20 Sep
1998
20 Sep
'98
5:58 p.m.
On Mon, 14 Sep 1998, Zane H. Healy wrote:
On mine (I pulled it out and played with the multimeter) the switches
control whether or not to activate certain address lines for each slot.
There is one block of six switches, and another block of seven switches.
The block of six switches controls whether or not a cartridge slot is
connected to the BLK3 address line ($6000-$7FFF). One switch per slot.
The block of seven uses the first six switches for the same purpose, but
with BLK5 ($A000-$BFFF). The remaining switch activates/deactivates the
BLK1 line ($2000-$3FFF) on all six slots.
I think. :) I may have got it reversed (side to side) so that the first
block of switches controls BLK2 ($4000-$5FFF), the second block of
switches controls BLK1 ($2000-$3FFF), and the remaining switch activates
BLK5 ($A000-$BFFF) on all slots. I'll have to check again.
$A000 seems to be where auto-starting ROMs live, though, so it would
probably be better if they were selected individually.
Yours is simpler to use, and the rotary switch wouldn't allow conflicts
the way this board does.
The reason I
say I don't know how to use the multi-cartridge adapter is
that it has a bunch of dip switches, and I've got no manual to tell me
what they do. I have managed to plug in my 16K RAM Expander and various
other carts at the same time, and had it come up with the 16K visible, but
then I don't know the proper entry point for the software (though I've
been able to scan through memory and see QBF there).
My adapter board says "Cardboard" on it, and it has space for six
cartridges. And it has a reset button. :)
The one I had the rotary switch, which I gather you don't have, it was to
select the slot, you then pressed the reset button, and that rebooted with
that cartridge. IIRC it also had the DIP switches, these were used to copy
the cartridges to cassette tape or floppy, and back to a memory cartridge. Zane
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Adminstrator |
| healyzh(a)ix.netcom.com (primary) | Linux Enthusiast |
| healyzh(a)holonet.net (alternate) | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| and Zane's Computer Museum. |
| http://www.dragonfire.net/~healyzh/ |
Doug Spence
ds_spenc(a)alcor.concordia.ca
http://alcor.concordia.ca/~ds_spenc/