Re: Confirmation of Focus drive problem and request for ROM 03 GS owners with RAM expanders

[Rubywand <rubywand@swbell.net>]

Rodney Hester writes ...

<earlier>
>  ....

> Rubywand, since you worked on the updated Focus CDEV, your comments are
> especially welcome, since you may have some better familiarity with
> specifically how the FocusDriver works (and if there is a mythical physical
> RAM cache on the FocusDrive card that it activates).
> 
 ....

     Thanks for the compliment, Rodney. Really, though, the Focus CDev mod was a fairly simple hack which fixes errors in TimeOut displays and extends the range of selectable TimeOut periods a little. Otherwise, you mainly get a prettier CDev icon. I do not have any special information or knowledge about FocusDriver.

     On our IIgs booting Sys601 (with FocusDriver in System/Drivers), the file copy test you suggest (HyperStudio and a stack file copied to Focus) was tried with and without the typical 32K cache (set via the Sys 6.0.1 RAM Control Panel).  Results consistently favored the With-Cache setup; but, the time saving is very small-- 3% or 4%.

     Anyway, as with Ludowick's experience, we have never had any problems with our Focus drive; and, our system is somewhat different from yours-- ROM-01 with 4MB GS-RAM III; RamFAST SCSI in Slot 2; old (approx 1994) 80MB Focus from Parson's Engineering in Slot 7.



<more recently>
> 
> Thanks to a number of folks on the newsgroup, I have positively identified
> my Focus card as one of those with a problem with copying very large (over
> 500K or so) files - the file is corrupted once written to disk.  I will be
> calling Alltech Monday for an RMA.
>

     This problem was reported to be related to having just 7MB plugged into a Sirius in a ROM 3 8MB system. (For something about this check out Scott G's observations at http://home.swbell.net/rubywand/Csa2HDWHACK.html#021 .)  Don't know whether some alternative explanation has been offered.
 
 ....

> Since I'm going to be discussing problems with them anyway, I would
> appreciate it if someone could confirm for me if the following problem is
> specific to the Sirius RAM card and/or ROM 03 machines:
> 
> When I try to run Vegas Gambler from
> http://www.inwards.com/~fairway/game_pages/vegas_gambler.html on my ROM 03
> machine with an 8MB Sirius RAM card (from either HD or floppy), inserting a
> coin in Slots and then pulling the handle drops to the monitor after the
> first wheel stops turning.  Removing the Sirius RAM card from the machine
> allows the game to play normally.
> 
> I am unsure at this time if it is a problem with *all* RAM expanders, just
> the Sirius card, or the software itself.  If it's possible and convenient,
> I'd really appreciate it if RAM card owners (Sirius and non-Sirius) could
> take a few moments to try this game (booted from floppy, to remove any other
> source of doubt) and see if you can reproduce the problem with your RAM card
> still installed.  (Obviously, it should work with it removed, so there's
> little point in testing that.)


     Vegas Gambler runs fine on our ROM-01 GS with 4MB. Since it's a fairly old (pre-ROM 3) game, the problem may relate to assumptions the game makes about GS System which are not supported by ROM 3. 


> 
> If I get results back that it _does_ work with other RAM expanders
> (especially if it works with other Sirius cards), I'll RMA the Sirius card
> as well.  If you do have a Sirius card, please inform me of what version
> your card is (found on the card itself, mine is 2.0) if you can to try to
> narrow the source of the problem.  (The RAM capacity is irrelevant, I
> dropped mine down to 1M and the problem still occurs.)
>
> For those who question my fanaticism about getting one stupid Slots game
> working, rest assured my sanity is indeed intact - problems like this
> generally indicate a larger hardware fault just waiting to bite you, so I'd
> rather know now than later.  =)
> 
 ....

     Sounds like a good policy.

     Do you have a SCSI card plugged into your IIgs? If you do, you might try setting Direct Memory Access to "Off".


     Other quickie tries:

o- Scrap the "Desktop" file in the Icons/ folder of all partitions
o- Scrap non-essential INITs (like CloseView)
o- Scrap all screen savers
o- Scrap all files related to AppleTalk



Rubywand