UBoot64

Boot menu for C64 Ultimate enabled devices

WARNING: Crashes/instability under firmware 3.12a and Ultimate 64 Elite 2 under investigation

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.

Contents

Version history and download

Instructions

• Prerequisites

• Installation

• First run

• Add start options via the Filebrowser

• F1: Filebrowse menu

• F2: Information

• F3: Edit / re-order / delete

• F5: NTP time config

• F7: Quit to BASIC

Credits

Version history and download

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Link to latest build

Version 0.91 - 20230922-2350:

• First public alpha

Instructions

Prerequisites

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• 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 )

Installation

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• Download the ZIP file with the latest build

• 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.

• 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.

• Do a power cycke of your device. The UBoot64 software should now automatically start on starting your Ultimate device.

• Stop autostarting of UBoot64 by deselecting the cartridge via the same procedure and selecting None or another image as cartridge.

First run

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• 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.

Add start options via the Filebrowser

• 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:

• Full instructions for the filebrowser are below. Here only the quick instructions to add an option to the startmenu.

• 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.

• 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.

• Refresh directory by F1 if needed (empty column)

• 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.

• Also note the other two toggles ,1 Load and Demo mode: these are toggled by pressing the 1 and O keys.

  

• ,1 Load: This steers if the program will be loaded with LOAD"NAME",8 (option off) or LOAD"NAME",8,1 (option on)

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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).

• 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.

• After selecting what should be placed in a menuslot option, you should get this screen to select the menuslot position:

• If this slot is already (partly) filled, confirmation is asked. Choose Yes to proceed or No to Cancel.

• Choose 0-9 or A-Z key to choose the desired slot.

• Enter the desired name for the menuslot and press ENTER

• You now return to the main menu where you should see the menu option appearing.

• Repeat until you have selected all desired menuslot options

F1: Filebrowse menu

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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) | |