> Just seems weird that they'd eliminate the ability to even stuff a ROM chip into any > of the sockets without a lot of trouble.. Or am I completely misinformed that this > version of the board can deal with either a RAM or ROM chip in these sockets without > changing the jumped signals at all?
The answer to this question is that yes, I was misinformed. Figured I'd try to pull out a RAM chip and stuff in an option ROM and see what happens. (Luckily there's actually a power jumper right next to the battery so you can turn off RAM power before messing with any RAM chips..) Sure enough, with an option ROM installed instead of a RAM chip, when you make a new environment it asks you to identify the name of the ROM. So yes, this version of the board is flexible enough to accept RAM chips or ROMs in any of the non-dedicated sockets without the need to move a jumper and it just handles it. I guess the "B+" version of the board and/or the newer BP system software is a definite improvement. Question -- do any of you have a newer version of the Booster Pak manual than the flavors downloadable from Club100? (Every one of those is really just a rescan of the original 1987 manual, referring to jumpers..) Thanks, Gary On Tue, Jul 7, 2020 at 11:43 AM Gary Weber <[email protected]> wrote: > Greetings all, > > So I recently acquired a Tandy 102 with a Booster Pak. The machine booted > fine but the Booster Pak wasn't able to be initialized. Turns out it had a > completely dead 3V battery, which I replaced, and finally an OUT 5,0 & CALL > 911 allowed the thing to come up. Fantastic! > > This Booster Pak seems to be a bit different than what I was expecting > though. The two molex sockets that the manual mentions are not on the > board. And, where there should be jumpers that let you select between RAM > or ROM for each of the sockets, there's a soldered-in jumper on the board > itself. Plus, aside from the two system ROMs, this Booster Pak is 100% > RAM. Every available socket is filled with a RAM chip. It doesn't appear > that I'd even be able to remove any RAM chips to put in some option ROMs > unless I desolder the the jumper above the socket, and solder in a > different jumper going to the other hole. > > This looks to be from the factory this way, too. > > Does anyone else have or has anyone seen a "RAM only" version of a Booster > Pak? Just seems weird that they'd eliminate the ability to even stuff a > ROM chip into any of the sockets without a lot of trouble.. Or am I > completely misinformed that this version of the board can deal with either > a RAM or ROM chip in these sockets without changing the jumped signals at > all? > > By the way the Booster Pak PDF manual I have is from 1987, but the board > is actually dated 1988 and has a "B+" designation. > > -- > Gary Weber > [email protected] >
