So. My beta-tester (thanks to tokra!) made runs of the new RAM check (download) on two known good VIC-20+RAM-Expander configs (PAL VIC-20 + Mega-Cart and NTSC VIC-20 + Ultimem) and one run on a known flaky combination, NTSC VIC-20 + FE3.Mike wrote:I've prepared a new test program, but first have asked another Denial fellow to beta-test it.
The run on NTSC VIC-20 + FE3 confirms the cross-talk issues of FE3.
I have appended the RAM check as zipped *.d64 file. Set your RAM expansion to full, but exclude RAM in I/O. When you have changed into the disk image, load the file BOOT with LOAD"BOOT",8,1 - this will autostart the RAM check.
You will be prompted, whether you want to include the I/O area for tests. For the moment, confirm the default option "N" with [RETURN], i.e. I/O will *not* be tested! Only change this to "Y" if you really, really know what you're doing.
The test is very elaborate:
- At first it is determined, which external RAM areas are fully "there". That means RAM1, RAM2, RAM3, BLK1, BLK2, BLK3, BLK5 (and, if enabled, also I/O2 and I/O3) will be checked for full presence. If one of those areas is already missing even though it should be there, then at least one of its RAM cells is defective right away! For the following tests those pages (with 256 bytes each) that contain the faulty RAM cell(s) will be excluded, the remainder of that area will be tested regardless.
With the "full" +35K RAM expansion, the list should show RAM1..3, BLK1..3 and BLK5.
- Then every page will be filled with different byte values, that need to be read back successfully ("CDx-Test"). If that test fails, the RAM expansion has issues with one of the data bus signals (open/short/cross-connect), and the test then stops.
- Then, in every page one single byte is changed to another value, and checked that all other bytes of that page retain their value. effectively, that test checks that the lower eight address lines (CA0 .. CA7) work as supposed. The test only continues, when all pages have been checked O.K.
- Finally, the RAM cross-talk check: For each "source page", all pages are initialised to one value (0 or 255), then the source page is changed to another value (255 or 0), and then that replacement value must not show up in any other page resp. all other pages must retain their init value. If anything goes wrong here, it will show up as red "!" in the result matrix, and the result is FAIL.
The RAM check takes some time, roughly 40 minutes for the "full" +35K RAM configuration. The memory page currently being tested is counted up, so you can see the test still runs.
...
Dimebag, please provide the following two screenshots:
1. When the test just has started, and lists up all RAM areas it could find.
2. When the test has ended with the result matrix, and the cursor reappears with the "READY." prompt.
