Subj : Re: Apple //e w0rld
To   : paulie420
From : Spectre
Date : Tue Jun 20 2023 04:47:00

 pa> So I don't think I have a 1MB RAM expansion... there is an external
 pa> RAMCharger unit, which documentation sayes it was for a 1MB RE... but
 pa> nowhere to be found; the RAMCharger sounded kind of antiquated anyway. (As
 pa> if ALL of this stuff isn't... LOL.)

Chuckle, RamCharger and a RamFactor card were on the drool list.  In typical
AE fashion the combo tended to be a bit unreliable.  Probably bad quality
control rather than initial design or QC.  The RamCharger essentially turns
the RamFactor into a solid state drive. There should be a battery, a wall
charger and a card that plugs into both the motherboard and the "ramcard". It
supplies both refresh and power.

 pa> Yea, the TransWarp IS pretty cool - it was tripping me up earlier, tho;
 pa> while using asciiexpress.net or ADTPro, you must turn it off or the audio
 pa> LOAD doesn't work properly. Sometimes it amazes me at HOW one figures that

The issue will be DMA I expect.  You can only have one DMA device in your
IIe, it doesn't know what to do with more and causes bus issues. Most IIe
accelsiorators run in almost full time DMA suspending the onboard processor
function.

 pa> I've been using ProDOS 2.4.2... so I'm already noticing something w/
 pa> graphics - I tried Apple II Desktop; I thought the version I found
 pa> (asciiexpress.net) wasn't in English, but after booting a couple games I
 pa> noticed that it was actually my screen or the graphics; it seems like its
 pa> missing every-other column, or missing some columns at the very least.
 pa> Maybe I'm not booting in 80 column mode, but that doesn't make sense b/c
 pa> all softwares booted right from a disk... hmmmm. Have to figure that out.
 pa> (All text modes, both 40 and 80 column, display perfectly... and whats
 pa> weird is I think *some* graphics I've loaded looked correct; like thru a
 pa> BASIC program, or 'Apple Presents...' disks...

Hmmm could be a couple of things... could depend on the age of the IIe, early
versions weren't reliable at "double hi-res" the mode that Apple Desktop runs
in.  It could be faulty memory on your 80col card. Off hand you'd probably
want to disable the accelerator and try the self-test, ctl-solid apple-reset
see if it throws any errors.  Or it could be the accelerator again, they tend
to run in full time DMA as much as possible, they also tend to mirror Bank0
ram.  This means it can't see the Bank1 memory which lives on the 80col card
and is vital to the missing sections of video.  Basically double-hires uses
the video ram on the motherboard, and the equivalent out on the 80col card to
give double the width graphics.  The disks you've been playing with aside
from the Desktop would be running in Hi-Res.. doesn't access the extra memory
and will look fine.

You might want to check the 80col card, it'll be in the auxilliary slot away
from the other slots.  It may be a RamWorks card, more memory than the regular
64k on an 80col card.  It'll hold up to 1Mb depending on its version. Early
ones were 256/512k.

While playing around with it initially, I'd be inclined to pull the
accelerator.  See what works, and once your happy with that and everything
functions put the accelerator back in and see what it interferes with.

Spec


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