Re: ROM 3 vs ROM 03?

[spector@vax2.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector)]

In article dempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson) writes...
>
>In article <31MAY199400390403@pavo.concordia.ca>,
>Mitchell Spector <sb_spec@pavo.concordia.ca> wrote:
> 
>> Here's a list of faults (I *think*) in the older ROM 3:
>> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>> - Programmer CDAs ('Visit Monitor', 'Memory Peeker') always active, and
>>   no way to disable them. 
> 
>I have the 1989 ROMs with the numbers listed as being the "older" ones
>in an earlier post, and I don't have this problem.

	I recently checked and I have 341-0748/0737 -- the very same ROMs
installed in your ROM 3 system. This is getting strange though, since your
ROMs don't have the two CDAs locked in. Mine has had these CDAs locked in
the menu from the minute I unpacked the machine. I can also verify it's
not just my particular system, as I saw one just like mine at Apple Canada's
head office in Montreal. I've tried everything to purge the CDAs. Using
System 6.0.1's new Control Panel function doesn't work, even a small GS/OS
program Richard Winfall wrote just to change the bRAM bit for me wouldn't
do it. The only thing that did work was an INIT called "BadROM3". However,
it's only temporary! As soon as I do a CTRL-OA-RESET (leaving GS/OS) the
CDAs immediately pop back into the menu. I've done everything short of
removing the Lithum-battery from the motherboard, though not sure that
would help. If you or anyone else can think of a way to get rid of these
CDAs once and for all, please tell me how! :-) 

>Um, I can do that on my ROM 3.  The 's' command invokes the Step
>function, which prints 'Step' and disassembles one instruction.
>You can then press certain keys to toggle display modes, SPACE to
>execute the instruction and display the next one, or RETURN to execute
>continuously.  Pressing ESCAPE cancels the step operation.
> 
>If you mean it doesn't print anything before waiting for a keypress,
>then that definitely is a problem.

	Now that I've looked at this again, I think it's okay. I get the
following response when typing "s" <return>.

'00/0181: 00 01    BRK01' (inversed text, appears frozen until key-press)

[Detailed info on 'Step' and 'Trace' Monitor commands, snippped]

	Ahh! After all these years, you've finally helped me better
understand the ROM 3 Monitor! :) I don't own any reference material on
the ROM 3, and nothing like this existed within any of my 8-bit IIs or
ROM 01 IIgs -- Not being completely famillar with Monitor I wasn't sure
if this was normal behavior or not. Thanks for solving that little puzzle
for me... ;-) 

>'l' seems to be fine on my machine.

	Sorry, "l" does work on mine too. It was "list" or "t" followed
by a <return> that made the system go into a non-stop loop with the error
bell ringing. "list" is an illegal command, but I'm still not certain why
"t" (Trace) should cause that loop after return is pressed... 	

>> - Cannot format RAMDisk to 'largest selectable' size.
> 
>My ROM 3 has that problem.  No RAM disk is created if you select the
>largest available size (in my case, 4992k).  It is fine if you go one
>step less than this.

	Okay, seems we both have this glitch. I'm planning to add more
memory soon, but at least I now know it should format a RAM disk higher
than what I have now. :) BTW, is this *normal*? I'm curious if other
ROM 3 users have to go one setting lower than their largest-size.
	Years ago Apple told me setting the RAM Disk from GS/OS's NDA
control panel would fix this, but unfortunately it doesn't. :/

>> Also, at random, doing a certain number of OA-CTRL-RESETs formats
>> over /RAM5 (probably toggles 'Resize after reset' by itself when
>> normal memory is trashed).  
> 
>Never come across this one.  If you hit Ctrl-Apple-Reset while the
>IIgs was still handling the last reset, it might cause memory corruption.

	Actually, it happened to me again last night. I was using 
AppleWorks GS 1.1 (with System 6.0.1 and Pointless) and like it always
does, AWGS locked up when it ran short of memory (my fault, rendored too
many TT fonts styles and sizes in my letter). When I went to press
CTRL-OA-RESET to reboot, my ROM 3 auto-formatted my /RAM5, even though
the setting in the control panel was untouched! I notice this seems to
happen alot when I have crashes or memory-trashed. Often when I used to
quit from soniqTracker 0.63, it would lock-up (common problem with sT)
and I'd loss my /RAM5 when I did a CTRL-(OA)-RESET to reboot.

>If you format /RAM5 with the System 6.0.1 "RAM5" driver, it does
>pause.  The RAM5 driver fills every block of the RAM disk with zeros.
>If you aren't using the driver, formatting the RAM disk doesn't do
>anything except write a fresh root directory, bitmap, etc. which isn't
>a noticeable delay.

	That's strange. I always resize my /RAM5 using the built-in
text control panel, but it ALWAYS pauses while the formatting takes
place. It seems the larger the RAM disk, the longer the pause. Did
a rough count a moment ago: 32k /RAM5 has almost no pause, 416k is
a 2 second pause, 800k 4 seconds and 1888k is 6 seconds. It's slightly
annoying as I always keep an 800k RAM disk active, thus when I cold-boot
my GS, there's a 4 second delay before I have control of the computer.
Doesn't bother me now, but once I find a hardrive and connect it up
it'll delay start-up... :/

>David Empson
>dempson@actrix.gen.nz
>Snail mail: P.O. Box 27-103, Wellington, New Zealand

Mitchell Spector
sb_spec@pavo.concordia.ca / spector@vax2.concordia.ca