So I've posted about this machine before. I think the last time was about making bootable floppies. The good news is that I can do that now. Still, I never got the Sidewise board to work with the sideways RAM.
I figured that it was probably damage from the battery that leaked all over it, so recently I managed to get a new one (that never had a battery to begin with!) All and all, it seems to work. It also came with a manual so I tried to see if it would copy the BASIC into the RAM and so far all looks right. Or at least, there were no errors reported in the copy. I haven't figured out how to read back from the address to compare. It's a little concerning that when I go into MMFS and do a *ROMS command the copied image doesn't show up. But that could be normal for all I know.
Even so, I still have some issues:
First, when the board is installed the computer won't recognize any ROMs in the lower sockets. From what I can tell anything in sockets 0-6 aren't seen. Sockets 7-14, on the other hand, are fine. As I understand it, the board re-designates the sockets on the motherboard as 0-3 as opposed to 12-15, and without the board those sockets work fine. With the board, they're not recognized. Neither are the three sockets (4-6) at the top of the board.
Second, even though the sideways RAM appears to be working (at least I think it is), Battlezone (the atari soft version) still doesn't see the bank. I'm not sure if the bank I have is too small (16k) as most sideways ram expansions appear to be at least 32k, but the game always tells me that the bank isn't detected and refuses to load any further.
The other possibility is that there is something wrong with the computer's configuration. Maybe I need to adjust some of the jumpers on the motherboard? Obviously I'm flying a little blind here, so any help would be appreciated.
I figured that it was probably damage from the battery that leaked all over it, so recently I managed to get a new one (that never had a battery to begin with!) All and all, it seems to work. It also came with a manual so I tried to see if it would copy the BASIC into the RAM and so far all looks right. Or at least, there were no errors reported in the copy. I haven't figured out how to read back from the address to compare. It's a little concerning that when I go into MMFS and do a *ROMS command the copied image doesn't show up. But that could be normal for all I know.
Even so, I still have some issues:
First, when the board is installed the computer won't recognize any ROMs in the lower sockets. From what I can tell anything in sockets 0-6 aren't seen. Sockets 7-14, on the other hand, are fine. As I understand it, the board re-designates the sockets on the motherboard as 0-3 as opposed to 12-15, and without the board those sockets work fine. With the board, they're not recognized. Neither are the three sockets (4-6) at the top of the board.
Second, even though the sideways RAM appears to be working (at least I think it is), Battlezone (the atari soft version) still doesn't see the bank. I'm not sure if the bank I have is too small (16k) as most sideways ram expansions appear to be at least 32k, but the game always tells me that the bank isn't detected and refuses to load any further.
The other possibility is that there is something wrong with the computer's configuration. Maybe I need to adjust some of the jumpers on the motherboard? Obviously I'm flying a little blind here, so any help would be appreciated.
Statistics: Posted by DistantStar001 — Sun Nov 30, 2025 9:14 am