Boot menu for C64 Ultimate enabled devices
Users reported issues using UBoot64 under firmware 3.12a on an Ultimate Elite 2, can reprodruce these issues, but need time to investigate. Consider this software potentially broken for now.
Version 0.91 - 20230922-2350:
- First public alpha
- UltimateII+ (U2+) cartridge installed on a real C64, or an Ultimate 64.
- Firmware at version 3.4 or higher (to have access to the UCI DRVINFO command, link to firmware page, scroll down for U2 firmware: https://ultimate64.com/Firmware )
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Download the ZIP file with the latest build
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In the ZIP file you will find these instructions and a .crt file, the latter is the cartridge image containing the UBoot64 software. Unzip contents to a temporary location.
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Transfer this .crt file to the /Flash/Carts directory on your Ultimate device. Either transfer to this directory on your Ultimate device via FTP, or place it somewhere on the USB storage Ultimate device, browse to it in the UI filebrowser, press C= + C to copy, navigate to the /Flash/Carts dir and paste by C= + V/.
- Select this .crt file as cartridge to start automatically on start of your Ultimate device by, in the Ultimate UI, first press F2, navigate with cursor down to C64 and Cartridge Settings. press RETURN, press RETURN again to edit the Cartridge option, and select uboot64.crt from the drop down box. Press STOP to leave the configuration menu and press RETURN to confirm storing the settings to flash.
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Do a power cycke of your device. The UBoot64 software should now automatically start on starting your Ultimate device.
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Stop autostarting of UBoot64 by deselecting the cartridge via the same procedure and selecting None or another image as cartridge.
- At first run no configuration file is present yet for the menu, so it will create configuration files with an empty start menu and default seettings.
- The configuration files will be saved in the root directory of the first USB drive found (using /usb*/ as path). The config files are called DMBCFG.CFG for the configuration data (for now only the NTP time settings) and DMBSLT.CFG (the menu slot data).
- THe empty start menu looks like this:
- For instructions of the menu options: see below.
- Start options can be added to menuslots 0-9 and A-Z via the Filebrowser. This can be either running an executable program, or booting a specific disk image.
- For this, first choose F1 for filebrowser. You will get a screen like this:
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Full instructions for the filebrowser are below. Here only the quick instructions to add an option to the startmenu.
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The browser starts in the so alled UCI mode. This means browsing via the Ultimate Command Interface on the native filesystem of your Ultimate device. For most purposes this is what is desired.
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If you want to add programs from other non Ultimate attached drives you can press F3 to go to IEC mode. Select your desired drive target by switching pressing + or - to increase resp. decrease the device number until the desired device number is selected.
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Refresh directory by F1 if needed (empty column)
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Only in IEC mode: As on IEC drives full paths can not be read on drives supporting directories, a directory trace should be started by pressing D. This starts a trace of your movements through the directory tree, starting from the root directory of your device. You should see the directory refreshing to this root directory. You should also see the TRACE toggle switched to ON in the lower right corner of the screen.
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Also note the other two toggles ,1 Load and Demo mode: these are toggled by pressing the 1 and O keys.
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,1 Load: This steers if the program will be loaded with LOAD"NAME",8 (option off) or LOAD"NAME",8,1 (option on)
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Demo mode: This shuts down (or asks the user the shut down the drives which can nit automatically powered down) all drives but ID 8. Needed for most demos and some games.
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Browse to your desired target via the Cursor keys: UP/DOWN to move within the directory, P for page down and U for a page up, ENTER or CURSOR RIGHT on a directory or disk image to enter the selected directory or image, DEL or CURSOR LEFT to change to parent directory.
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From UCI mode, moving into a disk image (.DXX extension) mounts that image on drive A and goes to IEC node. You will see 'Inside mount' appearing in the menu.
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To choose to have a program executed from the menuslot, select ENTER on the desired executable. In UCI mode, the associated disk image for drive A will be automatically selected as well to be added.
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To select a highlighted disk image (so a directory entry with an .dXX extension) as additional image to mount (in UCI mode only needed for the drive B image), press A or B to add this image to a menuslot as to be mounted on starting from that slot on the Ultimate emulated drive A resp. B. Then select the target menuslot, edit the name if desired, and enter the device ID for the image.
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IEC mode: To select the highligjhted program file to be started from the disk image mounted in drive A instead of from the target drive filesystem, select the program by pressing M (instead of ENTER). Then select the target menuslot, edit the name if desired.
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To add a REU file to be loaded at the start of a menu option: navigate to the desired REU file and press 'ENTER'. Then select the target menuslot, edit the name if desired, choose the REU size via '+' and '-' and press 'ENTER' to confirm. NOTE: The REU file needs to be in the same filepath as the drive image for disk A if that one is present (not storage space available for another path to store).
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No validation if the configuration is correct or coherent is done, so setting up valid configurations is the users responsibility, Only very limited error handling on executing incorrectly configured menu slots is done. Mounts and REU file can be added or changed (by adding again and overwriting the previous one), but not deleted separately. To do so, the whole entry needs to be deleted. Adding an additional disk image to mount, a REU file and choosing the file to start require all separate actions in the filebrowser, so setting up a menuslot might take up to three entries to the filebrowser and navigating.
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After selecting what should be placed in a menuslot option, you should get this screen to select the menuslot position:
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If this slot is already (partly) filled, confirmation is asked. Choose Yes to proceed or No to Cancel.
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Choose 0-9 or A-Z key to choose the desired slot.
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Enter the desired name for the menuslot and press ENTER
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You now return to the main menu where you should see the menu option appearing.
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Repeat until you have selected all desired menuslot options
The filebrowser based and insprired by the DraBrowse program from https://github.com/doj/dracopy
Menu options are similar, but have diverged.
| Key | Function |
|---|---|
| F1 | Read / refresh directory |
| F3 | Toggle between UCI or IEC modes |
| + | Increase devicenumber (IEC mode only) |
| - | Decrease devicenumber (IEC mode only) |
| RETURN | Enter directory (IEC mode: or run the selected program) |
| DEL | Go to parent directory |
| ↑ | Go to root directory |
| T | Go to the first item in the directory |
| E | Go to the last item in the directory |
| P | Go a page down in the directory |
| E | Go a page up in the directory |
| Cursor keys | Navigate in the directory |
| D | Toggle Dirtrace: traces the directory movements from root directory to select menuslot option |
| A | Select the highlighted item as image to be mounted in drive A. Highlighted item should be an image with a .Dxx extention |
| B | Select the highlighted item as image to be mounted in drive B. Highlighted item should be an image with a .Dxx extention |
| M | Select the highlighted program to be started from the disk image mounted in drive A (instead of present device of dir) |
| 1 | Toggle ,1 load |
| O | Toggle demo mode |
| Q | Quit to main menu |
Shows information screen. Press key to return to main menu.
Enables to rename menuslots, re-order the slots or delete a slot. Selecting provides this menu:
- F1 enables renaming a menuslot. Choose slot to be renamed by pressing 0-9 or A-Z. Enter new name. Enter to confirm.
- F2 enables to add a user defined command. This enables to add a user defined command to be executed before the program in the slot is started. Can be any valid BASIC command.
This gives this screen:
- F3 enables re-ordering menu slots. Choose slot to be re-ordered by pressing 0-9 or A-Z. Selected menu slot is highlighted white. Move option by pressing UP or DOWN. Confirm by ENTER. Cancel with F7.
- F5 enables deleting a menu slot. Choose slot to be re-ordered by pressing 0-9 or A_Z. Confirm by pressing Y for yes, or N for no.
- F7 takes you back to main menu. Changes made are saved only now.
Enables editing the settings for automatically obtaining the actual time from an NTP server and setting the internal clock of the Ultimate II+ to this time.
After pressing F5, you arrive at this screen:
The screens shows you the present settings and allows you to edit them.
- F1 Toggles to enable or disable updating UII+ time from an NTP server at boot. Default: Enabled.
- F3 Edits the time offset to UTC (Universal standard time). The offset needs to provided in seconds. Automated adjustment for daylight savings ('Summer' and 'Winter' time) is not provided, so you have to adjust your offset on the change from daylight saving time to not. Example: Central Europen Time requires an offset of 3600, Central European Summer Time of 7200. See https://www.timeanddate.com/time/zones/ for all offsets in hours (multiply by 3600 to get to seconds). Default: 0 (=UTC).
- F5 Edits the NTP time server to be used. It defaults on pool.ntp.org, but you can specify your own if you want.
- F7 Back to main menu
Exit the bootmenu to the BASIC Ready prompt. Memory will be erased on exit.
Boot menu for C64 Ultimate enabled devices
Written in 2023 by Xander Mol https://github.com/xahmol/UBoot64 https://www.idreamtin8bits.com/
Inspired by and code used from DraBrowse: DraBrowse (db*) is a simple file browser. Originally created 2009 by Sascha Bader. Used version adapted by Dirk Jagdmann (doj) https://github.com/doj/dracopy
Most of code and functionality ported from: DMBoot 128: Device Manager Boot Menu for the Commodore 128 Written in 2020-2023 by Xander Mol https://github.com/xahmol/DMBoot
Additionally uses code from:
- Ultimate 64/II+ Command Library Scott Hutter, Francesco Sblendorio https://github.com/xlar54/ultimateii-dos-lib
- GenCart64 - cc65 Library for C64 cartridges Joseph Rose, a.k.a. Harry Potter https://sourceforge.net/projects/cc65extra/files/memory%20cfgs/ Used for inspiration for building C64 cartridge image with CC65
- Sidekick64 by frntc https://github.com/frntc/Sidekick64/blob/master/Source/Firmware/C64Side/cart.a Used as inspiration for cartridge init and exit code
- UUC based on Final Cartridge III by Bart van Leeuwen / bvl1999 https://github.com/bvl1999/final_cartridge/blob/master/core/init.s Used for inspiration for building C64 cartridge image with CC65 Also help with ideas, feednack, error solving, testing and code snippets
- ntp2ultimate by MaxPlap https://github.com/MaxPlap/ntp2ultimate Time via NTP code
- EPOCH-to-time-date-converter by sidsingh78 https://github.com/sidsingh78/EPOCH-to-time-date-converter/blob/master/epoch_conv.c
- petcom version 1.00 by Craig Bruce, 18-May-1995 Convert from PETSCII to ASCII, or vice-versa. https://codebase64.org/doku.php?id=source_conversion
Requires and made possible by the Ultimate II+ cartridge, Created by Gideon Zweijtzer https://ultimate64.com/
Licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0
The code can be used freely as long as you retain a notice describing original source and author.
THE PROGRAMS ARE DISTRIBUTED IN THE HOPE THAT THEY WILL BE USEFUL, BUT WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY. USE THEM AT YOUR OWN RISK!