[Coco] stupid question about memory

[Arthur Flexser]

Now that I think further about it, I'm wondering if that simple test
works.  In particular, I think my assumption that the
all-RAM-above-$8000 poke would do nothing in a 32K machine may be
wrong, so that POKE &HFFDF,0 would crash a 32K machine as well.
(I think the POKE may cause the swapping in at $8000 of a ghost of the
$0-7FFF RAM.)  Anybody know for sure?

Art

On Thu, Oct 6, 2011 at 10:52 PM, Arthur Flexser <flexser at fiu.edu> wrote:
> Come to think of it, a simpler test that should work would be this,
> immediately after power-up:
>
> Step 1: POKE &HFFDF,0
>
> Step 2: See if machine has crashed.
>
> If it crashes, that would indicate 64K, since going into RAM mode will
> kill the BASIC ROMs if they haven't been copied to RAM.  On a 32K
> machine, the poke should have no effect.
>
> Art
>
> On Thu, Oct 6, 2011 at 10:40 PM, Arthur Flexser <flexser at fiu.edu> wrote:
>> That indicates nothing, since a 32K machine would behave exactly the same.
>>
>> Best method would be to look inside, as someone suggested, or download
>> a program that copies the ROMs to RAM.  After running such a program,
>> and while in RAM mode (POKE &HFFDF,0), try poking a location in the
>> ROM region $8000-DFFF and see if you can change the value contained
>> there.  Ex: POKE &H8000,99: PRINT PEEK(&H8000).  If the value can be
>> changed, the machine has 64K.
>>
>> Art
>>
>> On Thu, Oct 6, 2011 at 10:31 PM, Chad H <chadbh74 at hotmail.com> wrote:
>>> My 'Guess' is that it's 64K. Both of my CoCo 2's are 64K and report 24871
>>> free MEM at bootup, although they also have ECB 1.1.
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: coco-bounces at maltedmedia.com [mailto:coco-bounces at maltedmedia.com] On
>>> Behalf Of Richard Ivey
>>> Sent: Wednesday, October 05, 2011 9:01 PM
>>> To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts
>>> Subject: [Coco] stupid question about memory
>>>
>>> I'm going through some of my spare cocos to put on ebay.  I have a modified
>>> (has the nice keyboard) coco1 that still has the 4k badge.. I know it's not
>>> 4k as print mem is 24871 and has extended color basic 1.0.
>>>
>>> How can I tell if this is 32k or 64k.  I don't want to falsely advertise
>>> when I sell this thing.
>>>
>>> Maybe a peek or a poke or a tweet.
>>>
>>> Thanks.
>>>
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>>
>