Serial-Pro card in a coma!

[jdb8042@tam2000.tamu.edu (John Donald Baker)]

Recently, I wanted to check the clock and preference settings on
my AE Serial-Pro card.  I attempted to enter the setup firmware
in the usual way:  "IN#2" followed by "^A?" but this didn't work.

Consulting the manual, I used the "back door" entry into the
firmware from AppleSoft.  This would indicate that the card is
stuck in the P8A emlation, which it shouldn't be.

Using this approach, the setup firmware did indeed start running.
However, many of the fields show up with "ERROR" in them and I
am unable to change the settings.  The clock shows meaningless
information and attempts to change them simply cause the display
to show "FF" (hex).

In spite of this, the serial port still works fine as long as
the software reads the registers directly.  It's possible to
call the firmware, but its behavior is odd--slow output, even
at 19200bps (which the system is frozen at) and it double-spaces.

I had suspected that the old gel-cell battery had gone bad, but
I would have thought I could at least set and use the setup
paramters as long as the machine was powered up.

So, my first question is:  Have any other Serial-Pro owners
had a problem like this?

Q2:  Can anyone indicate where I can buy a replacement
battery for the Serial-Pro that won't cost an arm and a leg?

Q3:  Is it possible that the 6818 clock/RAM chip has flaked out?
(This seems to be a distinct possibility, but I've not been
able to test it completely.)

Thanks.


John D. Baker ->A TransWarp'802'd Apple //e CardZ180 Z-System nut //
Internet:  jdb8042@tam2000.tamu.edu, @blkbox.com, jdbaker@taronga.com
BBSs:  JOHN BAKER on PIC of the Mid-Town [(713) 961-5817] 1:106/31,
The Vector Board [(716) 544-1863], Z-Node #45 [(713) 937-8886]

http://tam2000.tamu.edu/~jdb8042/