Re: Ramfast and Prodos8

[bazyar@mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu (Jawaid Bazyar)]

mcgovern@CS.ColoState.EDU (Mike McGovern) writes:

>I commonly need to use only Prodos8 programs while at my GS.  I have a
>Ramfast SCSI card, so I have the second partition set to boot Prodos8.
>When I only want to use Prodos8 I hold down the '2' key.  This usually
>works, but sometimes the Ramfast misses the keystroke and boots
>partition 1.  The keystoke is then used to go into the text progress
>display instead of the graphic-based one.  I have heard that it is bad
>to do a reset while GSOS boots, so when the Ramfast misses the
>keystroke, I just let it boot into GSOS and run the P8 software from
>there.  Now that System 6.0.1 supports booting into P8, I thought I
>would give it a try and see if it is more reliable.  If I hit '8' too
>soon, the Ramfast tries to boot partition 8.  If I have an eighth
>partition it boots without a problem, but my 8th partition is
>usually inactive, which causes a crash into the monitor.  After this
>crash, I am forced to power down to get anything to boot.  Because of
>this I am going to stick to booting partition 2 to go into P8.  I have
>ROM version 3.00l.  My questions are:
>1.  What is the current ROM version?

  3.01c

>2.  Does that version more reliably recognize a keystroke at boot?

  No.

>3.  Does it still crash into the monitor if that partition isn't active?

  Unknown.

>Booting into P8 by holding down the '8' key under 6.0.1 allows you to
>select the prodos file that boots GSOS, and boot GSOS.  Trying this
>after getting into P8 by booting my second partition causes a hang.

>4.  Is there any way to duplicate 6.0.1's functionality under a regular
>P8 boot?  Maybe a .system file that sets up the necessary locations and
>then launches the next .system file in the directory?

  IMHO, Apple should have chosen one of the modifier keys for the
"Boot-to-P8" thing.  It should be a trivial change to the boot code to
check, say, OA.

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