Since I seem to be blessed with an abundance of energy this afternoon (I'm usually crashing in the recliner about now.), I spent some time screwing around with the IIe with some interesting, if ambiguous, things to report.

I pulled the 8MB RAM card and re-installed the 64KB card. I also pulled the Yellowstone Liron clone from Big Mess O'Wires. (This will, or may, allow me to connect a 32MB virtual Smart Port HD to the IIe.)

Next, I ran the onboard diagnostics for the SpeedDemon. Went through the whole series of 9 tests, error-free. The SpeedDemon is good!

So I had to get the utility program for configuring the RAM card onto a 5.25" floppy, so I could use it on the IIe. The Floppy Emu is quite particular about disks having contiguous blocks. (It resembles Apple UCSD Pascal in that regard.) So the procedure I've developed is to keep a copy of the IIc's external HD image on my iMac's desktop. I mount that in Virtual II, and then copy the files I need from the disk images I've downloaded from Garrett's Workshop within Virtual II. (The Virtual II is configured as a IIe with two 5.25" disk drives in Slot 6, and two hard drives in Slot 7.)

Then I pull the micro-SD card from the Floppy Emu and mount that on the iMac. I use Disk Utility to erase all the files, and then copy the "temporary" image to the micro-SD card. (This includes another 32MB HD disk image, and dozens of 5.25" floppy disk images in another folder.) This ensures that all the files are contiguous.

The only mistake I made today was that I'd added another lo-res routine to the fidget spinner program, and didn't copy that program over to the "temp" image. Not a huge deal, but it reminds me that I'll have to be careful and copy all the files from the micro-SD card first, as a backup, just in case.

Moving on... I got the utility to configure the RAM card onto the Smart Port HD image, mounted that on the IIc and then copied the config program over to a 5.25" floppy on the IIc.

If it sounds like a hassle, it kinda is. But I'm getting used to it.

Back to the IIe with my floppy disk. I plugged the 8MB RAM card into the Aux slot. Stuck the floppy into Drive 1 and booted the IIe, pressing "Escape" before the SpeedDemon kicked in, forcing the IIe to run at regular speed. It booted fine.

I ran the configuration utility and set the card to appear as a 1MB RAMWorks card. (1MB is plenty for the kinds of things I like to do.)

I power-cycled the IIe and let the SpeedDemon take control, and it booted right into ProDOS and BASIC.SYSTEM. Hurray! Success!

Believing I'd just solved my problem, I shut down the computer and put the Yellowstone card back in Slot 5. I have another Floppy Emu inbound that's going to live on the IIe.

Just to make sure, I started the IIe... and we never made it past the ProDOS splash screen.

Doh!

I wondered if it was a speed issue, so I powered down, pulled the SpeedDemon and set the dip-switch for Slot 5 to "slow," so whenever the computer polls Slot 5 it'll do so at 1MHz.

Reinstalled the SpeedDemon and turned the computer back on. Same problem.

Doh! Doh!

Well, my energy level remains normal, but my enthusiasm is a bit diminished. I decided to just pull the Yellowstone card and try again with the new Emu gets here. It may be that the card has to have something to talk to besides the cpu. I could figure that out with the Emu I have on hand, but I'm not sure I want to know right now. Maybe later.

I had the Yellowstone in Slot 5 because the 5.25" disk controller is in Slot 6 and the ribbon cables from the 5.25" drives really crowd into the space for Slot 7, putting some strain on the card in Slot 7.

As the IIe is currently configured, it resembles the IIc here in the office. I have the IIc configured to boot from the 5.25" internal floppy, but it sees the 32MB Smart Port HD image as a drive in Slot 5.

If connecting an Emu to the Yellowstone solves the problem, I'll keep that configuration. If it doesn't, I'll move the 5.25" controller to Slot 5, and put the Yellowstone in Slot 7 with an Emu attached. The empty Slot 6 will leave room for the ribbon cables without them pressing on the Yellowstone in Slot 7.

The IIe will try to boot from the highest slot that it finds a controller in. I'll start with the Emu configured to emulate a 5.25" floppy and see what happens. If that works, I'll try an 800KB 3.5" disk emulation. That'd give me Apple Pascal 1.3 all on one disk, and I can run a script to copy all the modules I need to the RAM drive, and we're back in business.

And if all that works, I'll try a 32MB HD image.

For now, I'm pretty happy that I know the SpeedDemon is good and I've got the AUX RAM card configured for 1MB.

I just spent a couple of hours not doom-scrolling! Of course, Mitzi has been doom-scrolling and giving me updates. (Cranes in downtown Tampa that they couldn't secure in time. If you live near a crane, hide.)

Originally posted at Nice Marmot 14:13 Tuesday, 8 October 2024