Uzebox on a Breadboard!

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ry755
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Re: Uzebox on a Breadboard!

Post by ry755 »

It still doesn't work, but now the screen sorta flickers back and forth.

https://i.imgur.com/NO50oEd.jpg
(Using a projector again)

It flickers more in real life than visible in the picture.

EDIT: The flickering could just be my projector being weird. It seems to do that even with the old bootloader, whereas everything looks fine on my parent's TV.
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Jubatian
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Re: Uzebox on a Breadboard!

Post by Jubatian »

ry755 wrote: Sat Oct 14, 2017 9:46 pmIt still doesn't work, but now the screen sorta flickers back and forth.
I could observe this effect with Megatris on rare occasions, especially when trying to soft-reset it with the START + SELECT + B + Y combo (at least until I fixed this issue with the soft-reset on master). With the new bootloader so far I had never experienced it.

I really don't know what the hell is going on there. I even patched CUzeBox to compare the SPI sequences the two bootloaders are emitting and they are exactly the same now, only that my loader runs the SPI at a much lower speed (as it is recommended to init SD/MMC cards at low speed).

What kind of cards did you try by the way? (Did you try some SDHC cards with the new bootloader for example?) I currently have only one card which is not detected by the bootloader, but I can not get it either to mount on my PC, so I guess it is fried.
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Artcfox
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Re: Uzebox on a Breadboard!

Post by Artcfox »

Jubatian, as a last resort can you try disabling interrupts completely during the programming part. I'm not sure if the hacked one with the slower speed he is using does that as well, but I know that at least one of the hacked for reliability versions does that. It might be worth a shot, just as a test.
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Jubatian
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Re: Uzebox on a Breadboard!

Post by Jubatian »

Artcfox wrote: Sun Oct 15, 2017 2:19 pm Jubatian, as a last resort can you try disabling interrupts completely during the programming part. I'm not sure if the hacked one with the slower speed he is using does that as well, but I know that at least one of the hacked for reliability versions does that. It might be worth a shot, just as a test.
The problem is that programming doesn't even start then. I can not even get a plain and simple SD library work on his hardware, apparently only the old bootloader works by some arcane magic.

ry755: Could you report on what games which use SD card do? Alter Ego, Toorum's Quest, Chickens in Coppers, Roguze and Uze Mario. These should not be very difficult to check and they use different methods for SD interfacing which may reveal something.
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Artcfox
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Re: Uzebox on a Breadboard!

Post by Artcfox »

Hmm, I'm out of ideas then. Maybe he can just find the PCB online for much cheaper than the kit?
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ry755
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Re: Uzebox on a Breadboard!

Post by ry755 »

Jubatian wrote: Sun Oct 15, 2017 5:01 pm ry755: Could you report on what games which use SD card do? Alter Ego, Toorum's Quest, Chickens in Coppers, Roguze and Uze Mario. These should not be very difficult to check and they use different methods for SD interfacing which may reveal something.
All of those games work. Here are the sd cards I've been trying:
https://i.imgur.com/NvEOBLS.jpg

Two are Sandisk and one is "Dane-Elec." The 2gb Dane-elec is the one I have been using with the old bootloader.
I just thought of something, does the partition map matter? Do sd cards even have a partition map?
Artcfox wrote: Sun Oct 15, 2017 6:54 pm Hmm, I'm out of ideas then. Maybe he can just find the PCB online for much cheaper than the kit?
I could, but I want to buy a full kit so I can keep the breadboard version for testing.
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Jubatian
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Re: Uzebox on a Breadboard!

Post by Jubatian »

ry755 wrote: Sun Oct 15, 2017 7:51 pm
Jubatian wrote: Sun Oct 15, 2017 5:01 pm ry755: Could you report on what games which use SD card do? Alter Ego, Toorum's Quest, Chickens in Coppers, Roguze and Uze Mario. These should not be very difficult to check and they use different methods for SD interfacing which may reveal something.
All of those games work. Here are the sd cards I've been trying:
https://i.imgur.com/NvEOBLS.jpg

Two are Sandisk and one is "Dane-Elec." The 2gb Dane-elec is the one I have been using with the old bootloader.
I just thought of something, does the partition map matter? Do sd cards even have a partition map?
This is getting even weirder then. Those are very different SD init methods, Alter Ego in particular for example actually does a more-or-less SDHC aware init (except for actually querying the card whether it is SDHC). Did you check with every game that you can actually start playing them?

Now I am starting to wonder if you experience this, how it can happen that the new bootloader works on my Uzeboxes (both of them, one is on a V1.3.1 PCB, an ATMega644, the other is an EUzebox, ATMega644p). On your hardware it seems as if the new bootloader had some critical flaw preventing it to work at all (not even getting to be able to successfully do a CMD0).

SD cards can have partition table, that part works (I have a good variety of combinations on this), but in your case the bootloader can not even get there. It can't issue a succesful CMD0 like if the card wasn't even there. I will analyze these games, kernel and all, maybe making some test programs to see what happens (although the kernel shouldn't be the culprit as the bootloader's SD library didn't even work in the test program which uses the normal kernel).
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Re: Uzebox on a Breadboard!

Post by CunningFellow »

ry755, Aside from making sure all the wires are nice and short, have you tried putting an external pullup resistor on MISO / SD-Out ?

If that works it might be a good hint for what is different in the SW.
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ry755
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Re: Uzebox on a Breadboard!

Post by ry755 »

Jubatian wrote: Sun Oct 15, 2017 8:16 pm This is getting even weirder then. Those are very different SD init methods, Alter Ego in particular for example actually does a more-or-less SDHC aware init (except for actually querying the card whether it is SDHC). Did you check with every game that you can actually start playing them?
Yes, I tried starting the games and everything seems to be reading ok. I've checked my hardware against the schematic and it all looks good. I don't know what could be different with mine except the added resistance and interference from the breadboard. Is the new bootloader extra sensitive to stuff like that?
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Jubatian
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Re: Uzebox on a Breadboard!

Post by Jubatian »

Another test. This tries to capture some info for me on CMD0 with a more robust attempt trying to ram it through (make a shot of the upper right corner).
CunningFellow wrote: Sun Oct 15, 2017 8:37 pmry755, Aside from making sure all the wires are nice and short, have you tried putting an external pullup resistor on MISO / SD-Out ?
I have weak pull-up on MISO activated, dunno what else to do (same as in sdBase).

In the contrary, the new loader should be a lot more robust to HW weaknesses than the old one, and that's one thing I don't understand. My EUzebox has weak connections, it can't work at all with the old bootloader, while it flashes fine with the new one.
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