jltursan
Veteran Member
I'm having some problems trying to boot my Geneve+genmod(but with no memex card ) from my PHP1240. As it only (for now) supports DSDS disks, I've tried to fit a MDOS boot disk into 180K, I've follow these steps:
- The PHP1240 has been tested with my TI-99/4A and it seems to work fine, reading flawlessly all the disks (3.5" type) I've write in my PC with TI99-PC.
- As it doesn't have the 64K SRAM upgrade, I'm stuck with old MDOS versions. I've found 2.11 and 2.21 (the last one compatible).
- None of them come in disk image format, both are .ARK files; so I've extracted the files first using TIDir and building a pair of 180K disk images with TIImageTool.
- The Geneve BIOS (with genmod) 1.00, after showing "LOADING MDOS" tries to boot from disk and drive led lights up; but it displays a message telling me that the disk can't be read. Looks like it's really trying to read it as swapping the boot disk with another TI-99 one, changes the message to something like "no boot file found".
- Am I missing anything while creating the boot disk?. Both images have the "SYSTEM/SYS" file that I believe it's the only required to boot.
- Do I need to upgrade the SRAM to 64K?. If so, how can I reach pin 48 of the gate array?, may I solder the cable in the same pin in the genmod board (see red arrow in the pic below)?.
A little update:
I've been able to boot MESS with my SSDD 2.21 disk image. It has been a bit "messy" indeed; as I don't want a memex card, I've configured MESS without memex and used a "No GenMod" BIOS 1.00, the Geneve boots MDOS with TIFDC controller + 32K SRAM. So, the disk image at least seems to be good.
Given the above result, I've burnt an EPROM with the NoGenMod 1.00 BIOS and tried it in my Geneve. Leaving GenMod "TI mode" switch on (leaving it off gives "BAD CPU RAM FOUND") the drive is accesed; but again with no luck, "CAN NOT READ FROM FLOPPY DISK" it's displayed.
- The PHP1240 has been tested with my TI-99/4A and it seems to work fine, reading flawlessly all the disks (3.5" type) I've write in my PC with TI99-PC.
- As it doesn't have the 64K SRAM upgrade, I'm stuck with old MDOS versions. I've found 2.11 and 2.21 (the last one compatible).
- None of them come in disk image format, both are .ARK files; so I've extracted the files first using TIDir and building a pair of 180K disk images with TIImageTool.
- The Geneve BIOS (with genmod) 1.00, after showing "LOADING MDOS" tries to boot from disk and drive led lights up; but it displays a message telling me that the disk can't be read. Looks like it's really trying to read it as swapping the boot disk with another TI-99 one, changes the message to something like "no boot file found".
- Am I missing anything while creating the boot disk?. Both images have the "SYSTEM/SYS" file that I believe it's the only required to boot.
- Do I need to upgrade the SRAM to 64K?. If so, how can I reach pin 48 of the gate array?, may I solder the cable in the same pin in the genmod board (see red arrow in the pic below)?.
A little update:
I've been able to boot MESS with my SSDD 2.21 disk image. It has been a bit "messy" indeed; as I don't want a memex card, I've configured MESS without memex and used a "No GenMod" BIOS 1.00, the Geneve boots MDOS with TIFDC controller + 32K SRAM. So, the disk image at least seems to be good.
Given the above result, I've burnt an EPROM with the NoGenMod 1.00 BIOS and tried it in my Geneve. Leaving GenMod "TI mode" switch on (leaving it off gives "BAD CPU RAM FOUND") the drive is accesed; but again with no luck, "CAN NOT READ FROM FLOPPY DISK" it's displayed.
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