Symbiface II (new batch) and 6128 Plus

[Badstarr]

Hi everyone!


Been a while since I've really been active on these forums, but that is about to change as the hectic preparations over the last few months to start my Masters Degree are now over!    Now its onwards with the actual study! 


Ok onto the post...


I recently purchased a Symbiface II (thanks again buzby!) which I believe is from the most recent batch. I have tried it out first on my vanilla 6128 and all seems good. I haven't had too much time to play around with the card but I have found a problem when I attach it to any of my Plus machines.


When I attach the Symbiface to my 6128 Plus/464 Plus I cannot boot into Symbos by invoking |Sym. It starts to boot but then crashes, I have tried the SymbOS ROMs in different positions and sometimes |Sym produces the Press Play and Any Key . I think the problem seems to be something to do with the RAM expansion as booting SymbOS from disk works fine when the Symbiface is not attached, but when I reconnect the card, even with the ROMs disabled the problems return.


Am I doing something wrong? I know there were some questions about Plus compatibility when the new batch was announced, but I believe TFM/FS said that the compatibility issues were "nothing killing..." I may be overlooking something as I haven't had much time to investigate the problem though hopefully I will have plenty of time over this weekend.


Any help appreciated!

[gerald]

When I attach the Symbiface to my 6128 Plus/464 Plus I cannot boot into Symbos by invoking |Sym. It starts to boot but then crashes, I have tried the SymbOS ROMs in different positions and sometimes |Sym produces the Press Play and Any Key . I think the problem seems to be something to do with the RAM expansion as booting SymbOS from disk works fine when the Symbiface is not attached, but when I reconnect the card, even with the ROMs disabled the problems return.

When I tested my own RAM/FLASH expansion, I had trouble on the 6128+ regarding the RAM : CPC+ RAM extension ?

You can test the RAM with the memtest.dsk attached to the following post
464 and ram extension ....

[Badstarr]

Thanks Gerald!


I will try the disk image and see what turns up. I'm intrigued by your solution using a capacitor to stabilise the CAS signals on the 6128 plus, I'm thinking that I will give that a try if there isnt something obvious revealed by the RAM test.

[TFM]

Well, as I remember writing ROMs on the Plus may give problems once in a while. But can't remember having RAM issues. However, didn't use the real hardware since a couple of months.