[torontocbm] Re: the go-to SD card adapter for a 64?
- From: Jim Brain <brain@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: torontocbm@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 13 Nov 2015 12:29:44 -0600
On 11/13/2015 8:02 AM, Frank Michielli wrote:
I have thre same one too!
Love the fact that it has a power switch and the dip switches on the
outside. Only thing, it's missing a reset button. But have you figured
out what sleep on:off is for? (Holding the right button). I emailed
the creator about it and he doesn't even know what it's for.
The seller's perspective is a pet peeve of mine, but first, the answer:
"sleep" allows you to effectively remove the device from the IEC bus
without powering the unit off. It forces the unit to ignore the IEC
signals. Sometimes, some copy protection or fastloaders require only
one device be on the IEC bus. In those cases, you can use the "sleep"
mode to free up the bus without physically disconnecting it.
Now, to the pet peeve. I agree these devices are neat (disclaimer, I
sell one as well, though mine does not look as cute), but the seller
needs to be at least be knowledgeable about his product. Because sd2iec
is open source, and the design is open source as well, you find a lot of
sd2iec devices on eBay are folks who quickly make a run of the open
source PCB, load the open source code on it, and then sell it (this
seller at least has a nice package).
There's also another gotcha on these devices, that folks should pay
attention to.
The microcontroller at the heart of this unit (typically an Atmel AVR)
has what is called a "bootloader" capability. If a bootloader program
is loaded on the AVR, then the unit can "self update". While it is not
"required" to support this, it's become an expectation ("Yeah, Frank,
the sd2iec can update to newer code, just dump the binary on the root of
the SD card and reboot") of all units. However, some of the hardware
manufacturers forget to put the bootloader on the unit, and then the
unit can never be upgraded unless you ship it back to the manufacturer.
This is important as INgo Korb (the primary author of sd2iec) releases
new versions from time to time, with additional features.
I'm not suggesting this unit does not have a bootloader, but that you
should check if you care about field upgrade capability. I think my
concern with this unit is implied by the "Firmware: GNU Public License,
based on the sd2iec 0.10.3" line at the bottom. I think the seller (or
someone else) has modified the sd2iec firmware to support the LCD
interface without requiring a second CPU (like the original sd2iec
firmware requires) and those changes have not been merged back into the
main sd2iec project. If I am correct, one cannot upgrade the firmware
beyond 0.10.3 unless the manufacturer releases an update (might be able
to use a standard sd2iec firmware, but the LCD would not work).
Understand that I am making some assumptions (it's possible the unit
uses 2 microcontrollers, one for the drive and one for the LCD, and so
uses the standard sd2iec firmware), but if you care about upgrades, you
should ask (0.10.3 is almost 4 years old, as I recall, and I am
preparing to move to 1.0.0 release on uIEC.
Jim
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