Diagnostic diagnostics, or: you can Checkout Cartridge anytime but you can't leave

[leaded solder]

Hello all. Long time annoyance, short time poster. Today I've got a bit of a project.

 

VERAULT over on the VCF forums hit me up with a request to test out a mysterious "ADAM Diagnostics" cartridge on real hardware. It looks kind of like this. The cartridge maps the ROM into the 32K cartridge space and nothing spectacular is going on here.

 

 

When I fired it up on my long-suffering but relatively reliable ADAM, however, it appears to simply freeze the system. Smartwriter stops responding to keyboard input, and the screen doesn't change at all.

 

This was strange to me, so I desoldered the 27c256 ROM and dumped it in my TL866. The ROM dumped consistently back-to-back and produced the MD5 of adaf8fefa825434232bc5c44d1bb8709 which is the exact same one as the "ADAM Diagnostic Cartridge (1982) (Coleco).rom" file floating around in the collection on this excellent thread. In other words, it's the "Check-Out Cartridge."

 

 

The ROM loads fine in emulators - both CoolCV 0.7.0 and MAME 0.253 have no problem running it. A logical conclusion is that my ADAM has some fault. I tend to blame my own hardware, usually because they're all sketchy rescues, and because I'm the kind of guy who smells coolant when stuck at the light and assumes it's his car.

 

My ADAM has never had trouble running ColecoVision cartridges in the past and will happily (if noisily) load tapes. I've never noticed any kind of fault with it other than "being enormous" and "some idiot made a new power supply for it and made the power cord too short."

 

I burned another ROM of software that was labeled "for ADAM" – the "ADAM Demonstration Cartridge (198x) (Coleco) [o1].rom" from the same collection, and this seems to work fine. However, looking over the disassembly, this demonstration cartridge didn't seem to do anything exotic - no memory-mapper adjustment, no fancy DMA shenanigans, not even using a lot of RAM. So it was maybe not a fair test.

 

 

As a laugh, I decided I'd start on my own diagnostic cartridge; maybe I can narrow down something that's wrong with my ADAM's hardware and rule it in or out. RAM testing is a logical place to start, I thought. RAM goes bad all the time and I don't need to know too much about the ADAM hardware in order to write a test program for it.

 

One evening later, I had a feasible RAM test, and two evenings later I had it testing all four intrinsic-RAM modes of the ADAM's memory mapper. (Internal/external expansion RAM testing will have to wait until I make one of those units.) If you're curious you can grab the source code here and contribute patches, or just laugh at me.

 

 

Annoyingly, the RAM test passed with flying colours on my machine. It's pretty basic - just writing $55 and $aa to test alternating bit patterns in a linear march through memory space - but I think it is probably enough to rule out a bad bit somewhere.

 

Once I get back from VCFMW, my plan is to further disassemble the check-out cartridge ROM, and start writing mutant versions of it so I can figure out exactly where the machine is freezing up. I've ordered a handful of PiColeco PCBs to make this easier so I'm not spending the rest of my life in the UV eraser.

 

For your part, I would super appreciate if someone who knows more about the system could do the following homework to help make me feel less insane:

 

• Please test a cartridge containing the Diagnostics ROM on your ADAM(s). Does it freeze up there too?
• If you already have a cartridge containing the Diagnostics ROM, please dump it. Does it match the above MD5?
• Please idly speculate on what I could have missed.

Thanks! I'll post updates here when they happen. I'll also be carrying the cartridge with me to VCF Midwest, in case someone has an ADAM on their table and is willing to let me plug random hardware into it during a show. Send me a PM if you are that person.

Edited September 5 by leaded solder

[NIAD]

7 hours ago, leaded solder said:

For your part, I would super appreciate if someone who knows more about the system could do the following homework to help make me feel less insane:

I'll test it out ASAP and report... via the rom file on an AtariMax Ultimate SD Cart.

 

The ADAM Diagnostic dump in post #12 on April 6th of that thread (forgot all about that thread and the time it took to assemble all the info!) is a verified good dump. I dumped the original cart five times with an AtariMax MaxFlash Cart with CV Adapter and received the same CRC for each dump.

 

Another In-House test utility you should check out as it's much more thorough is ADAM Final Test - Menu Version (198x) (Coleco).rom and Eric Pearson has developed and released numerous test utilities that are available in Rom image, Disk image and Boot Rom image (for installation on a Slot #2 expansion card that has a Boot Prom socket) that you should check out as well depending on if you have additional hardware such as an ADE or FujiNet SD Drive and or the necessary Slot #2 card. Everything is available on The ADAM Archive in the following directories:

 

ADAM In-House Cartridges - (AdamArchive.Org) - The home for everything ADAM

ADAM Homebrew Cartridges - (AdamArchive.Org) - The home for everything ADAM

ADAM Boot Proms - (AdamArchive.Org) - The home for everything ADAM

ADAM EOS Disk/DDP - (AdamArchive.Org) - The home for everything ADAM

ADAM CP/M Disk/DDP - (AdamArchive.Org) - The home for everything ADAM

 

and don't forget some of the ColecoVision only test programs as they can help pinpoint issue(s) seeing as there is an enhanced CV board in the ADAM:

 

CV In-House Cartridges - (AdamArchive.Org) - The home for everything ADAM

CV Homebrew Cartridges - (AdamArchive.Org) - The home for everything ADAM

 

If you do come across a RAM issue in your system, here is something that you might find interesting made by John Lundy along with all his other CV & ADAM products:

 

ADAM Delta DRAM to SRAM Converter - Lundy Electronics

 

[leaded solder]

Short update: at VCFMW, I dropped by the FujiNet booth and hijacked their ADAM display for a bit. It appears that their ADAM, which is probably rock solid considering it must have run for at least 18 hours that weekend, also locked up in a similar way to mine while booting the mystery cartridge.

 

I haven't had a chance to sit down and think about it (Midwest was my first VCF and it was great!) but as far as I can tell the crash has been reproduced.

 

Thanks to Thom and Jeff for the opportunity to do debugging the way our ancestors have since the dawn of time: while demoing it to the general public.

[Shawn Merrick]

Hello,

 

Best clever thread title in some time.  Well done!

 

I've tested this 1982 ADAM CHECKOUT CARTRIDGE ROM (must be MD5 of ef707c8045afc26e3e4d09c03aba5de6) tonight on my standalone ADAM system with an ATARIMAX Ultimate SD and it worked properly.  You might already be aware that running this ROM or real cartridge requires pressing ColecoVision RESET so SmartWriter should no longer be on screen.  However, SmartWriter will come up initially at ADAM power-on or if pressing the ADAM RESET and it did not hang on my system while active.

 

This leads me to think there is a fault in that physical cartridge or something in your ADAM unit beyond the ability of the cartridge.  Given the issue also happened on another ADAM unit, I would examine the cartridge contacts very carefully.  Additionally, there are a number of other genuine Coleco diagnostic ROMs with various strengths and abilities.  This 1982 one is not particularly good except it has a graphical interface making it LOOK better.  Each diagnostic ROM requires a working game board (or ColecoVision unit) for reliable results.  This is why I start with ColecoVision Final Test ROM and then follow up with Gamma Debug ROM and finally ADAM Final Test Menu Version ROM.  There is no point using disk or tape based dumps of these titles as they are severely limited compared to the ROM versions.

 

Incidentally, the symptom of SmartWriter hanging is often due to ADAMNet hardware or cabling faults and may be sometimes induced by having a disk drive (or drive emulator) attached without drive also being powered on.

 

I realize you are checking out the individual cartridge for VERAULT and I tend to think it is bad rather than the ADAMs.

 

EDIT: I just found out that MD5 you gave does NOT work on my ATARIMAX and leads to a blank screen on a real ADAM.  It still does not hang SmartWriter, but that is probably worked around due to the ATARIMAX having additional processing not on the dedicated cartridge you have.  The WORKING version of CHECKOUT CARTRIDGE has an MD5 of ef707c8045afc26e3e4d09c03aba5de6 and is titled ADAM Diagnostic (1982) (Coleco).ROM at www.adamarchive.org 

Edited 22 hours ago by Shawn Merrick
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