31 May
2012
31 May
'12
3:03 p.m.
On closer examination the character displayed on power up is "I" and not
"]".
George Rachor
The behavior you describe is normal.? The power-up garbage composition is irrelevant.? The
key is that the screen fully clears when you hit "break".? That means the video
generation circuitry, video RAM, system clock, CPU, bootstrap ROM, and bus drivers (on
both boards) are all working.
Your machine (if configured for disk) should display "H/D/M?" at the top of the
screen.? If you are using a monitor with lots of overscan, this could be off the screen.?
Perhaps you could try fiddling with the vert knob to see if it's there off the top of
the screen.
Or, you could try powering up the disk drive (without a disk in it), and hit "D"
after the screen clear.? You should hear a sound from the drive that will set your teeth
on edge, but is really the head seeking to track 0.? It should last less than a second.?
If you get that, you may want to try a backup disk in the drive (Usually the brown disk in
the OSI OS distribution was designated as a "working" disk, and is basically a
backup.)
Good luck,
Dave