SD structure¶

Historically the SD card was used to load the OS roms and BASIC roms. The format was developed for the MIST (and similar devices) where there are multiple platforms. It is a bit over the top for the EclaireXL which is only trying to be a clone of a single platform.

Essentially it expects a FAT formatted SD card (suggest 1-2GB) containing the folder structure:

atari800/
  user/
  rom/

User¶

The EclaireXL has a built in SDrive derived set of virtual disk drives. It also has cartridge hardware for most of the common cartridge schemes.

Under user you can put any atrs, xex files or car files. You can use long filenames and folders to organise them.

ATR¶

Atari disk image. Virtual disk, its possible to load/save files from these. Note that it is not possible to create files (e.g. blank disks) from the EclaireXL firmware, you must copy a blank disk image onto the SD card!

XEX¶

Atari executable, as normally loaded from DOS. These can be directly booted.

CAR¶

Cartridge image with a header to say what the memory layout is. So that the turbo freezer derived cartridge hardware can select the correct address decoding scheme.

Rom¶

Under rom you no longer need to put anyway, since its stored on the flash chip. However you CAN put:

• A bunch of OS/basic roms
• Turbo freezer rom
• Settings

When the EclaireXL starts it up it loads the OS and settings from the flash. It then can override these if certain special files are present.

Special rom files¶

• atarixl.rom - main OS rom
• ataribas.rom - atari basic
• freezer.rom - turbo freezer rom
• settings - video and system settings

Rom files¶

If present these are loaded instead of the os and basic rom on the flash chip. This is useful to have e.g. an 'Altirra OS/basic' sd card or an 'OS B' sd card etc.

Settings¶

If these are present then they are loaded in place of the settings on the flash chip. So you can for instance put in a settings file to force it to start in the specified video mode. Some example files and a program to create them can be found in here: http://www.64kib.com/autobuild/private/settings_examples/

Other rom files¶

Any other files in the rom folder are ignored. You can for instance put in atariosb.rom and atariosa.rom and load these from the menu to switch rom.