I have an Apple IIe Enhanced, with a ReActiveMicro Universal PSU installed, an 80col/64k ram expansion card, and I am using a floppyEmu on a 5.25" 655-0101-D controller card (slot 7). There is also a SuperSerial Card installed (slot 2) and it works successfully.
Last week, I built the ReActiveMicro Phasor Sound card from Kit, installed into slot 4, and everything worked swimmingly. Ultima IV is able to play music through the board, deater.net's Apple II Chiptune Player plays tunes, and all versions of ProDOS boot without crashing and Apple IIe Diagnostic v2.1 passes all tests. The computer has been working OK for the past several days...
But yesterday, after a few hours of using ProTerm, ADTPro, CopyPlus II, and other utilities, I begain experiencing frequent crashes in ProDOS, often the message, "RESTART SYSTEM-$01" would display, and, booting prodos 2.4 and 2.5 are failing all together. Today, I removed and re-installed each card until the crashes recur, and these crashes only when the ReActiveMicro Phasor Sound card is installed.
- I've re-flowed every solder point on the sound card, removed, and re-seated every socketed chip.
- I've also tried it in slots 3 and 5.
- Ultima IV now reliably freezes up, about 8 out of 8 tries when pressing any key at the title screen, where it should transition to the main menu. If I remove the sound card, it does not crash.
- Surprisingly, deater.net's Apple II Chiptune Player works and plays music through the Mockingboard! Though it did crash one time while playing music out of the ~8 tests made with this software.
- The Apple IIe Diagnostic v2.1 reliably freezes during "System Interrupts Test", pressing ESC does not stop the test. Launching the keyboard test dropped me to the Monitor, but I have rebooted and retried several times since and it has not crashed at the Keyboard test again, but it reliably freezes at the interrupt test.
- Booting ProDos v2.0 boots OK to Main Menu, but pressing any invalid key, like "X" causes the video to switch from 80 to 40 column mode and the message "RESTART SYSTEM-$01" to display in the center.
- Booting ProDos v2.4.2, after the initial load screen, also displays the same message, "RESTART SYSTEM-$01".
- Booting ProDos v.2.5a8, after printing 37 dots, moves the cursor to HOME position before dumping to Monitor,
9042- A=F4 X=FD Y=FF P=B4 S=EE
Can anyone suggest any ideas or troubleshooting steps? Thank you!
jq -- https://github.com/jquast
Does the Phasor connect /INT IN (card edge pin 28) to /INT OUT (card edge pin 23)?
Are either of these pins, or /IRQ (card edge pin 30), connected to a particular logic chip on the Phasor? Maybe take a look and see if anything is amiss with that chip.
Thank you for writing, I did resolve the issue!
Pins 23 and 28 are not connected to anything -- but /IRQ card edge pin 30 is connected, to the IRQ pin 21 of a R6522 VIA chip.
There are two of these VIA chips on this board. I have inspected, reseated, and swapped them, but the same issue continues. I also tested GND (pin 1) to RESET (34) on both chips while in their sockets with a voltmeter, that the DC voltage goes from high to low when powered on, but these chips serve many functions and I can't do much more with what I have. The darn things were functioning just last week...
These chips are very common, so I looked around.. the Multi I/O Board for the Apple 1 Replica TE by Vince Briel happens to have one, so I swapped one of the chips and voila -- Ultima IV is playing music and ProDOS is not crashing!
Thank you for your help, robespierre!
jq
If you contact RM Support I can send you a replacement 6522. I stress test the heck out of new stock, but as you can see - don't trust new electronics until a good few weeks of useage in real world conditions.
Sorry about the issue!
Henry
ReActiveMicro.com