Computers_With_BASIC_in_ROM / was Re: Texas Instruments CC-40 won't boot

[Pete Turnbull]

On 03/05/2015 16:45, Chris Osborn wrote:
>
> On May 3, 2015, at 8:28 AM, Pete Turnbull <pete at dunnington.plus.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Yeah, I was about to say that.  The Sorcerer was always sold with
>> the BASIC ROM PAC fitted, and to my way of thinking, that's really
>> no different from a ROM plugged into the board, as it was on a
>> Commodore PET or an Acorn Atom.
>
> Ok I guess I should ask then was it necessary to remove the BASIC ROM
> PAC to load other software or cartridges?

It wouldn't be removed in normal use, and there was plenty of software 
(not written in BASIC) that could be loaded without removing the ROM 
PAC.  However, anything in another PAC would require the removal of the 
BASIC PAC, because there is only one slot.

Three items I know of came as replacement ROM PACs: the DEV PAC (Exidy's 
assembler and editor - but there were others that just loaded from 
disk/cassette), the WP PAC (word processor, but again there were others) 
and firmware for one of the non-Exidy disk interfaces (most used only 
the S100 expansion bus but one also used a PAC for its bootstrap rather 
than putting that on the expansion bus).

There was also an EPROM PAC from a third party, so users could create 
their own PACs.

-- 
Pete

Pete Turnbull