[Coco] MPI problem or ...???

[Brian Blake]

Greetings all. I ran into a problem with my MPI this weekend. I believe it is a first generation white MPI, has the curved front like the CoCo 1's. This MPI has spent the last two weeks plugged into a 512 k CoCo3, with a SS/C in slot 3 and an FD-502 in slot 4 without any problems, and I was told it had the PAL upgrade ( I have NOT verified this visually). Saturday I plugged my Orchestra 90 into slot 2. Things started getting really flakey almost immediately. Sometimes I could type DIR and get a directory, but, when trying to RUN a .BAS or LOADM a ML game, the FDD just sat there with it's red light on. After hittin gthe reset button, the screen would turn green with yellow vertical lines. I also noticed that he cursor would stop blinking for about 20 seconds approximately 10 seconds after power up when the MPI was hooked to the CoCo. After various fidgeting and cleaning yeilded the same results, I pulled the MPI out, and plugged the FD-502 controller into the expansion port
 and everything worked well, it could load and play DK and Sinistaar. (this particular CoCo 3 had only been plugged in once after I got it (about a year ago) until a month ago, so I figure a good cleaning and reseating the GIME, as well as the 512k card may be in order)

Then, I tried another 512k CoCo 3. First, with just the FD-502 and everything works fine. Next, the MPI and FD-502 in slot 4, everything worked. Then the SS/C in slot 3, everything works fine. Next up was with the O-90 in slot 2. Not fine... I noticed immediately that it was booting to DECB 1.1 instead of 2.1. My first indication of this was not the obvious startup screen, but, the fact Sinistaar would not load. Then I noticed the startup screen did not say DECB 2.1 and it lacked the Microware etc... Is this normal behavior for when the O-90 is plugged into an MPI? It would seem kinda lame for it to revert back to an earlier version of DECB. For what it's worth, I noticed that one of the emulators (the one FORMERLY called Bjork) does not mimic this behavior. Or is this indiciative of an MPI that has not had the PAL upgrade?


Thanks,

Brian


 
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