Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!nrl-cmf!ames!hc!pprg.unm.edu!unmvax!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!osu-cis!att!alberta!ubc-cs!van-bc!rthurlow
From: rthurlow@van-bc.UUCP (Rob Thurlow)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Magic Sac Problems - Help!!!!
Message-ID: <2192@van-bc.UUCP>
Date: 30 Jan 89 02:16:17 GMT
References: <2179@van-bc.UUCP> <2180@van-bc.UUCP> <14043@cup.portal.com>
Reply-To: rthurlow@van-bc.UUCP (Rob Thurlow)
Organization: Wimsey Associates, Vancouver, BC.
Lines: 41

Well, my stupidity tax has been deferred until another time.  My Magic Sac I
works again!  I originally reduced it to a doorstop by plugging it into my ST
with the power on, and later testing determined that the ROMs were working
fine in another Sac, so last week I doggedly desoldered the 74LS32 and the
74LS541 in the cartridge and soldered in new sockets and dropped in new TTL
chips.  I did replace both, because the first swap didn't seem to help, but
when I was done, the thing was still a blue-and-grey stick.  Boy, was I not a
happy person at that point!  So today I got Sozobon 'C' out and dusted off,
and wrote a 'C' program to read the cartridge port and dump the info to a
file.  I had a ROM image from a set of Mac ROMs to compare the thing to, and
when I finally had a good look, the ROMs were clearly swapped.  Rule: never
trust the manual; I followed the Magic Sac Plus docs religiously, and checked
the order lots of times, but it was lying to me (maybe they did the Magic Sac
I differently).  For all the time a quick swap would have saved me, I should
have done it a long time ago.  I do think I fried something at some point,
because I bought it in working condition and didn't mess with the ROMs until
it didn't work.  Anyway, the thing works again, and I can at last start
playing with it.  And I've got all the chips socketed now in case of future
disaster.

In article <14043@cup.portal.com> Bob_BobR_Retelle@cup.portal.com writes:
>You indicated that it's a Magic Sac I..   are you trying to run it using the
>software that originally came with it..?  Or are you using a newer version of
>the Magic Sac software..?      The new software won't work with the old
>cartridge...

I'll keep that in mind; I got an update from another fellow purporting to
be the latest and greatest, and itturns out to be the same version 6.1 that
I'm running with.  But given what's in there (lots of empty space), I don't
see what could really get in the way.

>(I know you don't want to hear it, but you'd be a LOT happier with a Spectre!)

Well, I think I'll be able to have some fun with this.  I'm a lot happier
than I was a few days ago!  Thanks for the note.
-- 
"There was something fishy about the butler.  I think he was a
 Pisces, probably working for scale."   - Nick Danger
Robert Thurlow              {uunet,ubc-cs}!van-bc!rthurlow
Vancouver, BC, Canada       or rthurlow@van-bc.UUCP
In the heart of Kitsilano   or rthurlow@wimsey.bc.ca