I am pleased to announce the release of version 3.10 of the Ultimate 1MB, Incognito and SIDE firmware, incorporating the recently released SpartaDOS X 4.49, and version 4.0 of the SDX ‘soft-driver’ for SIDE, MYIDE, and Colleen. Updated APT Tools and user documentation are also provided.

What’s New?

As well as several minor bug fixes, this release brings with it numerous performance, stability and usability improvements. Some highlights:

• Loader’s recursive search speed improved by 25 per cent
• Optional keyboard/joystick acceleration feature in loader speeds up navigation of long directories
• Long filename extensions now remain on-screen even while filename is scrolling left to right
• Card hot-swap reliability improved
• CF card compatibilty improved
• ATR swap button now works in loader
• Loader issue with SD/CF adapters fixed
• Stereo POKEY detection now compatible with SimpleStereo v3
• ATR swap button can now be disabled on the Incognito
• Better boot drive handling (fixes issues with some boot loaders run from FAT-hosted ATRs)
• Improved DCB error checking in PBI BIOS and support for immediate-mode IO
• XF551 high-speed SIO bug fixed
• Regression regarding CONFIG.SYS boot drive setting fixed
• FDISK large volume/disk bug fixed

Please see the changelogs for the main BIOS, PBI BIOS and SIDE Loader for a complete list of changes.

Download the update here.

SDX 4.49

Thanks to DLT, we have the welcome release of SpartaDOS X 4.49. Unfortunately the ROMs hosted on the official SDX site were put together before I released the updated APT tools and SDX soft-drivers. As ever, however, SDX ROMs for all platforms are included in the new firmware release, with the extra tools I like to provide (notably the LSDEV and LSDSK utilities on the CAR: volume). Note the plethora of ATR disk images I provided in prior updates has been done away with; all ROMs for U1MB and Incognito are included on the corresponding ‘FIRMWARE.ATR’ disk image. This makes the preparation of subsequent updates a little less labour intensive.

Please look at the updated README files in the ZIP archives for complete descriptions of the archive contents.

I hope you enjoy the updated firmware and tools, and as always I welcome feedback including bug reports and feature suggestions (although we are rapidly reaching the end of the road when it comes to available code space on the existing hardware). Donations are likewise welcomed and appreciated, although they are by no means obligatory.

Special thanks to Lotharek at lotharek.pl for his continued provision of Candle O’Sin’s fabulous U1MB, SIDE2 and Incognito devices, and for offering my firmware pre-installed at the point of sale. Please continue to support his invaluable efforts.