CFFA 3000 & Where in the USA is Carmen Sandiego?

[timepilot]

I am having some trouble with my CFFA 3000 remote.  This problem occurs in multiple CFFA 3000 boards, including both a Dreher original and one that I bought from ReactiveMicro a few years ago.  This problem also occurs in both the IIgs and the //e.  Although a workaround exists on the IIgs, no workaround exists on the //e, with the result being that I may not be able to use certain software that I very much treasure on the //e, because I originally used that software on the //e.

 

The problem is that, while playing Where in the USA is Carmen Sandiego?, with both of the two disks mounted in Disk II Drive 1, the remote will function only to switch from Disk 1 (the front side of the physical disk) to Disk 2 (the rear side of the physical disk), and not to switch from Disk 2 back to Disk 1.  The specific point at which this problem occurs is after successfully completing a round of the game, during which Disk 2 is active, and the game states that your progress will be saved in your record.  The game then requests that the user place Disk 1 (the front, boot side of the disk) back in Drive 1 and press enter.  Pressing the Drive 1 button on the remote does not restore Disk 1 to active status; instead, Disk 2 remains the active disk image in Drive 1.  As a result, it is impossible to save progress in this game.

 

On the IIgs, of course, calling up the CFFA 3000 CDA provides a workaround.  Fair enough, so far as it goes.  But on the //e, there does not appear to be a way to call up the menu without rebooting.  Consequently, there appears to be no way to save progress on the //e.

 

Where in the USA is Carmen Sandiego? was a tremendous source of time-wasting for me in fourth grade.  I very much want to be able to play this game on the //e, not just on the IIgs.  Is there a way to get the remote to perform this crucial disk-image swap on the //e?

 

The remote does work in other situations.  For example, the remote works to switch from Disk 1 to Disk 2 in Drive 1 after beginning a round of the game.  So this is not a matter of the remote simply failing altogether.

[Baldrick]

I don't think this is how the remote works.

 

The two button remote works by cycling disk images into and out of either the DRIVE 1 position or the DRIVE 2 position.

 

You can have a number of disk images lined up to DRIVE 1 and pressing the left button will cycle through each of them in turn.

Each time you press the button it flashes a sequence.  

1 flash for disk image 1

2 flashes for disk image 2 

etc...

All you'd need to do is to put both the front disk image and the back disk image into the DRIVE 1 slot in the CFFA configuration screen.  Then simply switch between the two - one flash for the front side and two flashes for the rear side.  

 

Easy.

 

P.S.  This is described in the manual on page 65.