Subject: Some problems

From: "jacques" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2011 20:44:43 -0300

Over the last few days I have been experiencing problems with my HRD 4000 
card. Yesterday I had to reload the ROS a few times and  before I turned in 
last night I could no longer get the card to respond. Today I removed the 
card from my PEB and also removed the batteries so I could recharge them. At 
the moment I cannot access this HRD card from CFG so that I can load ROS.

Using MiniMemory to access C 1000 from Easy Bug I can toggle on the front 
red light and also turn it off but the card will not appear when I run the 
CFG program. I have a second smaller HRD card that does appear. Any 
suggestions on what I should try next. Remember that I am not a high tech 
guy and if that is what is required I will have to send the card off to 
someone who is.

I have a BwG disk controller card and I am not sure that it is the culprit 
with my second problem. About the time that I started using TurboForth a few 
months ago, and I do not want to imply that it caused this problem, I found 
that I could not use Curtis Provance's TEXTLOADER program and that I also 
could no longer Archive files from my TI-99/4A. Also I cannot copy a large 
file (such as TF BLOCKS) using DiskReview from Funnelweb. Usually I also 
have problems copying these larger files using DM-1000. The only disk 
manager program that seems to always copy files of any size is DSKU. 
Yesterday before my problems with my HRD card started I tried to assemble a 
small source file (10 sectors) from Funnelweb and it locked up my TI. The 
BwG DC locks up and shows a continuous green light. Since I have a HSGPL 
card I also tried using the Directory from the RXB module and it would not 
read DSK1. This seems to be a disk controller problem but because I can do 
some disk manager functions other than those described above and because 
DSKU works without problems I have to wonder. Again any suggestions.

The rest of my TI-99/4A still works properly but with reduced disk access 
because my HRD 4000 card supported DSK3 to DSK7 plus DSKA. For now I will 
have to reorganize my activities around DSK8 and DSK9 on the other HRD card 
and use my two floppy drives. I also have PC99 and TI994w set up on my PC 
and I still have a serial connection between my TI and my PC.

Jacques

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From: mark wills <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2011 11:48:30 +0100 (BST)

Hmmm... That's a very confusing set of symptoms isn't it? There seem to be multiple issues, effecting numerous cards.

I wonder if it is worth pulling all the cards, blow the connectors in the PEB with a can of compressed air (perhaps Radio Shack will supply such a thing in the USA?) and re-fit the cards. Also, re-fit the cards into different slots, so that they are forced forced to mechanically mate with a "new" connector.

I would also check the RAM chip on the HRD, along with the batteries. It might even be worth trying to run the HRD without batteries, in case the batteries are severley broken and are actually acting as a 'load' and pulling voltages down. (Although, I would *imagine* that a broken battery would go "high-resistance"/impedance and pull less current than a normal charging battery).

It *is* possible for TF to trash the contents the of the HRD if you happen to be doing something with File IO and make a mistake in your program - it's happened to Bob a couple of times! However, there is nothing TF (or any other software) can do to cause a permanent problem - it should always be possible to reload the ROS. It sounds like a hardware issue to me.

However, when I say it's a hardware issue, it's not clear (at least to me) that it is necessarily an issue with the HRD, since you have mentioned problems with the disk controller card also. It might be worth pulling cards individually and checking the results. For example, if you pull the disk controller card and replace it with another controller card (e.g. TI Disk Controller Card) are you now able to re-load the ROS? Similarly, if you pull the HRD, do your issues with the disk controller evaporate?

More investigation required, Sherlock ;-)

Mark

>________________________________
>From: jacques <[email-masked]>
>To: TI994A <[email-masked]>
>Sent: Friday, 15 July 2011, 0:44
>Subject: [TI994A] Some problems
>
>------------------------------------
>
>Yahoo! Groups Links
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From: "jacques" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2011 09:09:25 -0300

Mark,

At this stage any suggestion needs to be tried. I will pull all cards as you 
suggest and see what develops. Unfortunately I gave away my TI Disk 
Controller card years ago. I have a strong feeling that my BwG DC problems 
may be related to the HRD ROS rather than being a card problem. This I can 
check by installing a new copy of ROS. I only noticed my large file copying 
problem when I tried to put BLOCKS on my ram disk using FW and DM-1000.  As 
I mentioned DSKU copied the file with no problem.

My middle son and his family are arriving from Ottawa tomorrow so testing 
time will be limited.

Thank you for your suggestions,

Jacques

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "mark wills" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Sent: Friday, July 15, 2011 7:48 AM
Subject: Re: [TI994A] Some problems

Hmmm... That's a very confusing set of symptoms isn't it? There seem to be 
multiple issues, effecting numerous cards.

I wonder if it is worth pulling all the cards, blow the connectors in the 
PEB with a can of compressed air (perhaps Radio Shack will supply such a 
thing in the USA?) and re-fit the cards. Also, re-fit the cards into 
different slots, so that they are forced forced to mechanically mate with a 
"new" connector.

I would also check the RAM chip on the HRD, along with the batteries. It 
might even be worth trying to run the HRD without batteries, in case the 
batteries are severley broken and are actually acting as a 'load' and 
pulling voltages down. (Although, I would *imagine* that a broken battery 
would go "high-resistance"/impedance and pull less current than a normal 
charging battery).

It *is* possible for TF to trash the contents the of the HRD if you happen 
to be doing something with File IO and make a mistake in your program - it's 
happened to Bob a couple of times! However, there is nothing TF (or any 
other software) can do to cause a permanent problem - it should always be 
possible to reload the ROS. It sounds like a hardware issue to me.

However, when I say it's a hardware issue, it's not clear (at least to me) 
that it is necessarily an issue with the HRD, since you have mentioned 
problems with the disk controller card also. It might be worth pulling cards 
individually and checking the results. For example, if you pull the disk 
controller card and replace it with another controller card (e.g. TI Disk 
Controller Card) are you now able to re-load the ROS? Similarly, if you pull 
the HRD, do your issues with the disk controller evaporate?

Mark