tribby@hpindwa.HP.COM (David Tribby) (08/07/90)
I recently picked up an ESP ROM disk add-on board for my OctoRAM memory
card. (I'm not sure what I will use it for, but it was marked down to $50).
This card comes with 128Kbytes (expandable to 512Kbytes) of battery-backed
RAM that maps into the ROM disk area of the GS (banks $F0-$F7). I plugged
it in, ran the initialization program, and had a new small ProDOS volume.
The system seems to be confused about what type of device I really have.
The Finder uses the hard disk icon for the volume. When I do a DINFO
GS/OS call for the device, the deviceID returned is 2 (Profile 10MB),
not the 15 expected for a ROM disk. The RAM/ROM bit (bit 15) is not
set in the characteristics parameter. (I'm using 5.0.2.)
Anyone at Apple know whether GS/OS correctly identifies ROM disks?
How useful is a ROM disk with a max size of 512K? Can the memory be
used for anything else (e.g. loading toolsets)?
Are there any other ESP users on the net? Which currently-available
32K static-RAM chips are compatible?
Other OctoRAM owners: the Egghead clearance center in Sunnyvale, CA, had
several more ESPs available.
By the way...I called the number for MDIdeas (the manufacturer), and got
a message saying the number was out of service with no new number.
--Dave Tribby
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