Psion and ROM cartridges

[Wicksy]

Yes RalfR, it seems a few people have questioned if it could be.

I naively assumed all programs could easily be changed in to rom software.

[Wicksy]

The CST RAMplus has 3 sockets which could be populated with 3 64k eproms?

[Pr0f]

The CST RAMplus has 3 sockets which could be populated with 3 64k eproms?

I believe we may have 1 or 2 forum members with one?

Actually 4 - but these are 32K blocks each - so total of 128K

[RalfR]

Yes RalfR, it seems a few people have questioned if it could be.

I naively assumed all programs could easily be changed in to rom software.

The question is whether the code can run in ROM or whether the program simply has to be copied into RAM in order to run. This is also the case in some other QL ROMs if they modify their code during runtime. But nothing would be gained by doing so.

[Wicksy]

Does putting something around 60k over two 32k eproms make the job even harder Prof?

[Pr0f]

No, it shouldn't. But the CST card is an old card, no longer produced, and quite bulky - although it does have a 'thru port' for the expansion - allowing another card to be plugged into it.

[Andrew]

I'm sorry, but since the first post of this thread I've been wondering what's the benefit of having a Psion ROM cartridge?
We all now have QUBIDE, QL-SD, QIMSI, QIMSI-Gold, Q68, memory expansion, so loading Xchange takes less than a second.
So what is the real use of a Psion ROM cartridge?

[Pr0f]

We have planes and helicopters too - but people still climb mountains

[RalfR]

I'm sorry, but since the first post of this thread I've been wondering what's the benefit of having a Psion ROM cartridge?
We all now have QUBIDE, QL-SD, QIMSI, QIMSI-Gold, Q68, memory expansion, so loading Xchange takes less than a second.
So what is the real use of a Psion ROM cartridge?

I secretly thought that too. As a QPC or QemuLator user, the question doesn't arise anyway.

[Derek_Stewart]

Hi,

The production of the romable executable, as I said earlier is not hard, but the problem is the integration into the operating system.

How is the operating system going integrate 4 x 16Kb rom slots, when it wants scan all rom slots?

I have Xchange installed on all my systems, I prefer to use Fileinfo2 to load the data files, into Xchange, Psion application, or other better software.

As Andrew says, Xchange loads in 30 seconds on a Q68, QIMSI Trump card. So it is fast enough.

If Xchange is in ROM, what about the Help files, printer drivers, where do they go, in another ROM?