Ace 1200 Help! Rolf Taylor?

[neiderma@eden.rutgers.edu (Kid)]

Ace 1200 Mystery Card
 
 
First, thanks for all the help with my little softboot Ace 1200.
I still have this mystery card sitting in slot0, so I promptly pulled
it out to tell you what it looks like.  If I remove the card
the system won't work at all, no softboot loading.
In case you don't remember:
 
>>Also, if I try to run Copy ][+ v5.0 (or any other DOS 3.3 program
>>requiring 64k), it crashes or just tells me I don't have 64k.  I have
>>a board which I believe, to the best of my knowledge, is a 16k RAM
>>card in slot 0; it's gott be, since when I switch on the machine
>>it loads FPBASIC from my DOS 3.3 System Master into the language card.
 
>Since it's a SoftBoot machine, I'm not sure I can help much, since I'm
>only familiar with the original HardBoot machines (I have an ACE 1000,
>Rev. B).  Unless there were some significant design changes, you shouldn't
>have to have a RAM card in slot 0 to have 64K--it's all on the motherboard.
>It's possible that the card in slot 0 is some special card.  Could you
>describe it?  Perhaps you could try removing the card and see how the
>machine behaves?
 
 
The card looks like the "old style" Franklin Disk II controller, about
9 inches long with the 35-degree angle on the top end away from the
gold finger connector.  Along the bottom the card is labelled
"08 84 FRANKLIN COMPUTER CORP".  There is a socketed EPROM with a label
saying in handwriting "1331443 E15".  The rest of the board is covered
with chips, some socketed and some soldered. There are letters
ranging from A-H along time top, and numbers ranging from 1-4 along
the left edge, so I guess this implies some sort of grid. A socketed
chip at E2 says "3J3 T HD74LS244P", E3 and E4 "TMS4416-20NL BP8349",
F1 and F2 "MALAYSIA 345E (TI SYMBOL) SN74LS257N" and at G1 "EL SALVADOR
406D (TI SYMBOL) SN74LS00N".  There is a blue wire running from
the far-right edge of the card to the middle (but not seeming to connect
any chips) and a green one goes from the far right to the middle of the
card, but it runs along the bottom of the card.