********* Welcome to Project 64! http://project64.c64.org The goal of Project 64 is to preserve Commodore 64 related documents in electronic text format that might otherwise cease to exist with the rapid advancement of computer technology and declining interest in 8- bit computers on the part of the general population. If you would like to help by converting C64 related hardcopy documents to electronic texts please contact the manager of Project 64. Extensive efforts were made to preserve the contents of the original document. However, certain portions, such as diagrams, program listings, and indexes may have been either altered or sacrificed due to the limitations of plain vanilla text. Diagrams may have been eliminated where ASCII-art was not feasible. Program listings may be missing display codes where substitutions were not possible. Tables of contents and indexes may have been changed from page number references to section number references. Please accept our apologies for these limitations, alterations, and possible omissions. Document names are limited to the 8.3 file convention of DOS. The first characters of the file name are an abbreviation of the original document name. The version number of the etext follows next. After that a letter may appear to indicate the particular source of the document. Finally, the document is given a .TXT extension. The author(s) of the original document and members of Project 64 make no representations about the accuracy or suitability of this material for any purpose. This etext is provided "as-is". Please refer to the warrantee of the original document, if any, that may included in this etext. No other warrantees, express or implied, are made to you as to the etext or any medium it may be on. Neither the author(s) nor the members of Project 64 will assume liability for damages either from the direct or indirect use of this etext or from the distribution of or modification to this etext. Therefore if you read this document or use the information herein you do so at your own risk. ********* The Project 64 etext of the RAMBOard 1541-II installation manual Converted to text by Wolfgang Moser, http://d81.de, 2006-06-25 Some notes from the etexter: This eText contains the installation manual for Chip Level Design's 1541-II RAMBOard. It was hardly tried to take over the original formatting as good as possible. Special non-7-bit ASCII chars used in this text: Ż : overstrike (used as understrike for paragraph headlines) Page breaks (ASCII char 12 resp. 0x0c) were used in this eText to itensify the orignal formatting even more. On page 3, in the bottom right corner there was a memo attached from the distributor SSI with the following content and simplified layout: |ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ| | | | Phone Orders: | | M E M O 1-800-356-1179 | | ---------------- | | Tech Line: | | 1-206-695-9648 | | | | Be _v_e_r_y_ careful about clearances! | | | | | | The Drive motor may "Rub" on the Chips, | | | | so be sure everything is pushed down well. | | | | also, tape down the clip leads! | | | | | | D a n | | SOFTWARE SUPPORT INTERNATIONAL, 2700 N.E. ANDRESEN RD. SUITE A1, VANCOUVER WA 98681 | | | |_______________________________________________________| ********* 1541-II R A M B O a r d(tm) Installation READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS AT LEAST ONCE AND UNDERSTAND THEM FULLY BEFORE ATTEMPTING THIS MODIFICATION. NEITHER THE DISTRIBUTOR, OR THE MANUFACTURER WILL BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGE INCURRED IN THE INSTALLATION OR USE OF THIS PRODUCT. W A R N I N G ! : This modification will void ANY Warranty now in effect on your disk drive. Proceed at your own risk. All RAMBOards have been tested and are in proper working order before we ship them. Please remember that you will be working with static sensitive devices, so prepare a work area with this in mind (a grounding source, no rugs, etc.). Also note that the RAMBOard itself is a fragile device. The pins are easily bent and may break off if not inserted properly. If after installing the RAMBOard the test program shows a non-functioning unit, please contact us as soon as possible at the Tech Support phone number. PREPARATION: ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ 1. Unplug all cables from the drive and turn it over so the bottom is facing up. Remove the four screws from the bottom of the case. Be sure to put them away where you'll be able to locate them later. 2. While holding both halves of the case, carefully turn the drive over so the top of the drive is facing up. Next, lift the top half of the case off and lay it aside. Carefully remove the toggle lever on the front of the drive by pulling gently out of the front cover. 3. Locate and remove the four screws securing the drive unit to the lower case half. Remove the electrical connectors at board location CN2, CN3, and CN4. For reassembly purposes, notice that pin one of each connector is marked on the PC board as well as on the connector itself. Carefully slide the drive unit back and lift out from the lower case half. FINDING AND REMOVING THE ROM CHIP: ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ 1. Position the drive so that the front faces to your right and the rear to your left. Locate the ROM chip at board location U4. Notice that the notches on all chips are facing to the left of the drive if viewed from the rear. IMPORTANT: LOCATE THE CHIP AT BOARD LOCATION U5. THIS IS THE CHIP DIRECTLY TO THE REAR OF THE ROM CHIP (AT LOCATION U4). IF THIS CHIP IS IN A SOCKET, THEN PACKAGE YOUR 1541 II RAMBOard UP AND SEND IT BACK TO US AND ASK FOR THE 1541 II RAMBOard V2. ALTHOUGH RARE, WE KNOW THIS CONFIGURATION DOES EXIST. 1541 II RAMBOard PAGE [1] (c)1989 CLD 2. After identifying the ROM chip, remove it with a chip puller. If you don't have a chip puller, you may use a small flat bladed pocket knife. Place the blade between the chip and the socket and rotate the blade. The chip will lift slightly at one end of the socket. Now repeat the procedure at the other end of the chip. Keep doing this until you can pull the chip straight out of the socket. Be patient! You DO NOT want to bend the pins on the chip! If you do bend the pins slightly, you may be able to straighten them, but be CAREFUL, these pins do not take well to bending. INSTALLING THE 1541-II RAMBOard: ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ 1. After removing the ROM chip, and before beginning the installation procedure, thoroughly inspect your 1541-II RAMBOard. The pins on the underside (Yes, there is one missing) will replace the chip just removed from the board. Carefully place the board into the empty socket, positioning it with all notches facing to the left of the drive, (looking from rear to forward). Be sure all pins line up properly. You may have to bend some of the small round brown or green capacitors down to provide clearance, so now is the time to check things out. Press the board in firmly until it fits against it's socket. Do not press too hard, notice that the circuit board does bend when pressure is applied. It will bend only so far before it breaks... So be careful! 2. Now place the ROM chip, previously removed, into the empty socket on the 1541-II RAMBOard using the same caution as before. Remember the notch placement! The notch should be facing the left of the drive just as it was before you removed it. Check for any damage (broken capacitors, etc.) or improper chip placement before going on to the next step. 3. Now that you are satisfied that the board is installed correctly, let's install the three leads with microclips. Again inspect the board and locate the 6502 chip at location U3, the 6522 at location U6 and the 6522 at location U8. Notice that these 40 pin chips are located on the left of the PC board and occur in order from drive front to drive rear. These three chips will receive one microclip each from the 1541-1I RAMBOard. The front lead (A) will connect to the front chip (6502 -location U3), the middle lead (B) to the middle chip (6522 -location U6) and the rear lead (C) to the rear chip (6522 -location U8). Secure the Clips to the following locations: Lead A -Location U3 – Pin 24 Lead B -Location U6 – Pin 22 Lead C -Location U8 – Pin 25 1541 II RAMBOard PAGE [2] (c)1989 CLD 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 |ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ| | | | |Ż | PIN LOCATION | | |_ | | |__________________________________________________________| 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 4. Now, carefully place the drive unit back into position and replace the four screws securing it to the bottom drive case. Replace the drive unit electrical connectors at board position CN2, CN3, and CN4. Remember the Pin one locations on the PC board and the connectors. Finally press the toggle lever back onto it's former location at the drive front. TESTING AND FINAL ASSEMBLY: ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ 1. Before refitting the upper half of the drive case, connect the power cable and turn on the drive. If anything abnormal happens, quickly turn the drive off. Remove the drive unit and, once again, check for any visible damage or improper chip placement. If nothing abnormal happened, turn off the drive and go to the next step. 2. Connect the drive to the computer and run the test program (see below). If the program reports that the RAMBOard is not functioning properly, call the Technical Support line as soon as possible and we will try and resolve the problem. The technical support phone number is (206) 695-9648. Support is available Mon - Fri 9am-5pm Pacific Time. 3. If all checks out well with the test program, turn off the computer and drive. Remove all cables from the drive and replace the upper half of the drive case. Carefully turn the drive over and replace the four screws. Reconnect the power and serial cables and use the drive as normal. 1541 II RAMBOard PAGE [3] (c)1989 CLD RAMBOard UTILITIES DISK: ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ All utilities run in the 64 mode! RAMBOard Test Program: The diskette that was packed along with your RAMBOard contains, among other things, an installation test program. With the RAMBOard Utilities diskette in the drive, type LOAD "RAMBOARD TEST " ,8,1 and press RETURN. At the READY prompt, type RUN and hit RETURN again. At this point, follow on screen prompts to determine if your RAMBoard is properly installed. Please note that the 1541-II RAMBOard adds RAM to your drive at location $8000. The Maverick 8K parameters default to $8000, so no RAM location changes will be necessary. 1541 Fast Data Copiers: With the RAMBOard Utilities diskette in the drive, type LOAD ":*" ,8,1 and press RETURN. At the READY prompt, type RUN and hit RETURN again. You will be presented with a menu asking if you wish the single or dual drive version of the Fast Data Copier. Press the 1 or 2 key to load the appropriate copier. Once the desired copier has loaded, a quick study of the menu screen will familiarize you with the options available. The copiers included with The RAMBOard have been designed to efficiently copy non-protected data from one diskette to another. They were not designed to handle copy protected programs. For that purpose, we strongly suggest the Maverick, also available from Software Support International. The Maverick software contains the parameter support for your 1571 RAMBOard. This combination of software & hardware is most powerful archiver ever developed for the Commodore 64/128. LIMITED WARRANTY If at any time within 90 days of purchase, the RAMBOard or it's companion diskette become defective (abuse not included), you may use the blue return sheet included with your invoice to receive a replacement unit. We will repair or replace your defective RAMBOard as soon as possible. Replacements will be given at no charge, upon receipt of the defective item, postage paid. The 1541-II RAMBOard Hardware Design :(c) Chip Level Design RAMBOard Test Program :(c) Chip Level Designs 1541/71 Fast Copiers :(c) K.J.P.B. Distributed By Software Support International 2700 N.E. Andresen Rd. Suite #A-1 Vancouver, Washington 98661 Order Line : 1 (800) 356-1179 Technical Line : (206) 695-9648 1541 II RAMBOard PAGE [4] (c)1989 CLD ********* End of eText: 1541-II RAMBOard installation manual (english) *********