM expansion boards fitted and the ROM inspection code sees ghosts of ROMs it has previously encountered due to the way in which the Electron manages the ROM select lines in hardware Resolution In general the highest priority version of any particular ROM that is listed more than once is the actual ROM and the subsequent listings are ghosts and can be ignored When writing to a floppy I see a Write error message This occurs when a disc has not been formatted or there are corruptions on the disc Resolution Format and verify the disc ensuring that both sides of the disc have been formatted If the disc does not verify try to write the same image using a known good disc If writing the image to a known good disc fails attempt to write a different image If this fails contact the author for further support 35 When using UPDSD I see a Write error but UPSSD works just fine with the same disc This occurs when the second side of the disc has not been formatted The double sided disc images are interleaved and as such tracks are alternately written to the floppy disc 3 tracks at a
36. r port on the rear for which the standard base address is amp FC70 Please refer to the Electron Plus 1 user manual for more details 48 Vee NMI 18 1 7 b 813 pi 921 824 p3 83 D4 89 RO IPL 80 a7 RANGA WrProt D r NADY 7 E p7 ROMSTS HESE CE Row Schematics 49 e oz OND Ta GNO OND RST aa 4 di 5 14 14 14 14 u t U 4 gt cs 4 C 1 39 164 16 0 1 vec NCC 16 8 oer OND C2 C8 0 lur INS817 RA 4K7 6681 5 3v 50 Special Thanks The unfortunately named UPURS transfer system has been an enjoyable and rewarding project for the author to work on and especially so due to the tireless and generous assistance provided by the other three members of the UPURS development team namely Paul Vernon Martin Anderson and Hugh Vance paulv mga1103 and Advance on the stardot org uk forums Without their help UPURS would have been a mere shadow of it s now excellent self Extra thanks must go to Paul for his amazing contributions supporting amp documenting UPURS through his retro kit co uk website Burning my appreciation into the UPURS ROM therefore seems wholly appropriate o Thanks also to the many enthusiastic Stardot forum members who assisted along the way with UPURS and its Electron expansion host EUP you know who you are o 51
37. rt to recover as much data from the disc as is possible Errors are reported to the user in the format of Track Error so 02 C is reporting that track 2 has the error code C which represents Sector Not Found 23 When using UPXDSD the errors are differentiated to provide a distinction between the two sides of the disc using the and characters Errors reported with a are on the primary disc surface i e 0 or 1 errors reported with a indicate an error in the secondary surface i e 2 or 3 For example the error list O5 C 05 C 1D C 1E C reports errors on track 5 on both primary and secondary surfaces and tracks 1D and 1E on the secondary surface UPXSSD Error codes UPXSSD returns the actual floppy disc controller error code extracted from the fault byte These codes differ from the Acorn DFS error codes and are as follows 4 Clock Error 6 Sector ID CRC Error 7 Data CRC Error 8 Drive Not Ready C Sector Not Found 24 Using UPLOAD UPLOAD lt addr gt UPLOAD UPLOAD R lt id gt The UPLOAD function is an advanced feature of the UPURS suite allowing the direct placing of data received from the User Port at any point in the Electron s memory map or the direct loading of a ROM image directly into a Sideways RAM bank The usage of UPLOAD is identical for both Windows and Linux and only the file selection process differs between platforms both of which have bee
38. s on a Windows PC open the COM port and then move to the Electron Press the lt BREAK gt key then at the prompt enter amp FCB3 amp 7D lt RETURN gt amp FCB1 amp 40 lt RETURN gt The Clear to Send CTS indicator in Hercules should turn Green Continue the diagnosis by entering amp FCB1 0 lt RETURN gt The CTS indicator should go off again Resolution If the CTS indicator does not respond as described power off the Electron re check all connections power on and try again If the CTS indicator responds correctly the cable and connection should be operational so try to transfer data using one of the UPURS commands If the CTS indicator continues not to respond after several attempts please contact the author via http www stardot org uk forums Clear to Send responds but data will not transfer correctly If after carrying out the troubleshooting steps above the CTS indicator responds correctly but data does not transfer correctly this may indicate that the connecting computers serial port strictly implements the DTR DSR part of the RS 232 communications protocol Resolution Check the DTR box in Hercules The Data Set Ready DSR indicator should light up Attempt carrying out a data transfer using one of the UPURS commands Electron reports No Rx Data This is the Electron reporting that after issuing a Clear To Send CTS signal to the connecting computer it did not receive a start bit for the first byt
39. system which assigns the first available COM port number to the adapter This could be COM3 COM4 COMS etc On Linux these USB RS232 serial ports are assigned slightly differently and as such they can be assigned from 0 onwards as the device name differs from legacy serial ports e g dev ttyUSBO as opposed to dev ttySO for a legacy port Installing the UPURS suite in the Acorn Electron The UPURS suite can be used in two different ways on the Acron Electron Either as a ROM image loaded into Sideways RAM or as a permanent EPROM installed on one of the Expansion cards plugged into the Electron Plus 1 or directly into a Slogger ROM box in an available Sideways ROM socket Notes on using UPURS from disc The Acorn Electron does not run fast enough to run the UPURS software in RAM and as such the UPURS suite cannot run from disc Installing UPURS to Sideways RAM To install the UPURS image from the UPURS utility disc into a suitable SRAM bank differs depending on the SRAM utilities each Acorn Electron has Please refer to the user manual for your SRAM utilities to find out how to load the ROM image into SRAM Getting up and running with UPURS and an FTDI USB to RS232 cable Installing the FTDI drivers in Windows If the FTDI drivers for MS Windows noted above are being used and their version number is 2 08 14 or earlier then they must be replaced by later versions of the drivers for reliable operation with the UPURS suite The latest vers
40. time When UPDSD attempts to write the first 3 tracks to the second side of the disc it cannot and throws this error Resolution Ensure both sides of the floppy disc to be written to have been correctly formatted before attempting to transfer data to the disc again UPURS reports Track No gt 79 when I try to write an image to my floppy disc This error occurs when the track count of an ssd or dsd image exceeds 80 tracks 0 to 79 Resolution Check that the SSD or DSD does not exceed 200KB or 400KB If the image is larger than these maximum file sizes the image is invalid and cannot be imported by UPURS My disc image transfers are losing bytes when transferring using UPXSSD or UPXDSD There are two different scenarios where this can take place The first situation where this error can occur is if the transfer procedure is carried out out of sequence For instance pressing the space bar to initiate a send from the Electron before the PC has been configured to receive data and then subsequently opening the PC s COM port When the COM port is opened any data on the COM port already will be flushed before the PC then issues an RTS command to receive data from the Electron Typically the data loss it at the beginning of the disc image file that is created The other situation where this error can occur when the receiving PC is running a version of the MS Windows operating system AND using an Intel chipset based motherboard runni
41. to load the game WEST e CylonAttack_E uef uses CHAIN to load the game Cylon Attack The initial setup for transferring files from the PC to the Electron is the same as for other commands within the UPURS suite Loading West 1 On the Electron type UPCFS to configure the UPURS suite On the PC open the correct Serial Port to prepare to send the UEF file Select your decompressed UEF for WEST West_RUN_E uef The PC should then wait before sending the UEF file to the Electron On the Electron type RUN followed by RETURN to initiate the loading sequence for WEST Play WEST OY 9 BB es Loading Cylon Attack 1 On the Electron type UPCFS to configure the UPURS suite On the PC open the correct Serial Port to prepare to send the UEF file Select your decompressed UEF for Cylon Attack CylonAttack_E uef The PC should then wait before sending the UEF file to the Electron On the Electron type CHAIN followed by RETURN to initiate the loading sequence for Cylon Attack 6 Play Cylon Attack n oe 32 Reporting issues with UEF files If you encounter repeatable issues with a UEF file you can submit your findings at the following address http www retro kit co uk UPURS Report Each report is logged and imported into our tracking facilities for investigation so the more information you can provide the easier it will be to answer your query 33 Troubleshooting General connectivity issues Using Hercule
42. ue of drv must be between 0 and 1 18 When choosing to send a file a dialogue box will appear similar to those in figure 4 below allowing you to select a file to send to the Electron Navigate to the disk image file that you wish to send and click the Open button UOP Saka Sd TCP Dea TOP Sew or Tet Mote thes Fig 9 The File selection screens for both Windows and Linux Once a file has been selected in order for the transfer to begin press lt SPACE gt on the Electron and the progress of the transfer will be seen on the connecting computer When the entire file is transferred it will be signalled on the Electron with the message Transfer OK The disc should now be ready to use 19 Creating a disc image from a physical floppy disc UPXSSD lt drv gt F I 4 8 UPXDSD lt drv gt F I 4 8 Creating a disc image of a physical floppy disc on the Electron is achieved using one of two commands UPXSSD and UPXDSD The syntax is the same for UPXSSD and UPXDSD and the examples below will work for both commands To create a contiguous image of the used area of the source disc at the command prompt on the Electron type the following command UPXSSD lt drv gt where drv can be a value between 0 and 3 The Electron will wait for you to start the process by pressing the SPACE BAR before sending data to the connected computer At this point do not press the SPACE BAR For Windows Mov
43. xported file will be at amp 4000 the third at amp 8000 fourth at amp B000 etc REMEMBER All ROMs are exported as 16K amp 4000 byte blocks regardless of their size which could be 8K amp 2000 bytes or 16K amp 4000 bytes 29 UPCFS The use of UEF files with UPURS is intended to allow users to send UEF encapsulated data as contained on the original audio data cassettes that were produced in their thousands during the 1980 s and 90 s to the Electron for the purposes of direct play The speeds at which UPCFS operate are far in excess of the original Acorn Cassette Filing System which allows users to read data as it was stored on cassette but at the speeds of a modern day system No more waiting 15 minutes for a cassette based game to load About UEF files UEF stands for Unified Emulator Format and was originally developed to provide a way of emulating the original data storage formats for use with Emulator applications that recreate Acorn computer environments such as the Electron and BBC Micro on more modern PC technology The UEF format is a container format for the compressed storage of audio tapes ROMs and floppy discs The format can also be used to store machine state snapshots and the intention of the UEF format is to provide an accurate archive of the original media from which a program or data is taken When creating UEF files they are traditionally compressed using the gzip file compression algorithms be
44. y a new name for each file you receive using the process described immediately above Acorn Electron Slogger PEGASUS 488 BASIC gt UPXDSD 8 Insert disc set PC to Rx press 5 5 Imaging 62464 butes Finished gt Fig 12 Showing the process of imaging a double sided floppy disc Advanced options UPXSSD and UPXDSD both have several advanced command line options allowing for greater control over how a disc image is created including the recovery of data from corrupt or copy protected discs Parameters No Parameters Using UPXSSD with no parameters with create a contiguous image of the used area of the source disc as determined by the analysis of the DFS directory held in Track 0 Any read errors will immediately abort the process reporting Fatal error for Track 0 errors or Read error for any other track F Creating a full disc image The optional parameter F is used to force UPXSSD and UPXDSD to create a F ull image of the disc in the designated drive This option may be useful where the directory structure on the disc may not reflect the true contents of the disc Any read errors will immediately abort the process reporting Fatal error for Track 0 errors or Read error for any other track NOTE The use of F is recommended when archiving original software unless you are confident that the disc has no hidden data and the directory listing is a true reflection of the contents of
45. y combination or the Turn off Logging option in the context menu to close the received file For Linux On your Linux system click the Cutecom Open File button labelled and a file selection dialogue box will appear similar to figure 5 below You may need to uncheck the Log to button to enable this selection Look in E Momemartin GOOG fs e Computer P Desktop Documents CFUTILS SSO cutecom log examples desktop test ssd lt lt g Fiesoftypefalifiesi Cancel Send file Plain No line end 1 Char delay fo ms Fig 11 Selecting a destination for the transferred data to be stored Navigate to where you want to store your received file and enter a suitable filename and click Save Ensure Log to is selected in the drop down box and tick the box to the left of it Press the SPACE BAR on your Electron to initiate the transfer When the Electron has completed transferring the entire disk image it will be signalled with the message Image Complete When the transfer is complete double check the number of bytes sent reported by the Electron with the number of bytes received by the destination PC by checking the file size If the byte counts are different please refer to the trouble shooting section for more assistance 21 Note If you are to receive multiple files from the Electron you will need to uncheck the Log to box and specif

Electron UPURS User Manual - Retro-kit

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