Re: Jace: RamWorks III in the works

[BLuRry <brendan.robert@gmail.com>]

Alright, seems it works.  I didn't play with my RamWorks III too long before selling it (I didn't need it, already have a RamFactor) but I wanted to know if it's typical for Prodos to not create a large ramdisk on start unless I run some sort of program to install a device driver.  If that's the case then everything is working.

Because the RamFactor banks are not ordered linearly, some of the self-diagnostics will fail for things like the 2meg expander if the card size is only set to 3072kb (3meg) -- this isn't because the memory isn't there, it's because it's mapped to lower bank numbers.  If you increase the card size to 8mb then the AE diagnostic tests all check out!

If anyone thinks there is a compelling case for maintaining the non-linear bank order (aside from passing diagnostics) then I can set that up pretty quickly before releasing this build -- I already have the bank order in an array but I haven't referenced it yet.  I might just say screw it because if you bump the card up to 8192kb then all the banks are mapped to something and it covers all bases.  I think that the card can technically address 16mb if the bank select is allowed to be > 128, but according to the RamWorks manual (and the detect routines AE supplies) it must be < 128.

RamWorks and RamFactor compatibility.  Yay.  Now you can emulate a //e with 12 drives and 24mb ram (16mb ramfactor + 8mb ramworks).  It's just... unnatural.  :-D 

-B