Re: ROM Card question

[Stephen Shaw <xstephenx@apple2.org.za>]

On 9 Mar 2002 12:00:23 +0100, Paul Schlyter wrote:

> In article <1f8s7gb.pj3422onzbswN%dempson@actrix.gen.nz>,
> David Empson <dempson@actrix.gen.nz> wrote:
>
>> Paul Schlyter <pausch@saaf.se> wrote:
>>
>>> In article <3c891a4e_3@news.onlynews.com>,
>>> Bryan Villados <news002@macgeek.org> wrote:
> ................
>>>> Why would someone buy a ROM card when they can easily buy a 16K RAM
>>>> card (Language Card what Apple called it) and load the BASIC you
>>>> want to it.
>>>
>>> Two reasons:
>>>
>>> 1. The ROM card was available before the Language Card.
> ................
>>> 2. Even after Apple's Language Card was available, there was still
>>> a reason to buy the ROM card instead: since the Language Card initially
>>> was sold only with the Apple Pascal system, it was quite expensive;
> ..................
>> There was one other reason: the switch on the card lets the user control
>> whether the motherboard or ROM card gets control at reset time.  This
>> has some useful applications in the hacking vein (the old monitor ROM
>> can be useful as a poor man's cracking card, or you can use custom
>> firmware on the card).
>
> You don't need a ROM card for THAT!  You can just as well replace the
> motherboard monitor ROM with a ROM which does whatever you want at
> RESET.

In those days EPROM burners were expensive, and consequently, rare.

>
>> By comparison, the language card doesn't change its enable state for a
>> hardware reset (but is disabled after a power-on reset).  Apple II
>> Pascal made use of this feature: Ctrl-Reset does a warm start of the
>> operating system, reinitializing and returning to the main menu.
>>
>> The built-in language card emulation in the IIe and later machines
>> doesn't retain this behaviour - the language card is disabled by a
>> hardware reset, so Ctrl-Reset in Apple II Pascal will reboot the
>> computer.

-- 
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