Sidecart, the best Atari ST gadget ever?

[@logronoide]

I’m the “perpetrator” of the SidecarT 😅 thank you very much for the review of the video, is amazing! Great work! I’m enjoying so much with the community of Atari ST enthusiasts building and adding new features that I could never imagine this warm reception. I hope to release in the coming weeks hard disk and network drive emulation. Stay tuned!

[@commodoreisnottheonlyfruit]

This is an incredible piece of kit and I thank you for your efforts. Keep up the great work and I look forward to future releases.

[@commodoreisnottheonlyfruit]

Just as a general comment: It would be great if there could be a hole in the PCB in the middle at the far end away from the ST to allow me to add a cutoff to act as a stand. While I can stick a finger under the unit when hitting select i'd like to avoid the possibility of stress on the cartridge connector. Or perhaps you are considering stocking a case in your store? I saw a 3D print thing on Thingiverse, but I lack the 3D printer (I really can't afford yet another expensive hobby!).

[@renaudg]

Looks amazing ! I can see it's sold out but still possible to order the developers board. Are you going to restock the regular boards at the same time ? Apart from the slightly higher price, any drawbacks to the developer version for regular use ? Thank you

[@nigec4969]

Thanks for all the great work.

[@markofthefonz]

It just works!, great noob friendly setup tutorial webpage too. You’re awesome🖖

[@Pai3000]

I own one of these. The gadget is incredible and the guy who makes it is super sweet. This is clearly a huge step forward. Amazing channel by the way. Keep it up please!👍🏻👍🏻

[@commodoreisnottheonlyfruit]

Glad you like it. When I was doing my video on the NetUsBee, I was thinking a lot about how in time the sidecart could do networking and possibly USB. It could become the "one cart to rule them all"

[@MickBordet]

Ordered... thank you!

[@commodoreisnottheonlyfruit]

Hope you enjoy it as much as I do

[@Pedro8k]

Great video it amazes me that these amazing add ons are still coming for retro computer i will order one soon

[@commodoreisnottheonlyfruit]

It really felt like christmas when I got mine, hope you have fun with yours

[@pledg]

Great video and that's a brilliant bit of kit. Many thanks to the developer. As much as Goteks are convenient I don't like pulling out working drives to install them. Thankfully I didn't hack my case in any way for this. Looking forward to trying this out soon. 👍

[@commodoreisnottheonlyfruit]

I hope you enjoy it when you get one, it's ace

[@pledg]

@@commodoreisnottheonlyfruitThe orders in... 👍

[@nigec4969]

Great video. I received my Sidecart board (without Pico Wifi,) promptly in the UK. I added my already owned Pi Pico wifi, and set up the firmware. It works well. I can use cartridge files, and also floppies on my Atari 1024ST. I can get rid of my Gotek and reinstall the original floppy drive soon. This is a great experience, well done all those involved.

[@jinxterx]

Brilliant! Ordered one immediately! :D

[@commodoreisnottheonlyfruit]

Hope you enjoy it as much as I have

[@datassetteuser356]

Pretty nice stuff! 🤩 Thanks for the video!

[@commodoreisnottheonlyfruit]

I'm glad you enjoyed the video! Thank you for watching!

[@brianwild4640]

Great work keeping us upto date thanks 👍🏻

[@commodoreisnottheonlyfruit]

Glad you like it, it was fun to do.

[@MikePovey69]

Many thanks for the overview, really enjoyed that. I will definitely be taking a look at acquiring one of these. Cheers Mike 🇬🇧

[@commodoreisnottheonlyfruit]

I just 3D printed a case for mine (off thingiverse), that's solved my only issue I had with it. That isssue was te card being in mid air and really senative to being jostled.

[@CallousCoder]

Ooh you beat me to a video on this. I ordered my sidecart board 4 days ago. I read it and I was like: "what a coincidence I just did a video on loading software from the internet on a C64 using the Ultimate-II and now I see this. And low and behold, I still have my ST too so let's order it and a Pi Pico W.

[@commodoreisnottheonlyfruit]

You're gonna love it and i look forward to your video on it.

[@Grizaptimus]

I'm hoping that at some point this could emulate some of the various dongles for cubase/notator etc.

[@nigelrhodes4330]

I have been chatting to the devs and that may be on the books for a later revision of the unit.

[@commodoreisnottheonlyfruit]

The potential in the device is amazing. I have a NetUSBee that I use to connect the ST to the internet. I wonder if it might be possible to emulate this wirelessly via the Sidecart in the future

[@DeadCat-42]

I'm trying to get it to play mp3 files.

[@j.tann1970]

Now I wish my STE was fully working! 😒 Has a faulty blitter chip that does not show up in the OS menu and a couple of keycaps missing.

[@commodoreisnottheonlyfruit]

Sounds like it's had a brutal life! You dont see many replacement blitter chips on the market, replacement keycaps might be easier to source on fleabay

[@chriswareham]

Pretty much the Swiss Army knife of storage options for the ST!

[@commodoreisnottheonlyfruit]

It's interesting. This and an SD4ST or an ultra satan , will see you sorted for quite some time :-)

[@nigec4969]

@@commodoreisnottheonlyfruit Does the sidecart work along with the SD4ST ?

[@thetechnoshed]

Looks great. I thought it looked a great piece of kit but wasn't really interested in cartridge emulation. The new floppy emulation however looks an amazing feature!

[@commodoreisnottheonlyfruit]

I agree and I think the enthusiasm of the developer will drive it on in interesting directions in the future.

[@markofthefonz]

This is a great product, very versatile and reasonable, thank you. If any one wants to make a 90 degree connector for the cartridge port, i would gladly buy it

[@aaroncheah2088]

Was wondering if there is a way to add more RAM to the ST via cartridge slot? This will make easier to add RAM without soldering or mucking the motherboard.

[@commodoreisnottheonlyfruit]

I don't think so, the cartridge port only gets a sub set of the address lines that the 68000 had, 18 bits of address lines and 16 bits of data Also of course it it doesn't have any read/write select pins either It's a pity that it wasn't a full bus slot, i think the trapdoor slot on the amiga allowed much more flexibility But of course the ST was cost reduced to within an inch of its life.

[@GeorgesChannel]

Great episode! Will the floppy emulator or the network access work with an Atari STE where the DMA chip is corrupt? I cant load anything from floppy drive (corrupted filenames). P.S. Just bought the version without the pico for my second Atari STfm

[@AdamKlobukowski]

Sidecart patches TOS to not talk to floppy anymore, so DMA chip does not matter. It will not work for software that do not use TOS and use floppy hw directly.

[@GeorgesChannel]

@@AdamKlobukowski Looking forward to try out! Thank you to the developer realizing this project..i did a research back then if there was something like loading files from cardridge...

[@logronoide]

Sidecart perpetrator here! One of the reason I started the SidecarT project is to come alive ST computers with the bad-DMA issue (I had bitter experiences in EBay…). So yes, bad DMA is not an issue. I would like also to mention that some users think they have a problem with the DMA but the problem is in the data and address buses. Sadly our good old computers need a refresh of the power supply and the bus resistors to work like a charm.

[@GeorgesChannel]

@@logronoide Thank you for for the time end effort you put it. I also bough a STE from ebay with the infamous DMA chip. Upgraded the CPU, changed Powersupply etc..i will consider the resistors though..Thanks again fot the tip

[@GeorgesChannel]

@@logronoide The Sidecart arrived well. And it works fine with my faulty STE! Thank you very much!

[@AdamKlobukowski]

I see two problems here: 1) timezones do not always change by full hour, offset should be in minutes not hours (and what abous DST?) 2) floppy emulation will work only for software that acesses the floppy through TOS. Any software (some games and demos) that bypass TOS and talk to floppy hw directly, will not work with Sidecart.

[@commodoreisnottheonlyfruit]

Hey Adam, it's been quite a while, great to hear from you and I hope you're well. 1) That's an interesting point and not something i'd thought of, i know there are some 30 minute offsets, but they're quite rare. 2) You're correct on this, but as i said in the video i'm more excited for the capabilities of round tripping data. i will keep a log of feedback on this video and i'll try to pass it onto the author if i can.

[@magicroomstudios]

Falcon support or version planned? Anyone know?

[@boghead]

I'm struggling to get floppy images to boot, just freezes

[@commodoreisnottheonlyfruit]

@logronoide, is tis a known issue?

[@OliverJonCross]

This is very cool, I do have a SD card ultrasatan reader but a lot of the Roms from Peter P's database didn't work because my TOS was not updated to 1.04.Will these Roms from the internet work or will I have the same issue?

[@commodoreisnottheonlyfruit]

I really don't know, perhaps a question for the original creator of the SideCart. My testing was on 1.4. What version of TOS and what type of ST are you using?

[@OliverJonCross]

I have a Atari 520STFM 2.5mb Upgrade TOS v.1.02 GEM v0.13 AES v.1.20 It's not a big issue I was just generally interested. I can always look to upgrading to 1.04 in the future

[@logronoide]

SidecarT perpetrator here! I have not find issues with the TOS and the ROMs related to being a ROM, but obviously if the ROM was developed for a specific version of the TOS there is nothing to do about it. In the downloadable ROMs I think I have all the PPera ROMs and can’t remember any complaint except for some specific versions for 2.06 and EmuTOS. Regarding the floppy emulation, latest beta has a feature to support 1.00 and 1.02 TOS out of the box.

[@OliverJonCross]

@@logronoide Thanks for the reply. Sorry last question. I see the £45 one is sold it. What is the difference between these two models? Do I need to wait for the the non developers version to be back in stock? SidecarT developers single board - RPi Pico WH INCLUDED Regular price £49.00 SidecarT single board - RPi Pico W INCLUDED £45.00 SOLD OUT

[@renaudg]

I'm a ST noob coming from the Amiga, just got a STE to try out some demos and games. Would you say this Sidecart will make the UltraSatan obsolete once it had HDD support ?

[@commodoreisnottheonlyfruit]

Simple answer is I don't know. I'm not sure what the bandwidth of the cartridge port is. I also don't know what form the HD support will take. Is it like a GEMDOS drive or drive images. But there are somethings that the SD4ST and Ultra satan have that the side cart doesn't. Like two sd cards, physical connectivity via ACSI etc. It'll definitely be worth keeping an eye on though.

[@JosipBasic]

Is there RAM limit, or works on any ST?

[@commodoreisnottheonlyfruit]

Since it's flash based it should work on any ST.

[@logronoide]

Sidecart perpetrator here! It works on any model, even 16Mhz versions. And oldies 1.00 and 1.02 with 520Kb. Actually, as somebody pointed out, it does not consume any single byte of RAM (except the stack frame).

[@AndrewHelgeCox]

I have no memory of there being ST cartridges 😳.

[@commodoreisnottheonlyfruit]

There weren't many. No games I think the ones in this video were created but users. However there were other devices, dongles for apps like cubase etc I have another cartridge based video coming up next of networking using a cartridge dongle

[@Xenon0000000000001]

I had a few cartridges for the ST. There was StereoMaster for sound sampling (it could also do real-time sound effects), a real-time clock cartridge, a cartridge for connecting a hand scanner (a document scanner you moved with your hand, not something to scan hands), which I can't remember the name of, and finally Vidi ST for capturing video on an ST.

[@AndrewHelgeCox]

@@Xenon0000000000001 Noice! Sorry, I was thinking game cartridges not expansions. Sadly I never upgraded mine. I think I had a modem but nothing else.

[@nigec4969]

Back in the day I owned a GFA Basic cartridge with my 520ST. I now own an Atari 1024ST with sidecart. I am looking for the GFA Basic cartridge file. I love getting back into real hobby computing again. The nostalgia is high, and cheers me up, in this dark and cold, and wet winter here in the UK.

[@AndrewHelgeCox]

@@nigec4969 Cool, I got GFA for free on a coverdisk late in the machine's life and had fun playing with it. UK here too. You aren't wrong about the cold right now!

[@vertigoz]

That ain't no Sysinfo! I have seen it and it ain't like that! It has bars, it has dhrystones! It tell you if you're using ecs ocs or aga, it nothing like Sysinfo

[@brianwild4640]

There is more than one program called Sysinfo 😂

[@vertigoz]

@@brianwild4640 blasphemy!! 😂😂😂

[@commodoreisnottheonlyfruit]

Ah my friend, welcome to Atariville, we do things differently around here :-)

[@commodoreisnottheonlyfruit]

Please don't burn Heretics, at least not on my channel. I may just be one :-)

[@serqetry]

I hope this product means less people will take chainsaws to the side of their ST to put stupid Goteks in there.

[@commodoreisnottheonlyfruit]

I agree. I bought a Gotek, but it's sat in the parts draw since I got it.

[@nigec4969]

I fitted a Gotek drive. No cutting involved.

[@commodoreisnottheonlyfruit]

@@nigec4969 I think it depends un the model. Mine came with a control panel that fits on to of the ST. in principle a nice feature as you don't have to peer around the ST to look at the goteks display However to install it, you have to force the slots on the top of the ST apart to get the connectors through. It wasn't something i fancied doing as it would potentially ruin the case if I ever removed it.

[@jimgraham6476]

No damage is necessary. I could put the original drive back any time. I like the Gotek.

[@serqetry]

@@jimgraham6476 Tell that to all the mutilated Atari STs out there. Yes it's possible but most people don't care enough to buy one that fits. Also, Goteks are super ugly anyway, and don't offer any additional functionality like the Sidecart does.