1st February 1996ROM Clashes
I think that, without exception, every ROM manual I have says "as far as is known, our ROM does not clash with any other ROMs". I do not know precisely how many ROMs I have at present but for the Electron alone; it was well over forty at last count. Hence, to permutate all possible combinations over sixteen pages and with ROM128 and ROM256 (by Derek Walker) involved, I will leave to the very dedicated reader.
Click And Viewhlp
I do know of a few ROM clashes however. Slogger's Click has to be removed from the system to run Derek Walker's Viewhlp. Earlier Click versions do not clash, but version 1.04 (My version, natch!) does!
T2Peg400 And Stargraph
I also find that after using my T2PEG400 ROM (Tape-To-Pegasus Disk Transfer) from Slogger, the subsequent LOADing from disk (after I have found where the author loaded his tape program) does not work until Stargraph is killed.
View, 1770 DFS And Screenprint Colour
When using View with Advanced Computer Products' 1770 DFS, I find that I have to kill the Screenprint Colour ROM. This is probably because the ROM commands are key-instructed.
Mode 7 Simulator And View
Also, I kill the Mode 7 Simulator ROM when using View though I am not sure that recent problems I have had were due specifically to this ROM. I will come back to the Elkman ROM Manager which I also kill when using View.
AMX Art, Stop Press And Click
A clash I am 100% sure about is AMX Art, Stop Press and Click cannot all be in the system at the same time - they all program the port interface chip 6522. Therefore, any two must be removed or switched out to run the other.
Master RAM Board
In addition to memory clashes, there are many Mode clashes regarding the functioning (or not as the case may be) of Slogger's Master RAM Board. The early version of Stop Press (Not SP64!), Addcomm, AMX, Lisp and ADT will only run in 32K mode, and ADT will not run in 32K Turbo.
Rom Image Problems
I have produced ROM images of Slogger's Elkman ROM in 32K Mode and 64K Mode using both Slogger's Expansion 2.0 ROM and Derek Walker's RAMUtil and, in all cases, the *KILLROM command is completely lost. (Only the equivalent of *OFFROM is achievable; even then an *OFFROM is not held through a BREAK as it should be.) I have even tried LOADing the image (Howsoever produced!) into Battery Backed RAM write protected and it still will not work with these commands. All other Elkman commands seem to work satisfactorily though so the image is still useful to me, especially in killing ROMs using Click. Has anybody else had this problem?
I had a lot of problems getting a ROM image of Addcomm to work but eventually I solved the problem. After *RLOADing the ROM image in 32K mode, I then found that I had to do a CTRL-BREAK and then the sequence *FX163,0 (RETURN), (BREAK). The reason that I am so interested in seeing if images of my ROMs will work is so that they can be put into a ROM128 or ROM256. Not only does this give my main Electron system maximum access to commands, etc but it also allows for clashing ROMs to be switched out. For this reason I have taken out my AMX ROM from page 13 at the moment for I have some sort of mouse clashing that I cannot solve with it installed. As I have several ROMs (AMX and XBasic are just two of them!) that only work above BASIC, I need to get a ROM128 fitted into page 13.
ROM128 And ROM256
Finally, ROM128 and ROM256. Additionally to ROMs shown as fitted to my main Electron system in the Click article, the 128 has ADI, ADT, Dumpmaster, Slogger Printer Driver Generator, Startrek, Stargraph and Starmon. The ROM256 has pairs Lisp and Serial ROM, PMS NTQ and Fonts and AMX Stop Press and Support. The other four pairs are blank awaiting other ROM pairs.
Tony Boarer, EUG #24
