COPYRIGHTS WARNING Orange Micro Inc. reserves all rights in all software, including the utilities disk of the RamPak 4GS, and in the Operators Manual. Any infringement of those copyrights will be prosecuted to the fullest extent allowed by the law. (German) URHEBERRECHTLICHER HINWEIS Orange Micro Inc. behalt sich alle Rechte hinsichtlich der Software vor, einschlie Blich der DienstprogrammDiskette des RamPak4GS, sowie der im Bedienungshandbuch beschriebenen Software.
RamPak 4GS OPERATOR’S MANUAL TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION What’s in the Box Two Levels of RamPak Operation 2 2 2 INSTALLATION OF THE RAMPAK INTO THE APPLE IIGS Installation Test 3 5 INSTALLING RAM CHIPS IN THE RAMPAK 4GS 5 RAMPAK MEMORY MANAGEMENT UTILITIES OVERVIEW 8 INSTALLATION OF THE MEMORY MANAGEMENT UTILITIES Installation on a ProDOS 16 System Disk Installation on a ProDOS 8 System Disk 8 9 10 STARTUP PROCEDURES USING SYSTEM DISKS WITH RAMPAK UTILITIES INSTALLED 10 How to use Pull-Down M
INTRODUCTION Congratulations! You have purchased one of the most powerful memory sub-systems ever developed for a microcomputer. With a full half-megabyte of memory standard, you will immediately expand your Apple IIGS to three-quarters of a megabyte more fully addressable memory than ever before available on an Apple II. By adding additional chips, you can expand your RamPak 4GS to 4 megabytes, for computing power previously beyond imagination.
automatically when the RamPak 4GS is properly installed in your Apple. Your computer knows to look for available memory every time you turn it on, so the RamPak's expansion benefits are immediately realized. Memory management is up to you. It is accomplished through use of the RamPak system utilities, which may be implemented at any time once the RamPak 4GS is installed.
3. Touch the power supply of the Apple IIGS before handling the RamPak 4GS. Static charges may damage your RAM or other delicate electronic parts. 4. If you have purchased additional RAM for the Ram Pak, this must be installed before the RamPak is installed in your Apple. Turn ahead to ‘Installing RAM Chips in the RamPak 4GS on page 5, follow the instructions, and return to step 5 below. 5. Locate the memory expansion slot.
By following this procedure you will have properly installed the RamPak 4GS, and any software designed to use higher RAM levels will now automatically take advantage of your powerful new system. Installation Test To be sure the RamPak 4GS is functioning properly, run the following short test: 1. With all drives empty, turn on the Apple IIGS. Press CTRL-RESET after the start-up cycle to generate a cursor. 2.
development which require large amounts of memory to load and run. For these situations, the RamPak 4GS provides expansion capability to 4Mb. Your RamPak 4GS has been specifically designed for use with 256K x 4 DRAM chips. This allows you to expand at a rate of 2 chips (or 256K) at a time, as opposed to the 8 chip minimum expansion required by other available products.
ending with sockets 3 & 4, all of which are located in row A. You may then continue to BANK 1, row B, where the first chips will be installed in sockets 1 and 2. This rightto-left, top-to-bottom format is consistent throughout the expansion of the RamPak 4GS. Expanding in this way is necessary to allow RAM expansion without resetting switches or jumpers on the board or the computer.
RAMPAK MEMORY MANAGEMENT UTILITIES OVERVIEW Included with the RamPak 4GS is a disk labeled Memory Management Utilities. This powerful software package will enable you to substantially increase your systems speed and performance through the use of disk caching and Dynamic or Manual Cache Allocation. The RamPak Memory Management Utilities also provide RAM Diagnostics and Memory Status reporting, helping to detect problems before they lead to data loss or damage.
VERY IMPORTANT: PLEASE READ CAREFULLY: The RamPak Utilities work with ProDOS 16 or ProDOS 8, but they will not remain resident when your Apple IIGS switches between ProDOS 16 and ProDOS 8. Separate RamPak utilities for both ProDOS 16 and ProDOS 8 are provided on the Utilities disk. The ProDOS 8 version of the RamPak Utilities is named “Cache.System” and the ProDOS 16 version of the utilities is named “Cache.
Installing the Utilities on a ProDOS 8 System Disk: To install the RamPak Utilities on any ProDOS 8 System Disk, use the Apple IIGS Desktop or your own copy utility to copy the file “Cache.System’ from the RamPak Utilities disk as the first ‘system” file on your ProDOS 8 system disk. The “Cache. System” file must be the first “system’ file on your ProDOS 8 system disk.
menu, but the disk containing the RamPak Utilities file must be in the drive in order to change settings. How to Use Pull-down Menus When you first enter the menu screen, you will see a bar across the top of the screen with several titles. These are your menu titles. Under each of these is a menu, which contains one or more selections. Some selections will open a dialog box, which will provide additional selections or allow the entry of data. 1. OPENING A MENU Use the mouse to point at the desired menu.
The Apple Menu The Apple menu contains only two selections: About This Disk’ and ‘Troubleshooting.’ Both of these are informational screens, requiring no other user interaction than clicking on the Close box when viewing is complete. Where applicable, use the scroll bars to advance to the next screen. About this Disk Displays information on the RamPak Memory Management Utilities, including revision number and copyright date.
The Concept of Statistics,” on page 16 of this Operator’s Manual. Undo All Changes Removes all settings made since last “DONE-INSTALL CHANGES. Returns you to the Desk Accessory menu. Done--Install Changes Exits from the RamPak utilities and returns to ProDOS, while installing all of your memory settings in your IIGS RAM. Your RamPak Memory Management Utilities disk MUST be in the drive to install.
Extended Memory Test Selects a complete RAM test, including READWRITE test, test for proper RAM refresh, and a check for addressing errors. Bad chips are indicated by socket and row location (i.e. U4,D). In addition, all memory errors are reported by memory location. Bad chips generally require replacement. Remove the problem chip using a small screwdriver or other appropriate tool to pry the chip up, little by little, each end a little at a time.
spooling or other memory functions. Other times, no effort is even put forth to understand caching, since the idea of altering the way your system handles memory really doesn’t sound too “safe” anyway. Once understood and used effectively, disk caching will become a very powerful system enhancement for virtually any user. Your RamPak 4GS utility may be the most powerful, easy to use caching tool ever written for a microcomputer. A cache is actually a disk drive enhancement.
The Concept of Statistics The RamPak 4GS Statistics Utility offers the user the ability to view the efficiency of the current cache set-up at any time. It will allow the user to view such items as the number of reads, reads to cached blocks (also called a HIT), the percentage of reads to hits (the cache efficiency), the number of buffers allocated to any drive, and how many writes to disk have occurred.
the ON/OFF selection ,indicating whether or not a cache will be active on the specified drive. Again, pointing and clicking with the mouse will make the selection. After ON is selected, a cursor will appear in the DISK MAXIMUM CAC HE SIZE box at the bottom of the cache section of the screen . Use the keyboard to enter the desired size of the cache. Click on the ON box a second time if you need to change the cache size to a different number. (“Blocks” are the recognized measure of disk storage.
application. Dynamic Cache Allocation is recommended for most caching purposes. All that you manually need to allocate is the amount of RAM you wish to set aside for total system caching. A dialog box will appear asking for the number of blocks you wish to set aside as a total buffer pool size. One block equals 512 bytes of RAM. For example, 128 blocks equals 64K bytes of RAM. This memory will be unavailable to programs or other utilities. The default setting is 256 blocks, equaling 128K of RAM for caching.
APPENDIX A: TROUBLESHOOTING If you have just completed installation of the RamPak 4GS and are experiencing problems, turn off all system power and remove the board from the Apple. Restart the Apple and repeat whatever steps led to the initial failure to verify that the problem is in the RamPak card. Reinspect all the RAM pins for full and proper insertion. If everything appears to be in order, contact your dealer immediately.
APPENDIX B: RAMPAK 4GS POWER CONSUMPTION Independent of memory configuration: Power Supply Voltage 5 Volts Current 500 MA (Maximum) APPENDIX C: BITS AND BYTES This is not intended to provide anything more than a superficial understanding of bits and bytes and how they relate to RAM chips and memory expansion. All computer data is made up of zeros and ones, or yesses and nos. This type of data is called BINARY by people who define such things, as the data can come in only two forms.
APPENDIX D: SPECIFICATIONS OF RAM EXPANSION CHIPS The technical specifications of the RAM chips used to expand the memory of the RamPak are as follows: 256K x 4, one megabit, 150 nanosecond (or faster), “CAS before RAS” refresh mode DRAMS. APPENDIX E: GLOSSARY B A N K : 64K Bytes of memory. B L O C K : A portion of data 512 bytes in length, as viewed from ProDos. A designated area in RAM where a single ProDos block is stored if caching is active.
I N T E R - B A N K A D D R E S S I N G : Memory addressing that crosses a 64K byte boundary. INTRA - SEGMENT ADDRESSING: Memory addressing that is within a 256K byte segment. CACHE ALLOCATION: Allows the user to specify exactly how much memory is used for each active drive used for caching. Only the number of buffers specified is used, and the cache pool size is set to the sum of all the buffers requested for each drive.
LIMITED WARRANTY Every RamPak board and disk is fully tested and checked for quality prior to shipment. The RamPak board is warranted to be free from defects in materials and workmanship for a period of one (1) year from the date of purchase. The original RamPak Utilities Disk is warranted to be free from defects in materials and workmanship for a period of ninety (90) days from the date of purchase. During these time periods, Orange Micro Inc.
