[Coco] Color BASIC 1.1 / memory detection

[L. Curtis Boyle]

Use EXEC 41175 (I think… going from memory) to see the version of the actual Color BASIC ROM.

L. Curtis Boyle
curtisboyle at sasktel.net



> On Feb 17, 2015, at 5:48 PM, Arthur Flexser <flexser at fiu.edu> wrote:
> 
> Are you sure that your COLOR BASIC (not Extended Basic) is version 1.1?
> You cannot readily detect the Color Basic version with Extended Basic
> installed.  If in doubt, pull the Extended Basic chip and see what the
> startup message reports.  (Though I would think an F-board CoCo would
> indeed have Color Basic 1.1, not 1.0.)
> 
> Art
> 
> On Tue, Feb 17, 2015 at 5:14 PM, jon bird <news at onastick.clara.co.uk> wrote:
> 
>> Hi,
>> 
>> I have just recently resurrected my old Coco 1 (it's a 26-3004A variant)
>> and have been putting it back to an original (working) state (I had been
>> plugging various additional cards & even a Dragon ROM into it at some
>> point).
>> 
>> The info I can find on this version of the CoCo was that it was shipped
>> with 16K RAM, Color BASIC. It had an Extended BASIC 1.1 ROM fitted many
>> years ago and as part of my various "upgrades", replaced the 16K RAM chips
>> with 4164 DRAMs & also switched over the jumpers.
>> 
>> What I am finding though is that having restored the original Color BASIC
>> 1.1 ROM, it is only reporting a 16K memory fit. I'm pretty sure that when I
>> had the Dragon ROM fitted, it could access the full 32K (and I'm also
>> fairly sure I had OS9 running on it as well which suggests the full 64K is
>> accessible). So this seems to be a feature of the BASIC ROM.
>> 
>> I did come across this article from the archive:
>> 
>> http://coco.maltedmedia.narkive.com/2DM5LvJ2/color-basic-1-0-1-2-differen
>> ces
>> 
>> which backs up some other information I found that the original 1.0 ROM
>> did not support >16K memory fit but that the 1.1 ROMs do.
>> 
>> Can anyone shed some light on this behaviour?
>> 
>> Cheers,
>> 
>> 
>> Jon.
>> 
>> --
>> == jon bird - software engineer
>> == <reply to address _may_ be invalid, real mail below>
>> == <reduce rsi, stop using the shift key>
>> == posted as: news 'at' onastick 'dot' clara.co.uk
>> 
>> 
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>> 
> 
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