Testing Tetroid backplane and GC
Posted: Mon Apr 09, 2018 3:30 pm
Hi guys,
Since my introduction to the forum and occasional foray into the discussions (generally to champion various proposed bits of hardware!) I've been gradually buying up bits and pieces to get my QLs back into a usable state with modern media etc, but have hit a bit of a snag - though I'm not sure if it is to be expected or if there is anything I can do about it!
In aiming to set up a system that could read a hard disk (or equivalent) and floppy disks at the same time, I bought what was available at the time of looking and then recently got hold of Tetroid's backplane kit to put it all together.
Of course, at this point, the above can be achieved very easily with the Tetroid disk interface, but that wasn't available at the time I snaffled the initial hardware last year, nor was the QL-SD - the only hard disk-related hardware I could find was Zaxon's QubIDE, which does not have a pass-through. I may still get a TDI, but besides that, I also wanted to try to use a Gold Card I got from eBay as part of this setup, to improve performance as well as disk access, and open up possibilities such as trying SMSQ/E...
So what have I ended up with? Well here's my list of hardware I planned to test the backplane in conjunction with:
Hermes ROM from RWAP
Tetroid ROM switcher with Minerva (not external switch version)
Eidersoft mICE ROM dongle with mouse
Miracle Systems 512k Expanderam
Miracle Systems Disk Card
Gold Card version 3 (flat battery!)
Zaxon QubIDE (v 2.02 with 512k ram expansion)
Tetroid backplane kit
I started out with my standard QL without the rom switcher or Hermes, and tried my older stuff in the backplane - the 512k ram and the Disk Card. Both worked perfectly, either in separate slots on the backplane, or stacked on top of each other in one backplane slot. So far so good.
Then I tried the QubIDE on its own in the backplane and that also worked fine. In both cases the ICE environment also loaded fine.
However, everything else from here on out didn't work. Trying the QubIDE and the Disk Card together in different slots didn't work - the post screen ends up repeating a corrupted version of the Disk Card text, calling it 'Truap card' instead of 'Trump card' amongst other anomalies, and nothing about the QubIDE status would appear. Despite showing the F1/F2 dialogue, you cannot boot.
Never mind combinations with other hardware, just putting my Gold Card into the backplane on it's own didn't work - I got the two-stage memory/boot check but the post screen gets stuck after the Gold Card text, and you never see the F1/F2 bit at the bottom. I was disappointed by this as the Tetroid Gold Card clone is supposed to work in it, so is there an issue with my GC (which otherwise appears to work fine, flat battery aside) or is it only the clone GC I can expect to work in the backplane for some reason?
Next I wondered if upgrading the internals would make any difference, so I started with the rom switcher (as that was the easier chip to install!) - removing the other two roms. Minerva booted up perfectly and is new to me so I will look forward to seeing what it can do/improve later...
Alas trying it with the mICE dongle, I only got a black screen. The dongle is a little temperamental, so it may just be me, but that was a strange one. All other tests as above gave the exact same results. Then I added the Hermes chip. mICE now working fine again (though could just be coincidence), pressing keys makes a noise(!), but again all other tests produced the same results.
So is this all as expected and I am silly for hoping any of this would work?! Or does it sound like there is a problem somewhere/something I could troubleshoot?
Cheers,
Doug
Since my introduction to the forum and occasional foray into the discussions (generally to champion various proposed bits of hardware!) I've been gradually buying up bits and pieces to get my QLs back into a usable state with modern media etc, but have hit a bit of a snag - though I'm not sure if it is to be expected or if there is anything I can do about it!
In aiming to set up a system that could read a hard disk (or equivalent) and floppy disks at the same time, I bought what was available at the time of looking and then recently got hold of Tetroid's backplane kit to put it all together.
Of course, at this point, the above can be achieved very easily with the Tetroid disk interface, but that wasn't available at the time I snaffled the initial hardware last year, nor was the QL-SD - the only hard disk-related hardware I could find was Zaxon's QubIDE, which does not have a pass-through. I may still get a TDI, but besides that, I also wanted to try to use a Gold Card I got from eBay as part of this setup, to improve performance as well as disk access, and open up possibilities such as trying SMSQ/E...
So what have I ended up with? Well here's my list of hardware I planned to test the backplane in conjunction with:
Hermes ROM from RWAP
Tetroid ROM switcher with Minerva (not external switch version)
Eidersoft mICE ROM dongle with mouse
Miracle Systems 512k Expanderam
Miracle Systems Disk Card
Gold Card version 3 (flat battery!)
Zaxon QubIDE (v 2.02 with 512k ram expansion)
Tetroid backplane kit
I started out with my standard QL without the rom switcher or Hermes, and tried my older stuff in the backplane - the 512k ram and the Disk Card. Both worked perfectly, either in separate slots on the backplane, or stacked on top of each other in one backplane slot. So far so good.
Then I tried the QubIDE on its own in the backplane and that also worked fine. In both cases the ICE environment also loaded fine.
However, everything else from here on out didn't work. Trying the QubIDE and the Disk Card together in different slots didn't work - the post screen ends up repeating a corrupted version of the Disk Card text, calling it 'Truap card' instead of 'Trump card' amongst other anomalies, and nothing about the QubIDE status would appear. Despite showing the F1/F2 dialogue, you cannot boot.
Never mind combinations with other hardware, just putting my Gold Card into the backplane on it's own didn't work - I got the two-stage memory/boot check but the post screen gets stuck after the Gold Card text, and you never see the F1/F2 bit at the bottom. I was disappointed by this as the Tetroid Gold Card clone is supposed to work in it, so is there an issue with my GC (which otherwise appears to work fine, flat battery aside) or is it only the clone GC I can expect to work in the backplane for some reason?
Next I wondered if upgrading the internals would make any difference, so I started with the rom switcher (as that was the easier chip to install!) - removing the other two roms. Minerva booted up perfectly and is new to me so I will look forward to seeing what it can do/improve later...
Alas trying it with the mICE dongle, I only got a black screen. The dongle is a little temperamental, so it may just be me, but that was a strange one. All other tests as above gave the exact same results. Then I added the Hermes chip. mICE now working fine again (though could just be coincidence), pressing keys makes a noise(!), but again all other tests produced the same results.
So is this all as expected and I am silly for hoping any of this would work?! Or does it sound like there is a problem somewhere/something I could troubleshoot?
Cheers,
Doug