Re: [M100] Low battery , crashes wipe the memory of both M102/M200
Sent from my iPad On Feb 6, 2023, at 1:33 PM, Cedric Amand wrote: I’d like to eliminate the possibility that my ram has problems ; may it be on my m200 or my m102 ; is there a small basic or ml program somewhere that would to a meaningful test ( I could probably draft a simple one but it would probably not be very thorough ) All in all my m102 is much more stable than my m200 so if there is a ram problem behind that ; it’s more on my m200 . I’d like to be sure once and for all
Re: [M100] Low battery , crashes wipe the memory of both M102/M200
I have never experienced anything other than a corrupted file. I deleted and that was that. After finding out what caused it, I did not do it again. I suppose that depending on which point in a line it is not able to keep up with on-the-fly tokenization some interesting things might happen. The symptoms described by the OP, don’t match my experience with trying to load a .DO as a .BA. Other might have a different experience with this failure. Jeff Birt From: M100 On Behalf Of John R. Hogerhuis Sent: Monday, February 6, 2023 5:44 PM To: m...@bitchin100.com Subject: Re: [M100] Low battery , crashes wipe the memory of both M102/M200 On Mon, Feb 6, 2023 at 3:38 PM mailto:bir...@soigeneris.com> > wrote: Loading a .DO file which has been incorrectly named .BA won’t work correctly but it won’t hard reset the machine either. Not sure what you mean by "won't work correctly." Attempting to inload a BA named file that is not properly tokenized will corrupt the RAM filesystem pointers so it can absolutely result in a cold start. Not reliably which is in a way worse... because you can limp along not realizing that your file system is broken. Eventually it will either cold start or you will have to cold start it yourself to cure the dysfunction. -- John.
Re: [M100] Low battery , crashes wipe the memory of both M102/M200
The internal battery always preserves the ram contents as long as it's a working battery. Reset can happen fairly easily from crashing software, but it requires some sort of software error, IE either a bug in the software or a corrupt copy of the software from a bad serial transfer. Merely using the serial port, even with dead batteries that die right in the middle still doesn't cause a reset or lost data. Old caps can do it though because they make the entire machine generally unstable, resulting in random corrupt activity inside itself just for normally ordinary operations like just accessing rom or ram on the bus. That affects all things and could cause a reset at any random time not just during serial port usage, but one thing I think the serial port does different from most other things is draw a little from the negative power rail, so maybe VEE is weak and marginal, good enough to keep the machine running most of the time but the serial port just pushes it over the edge? But it's definitely a thing that happens from software and not normally, just from a bug or corrupt copy, so suspect all software that hasn't been proven by decades of use already, and that does include REXMGR if it's not an old proven version. I believe REXMGR installs timer interrupt code that runs all the time even when you aren't in REXMGR. I might be wrong about that, Steve would have to say. To diagnose, just remove the REX# entirely, reset, load a known-good copy of TS-DOS in ram and just do a bunch of transfers. Or even better do a bunch of plain TELCOM traffic with no other software at all installed. Normally, even trying to overload the machine by using too-high of baud rate that it can't keep up with, and pasting a 100K text file into the terminal on the pc side etc, doesn't cause it to crash or reset reset, you just collect a bunch of corrupt data until ram fills up, but still no crash or reset. Then only proceed from there. If that still crashes, then you have a hardware problem. If it doesn't then add one variable back in, like install the REX# physically but don't install it's software yet (don't call 63012), and test again like that. Then install REXMGR and test again. If it doesn't fail until after installing REXMGR, try flashing the REX# back to an older version of it's firmware. If it never fails again, only *then* try using whatever other software you were trying to use originally (whatever that was, since you didn't say, ts-dos? telcom? rexmgr loading rom images or backups? some other unknown serial-port-using app?) But you'll have to go methodically from the ground up like that if you ever want to figure it out. Start with nothing but the stock machine, and then add a single variable at a time back into the mix. -- bkw On 2/6/23 12:38, Cedric Amand wrote: Hello, While trying to help Stephen testing new REX software, I've been investigating crashes of both my M102 and M200 (unrelated to REX) It seems that when using batteries that are "bit low" (but the red light does not turn on), together with anything using the serial port (transfers, TPDD,etc) again the light does not turn on, but I have system crashes that wipe the memory (basically equivalent to CTRL-BREAK-RESET) My systems comes back empty, date in 1900, you know the drill. Am I alone ? Is this indeed related to using serial, or maybe just to low battery ? Why doesn't the backup battery protect my work (they are brand new) ? What can I do to avoid those "memory wiping crashes" ? Could it be related to the fact both systems have a REX# ? (I doubt it - but hey, I also doubt these things wiped their memory twice a day back in the day) It's super frustrating because each time they occur I loose a bit of faith in my ModelT's, and you don't want that. If I could at least investigate a possible cause, that would help me. -- bkw
Re: [M100] Low battery , crashes wipe the memory of both M102/M200
In my case, the driver transistor for the relay actually failed short. I replaced it and the problem went away. On a diode test the failed part was happily conductive regardless of what I put on the gate, lol. On Mon, Feb 6, 2023, 18:40 wrote: > The click you hear is the telco relay. The flux around the driver > transistor can turn conductive enough to trigger the transistor and thus > the relay. I have also seen this cause reset issues and other oddities on > the M100. > > > > Jeff Birt > > > > *From:* M100 *On Behalf Of *Alex ... > *Sent:* Monday, February 6, 2023 2:39 PM > *To:* m...@bitchin100.com > *Subject:* Re: [M100] Low battery , crashes wipe the memory of both > M102/M200 > > > > A particularly nasty crash can make it do that cold-reset thing. I ran > into that countless times while trying my hand at assembly development > while using ROM2 and MFORTH. in that case the problem isn't that the memory > is totally erased but that some important part gets corrupted and the stock > ROM starts over from scratch. I couldn't tell you for sure what or how it > happens, but it can. > > Not necessarily the same as what you saw but I had an issue with my T102 > that caused low voltages and battery drain due to the cassette remote being > stuck on. The give-away for that case was if I carefully put the batteries > in, I could hear the relay click on and stay on, regardless of the state of > the on/off switch. It might be worth putting the machine on an ammeter and > see if it's pulling some excess current if your batteries seem to not last > as long as they should. > > >
Re: [M100] Low battery , crashes wipe the memory of both M102/M200
On Mon, Feb 6, 2023 at 3:38 PM wrote: > Loading a .DO file which has been incorrectly named .BA won’t work > correctly but it won’t hard reset the machine either. > > > > > Not sure what you mean by "won't work correctly." Attempting to inload a BA named file that is not properly tokenized will corrupt the RAM filesystem pointers so it can absolutely result in a cold start. Not reliably which is in a way worse... because you can limp along not realizing that your file system is broken. Eventually it will either cold start or you will have to cold start it yourself to cure the dysfunction. -- John.
Re: [M100] Low battery , crashes wipe the memory of both M102/M200
The click you hear is the telco relay. The flux around the driver transistor can turn conductive enough to trigger the transistor and thus the relay. I have also seen this cause reset issues and other oddities on the M100. Jeff Birt From: M100 On Behalf Of Alex ... Sent: Monday, February 6, 2023 2:39 PM To: m...@bitchin100.com Subject: Re: [M100] Low battery , crashes wipe the memory of both M102/M200 A particularly nasty crash can make it do that cold-reset thing. I ran into that countless times while trying my hand at assembly development while using ROM2 and MFORTH. in that case the problem isn't that the memory is totally erased but that some important part gets corrupted and the stock ROM starts over from scratch. I couldn't tell you for sure what or how it happens, but it can. Not necessarily the same as what you saw but I had an issue with my T102 that caused low voltages and battery drain due to the cassette remote being stuck on. The give-away for that case was if I carefully put the batteries in, I could hear the relay click on and stay on, regardless of the state of the on/off switch. It might be worth putting the machine on an ammeter and see if it's pulling some excess current if your batteries seem to not last as long as they should.
Re: [M100] Low battery , crashes wipe the memory of both M102/M200
Loading a .DO file which has been incorrectly named .BA won’t work correctly but it won’t hard reset the machine either. Jeff Birt From: M100 On Behalf Of John R. Hogerhuis Sent: Monday, February 6, 2023 3:21 PM To: m...@bitchin100.com Subject: Re: [M100] Low battery , crashes wipe the memory of both M102/M200 TS-DOS? The only problem I know that causes corruption with TS-DOS is mistakenly trying to inload a file named with a BA extension that's not really a tokenized BASIC file. You should always rename ASCII BASIC files as .DO before inloading. You can inload a .BA file, but it must actually be tokenized BASIC. What file service software or device are you using? LaddieAlpha doesn't have this sharp edge but all others do. -- John.
Re: [M100] Low battery , crashes wipe the memory of both M102/M200
I’d like to eliminate the possibility that my ram has problems ; may it be on my m200 or my m102 ; is there a small basic or ml program somewhere that would to a meaningful test ( I could probably draft a simple one but it would probably not be very thorough ) All in all my m102 is much more stable than my m200 so if there is a ram problem behind that ; it’s more on my m200 . I’d like to be sure once and for all > > > > >
Re: [M100] Low battery , crashes wipe the memory of both M102/M200
Although not having seen this ever crash my T102, I did notice that having my Seiko DP-414 printer connected, but turned off, causes an increase in current draw on the T102 (likely on the M100 as well). Several 10s of milliamps if I recall correctly. Does cause the red LED to come on if batteries are low. If the printer is powered on, then no increase in current draw is noticed. This might vary depending on the brand of printer used. Regards, PeterN > >
Re: [M100] Low battery , crashes wipe the memory of both M102/M200
TS-DOS? The only problem I know that causes corruption with TS-DOS is mistakenly trying to inload a file named with a BA extension that's not really a tokenized BASIC file. You should always rename ASCII BASIC files as .DO before inloading. You can inload a .BA file, but it must actually be tokenized BASIC. What file service software or device are you using? LaddieAlpha doesn't have this sharp edge but all others do. -- John. On Mon, Feb 6, 2023 at 1:15 PM Cedric Amand wrote: > Thanks to all, I have a lot of things to investigate now. > > Jeff : indeed , I've never been able to reproduce the problem "on demand", > but each time I remember crashing, I was doing serial communication or > "saving files", so more than likely using TSDOS. So that's one area I'm > gonna investigate. If I could reproduce those crashes with a TSDOS from a > bootstrap (or anything else than from my REX# ROMs) that would already rule > out a problem with REX. > > I however do remember the last crash, on my M200, was while hitting F2 > (save) in TEXT, saving to... RAM. But, I had a serial device connected. > But most crashes occured while doing serial - so inside TSDOS for sure. > > Alex ; that's very interesting too. My M200 is eating a suspiciously high > amount of quality batteries for a device I'm using 30 minutes once in a > while, and I think I often ear it click for no reason. I'm gonna > investigate this as well. > > I was a bit ashamed to email about my problem but I'm happy I did. > Everyone seems to imply TSDOS is not something to be trusted (to put it > mildly :) ) > >
Re: [M100] Low battery , crashes wipe the memory of both M102/M200
Thanks to all, I have a lot of things to investigate now. Jeff : indeed , I've never been able to reproduce the problem "on demand", but each time I remember crashing, I was doing serial communication or "saving files", so more than likely using TSDOS. So that's one area I'm gonna investigate. If I could reproduce those crashes with a TSDOS from a bootstrap (or anything else than from my REX# ROMs) that would already rule out a problem with REX. I however do remember the last crash, on my M200, was while hitting F2 (save) in TEXT, saving to... RAM. But, I had a serial device connected. But most crashes occured while doing serial - so inside TSDOS for sure. Alex ; that's very interesting too. My M200 is eating a suspiciously high amount of quality batteries for a device I'm using 30 minutes once in a while, and I think I often ear it click for no reason. I'm gonna investigate this as well. I was a bit ashamed to email about my problem but I'm happy I did. Everyone seems to imply TSDOS is not something to be trusted (to put it mildly :) )
Re: [M100] Low battery , crashes wipe the memory of both M102/M200
A particularly nasty crash can make it do that cold-reset thing. I ran into that countless times while trying my hand at assembly development while using ROM2 and MFORTH. in that case the problem isn't that the memory is totally erased but that some important part gets corrupted and the stock ROM starts over from scratch. I couldn't tell you for sure what or how it happens, but it can. Not necessarily the same as what you saw but I had an issue with my T102 that caused low voltages and battery drain due to the cassette remote being stuck on. The give-away for that case was if I carefully put the batteries in, I could hear the relay click on and stay on, regardless of the state of the on/off switch. It might be worth putting the machine on an ammeter and see if it's pulling some excess current if your batteries seem to not last as long as they should. On Mon, Feb 6, 2023 at 2:30 PM Cedric Amand wrote: > I'm really not convinced my problem is REX related, at least not yet > > Is there a process, a type of crash, or something known to basically crash > the Model T and wipe it's RAM (and reset the clock !) ? > All of that with a perfectly working backup ram (I can replace the > batteries no problem) > > It's clearly the crash that wipes the ram/resets the thing, including the > clock ? > Is that a type of crash other people have seen ? Or am I cursed ? > > It's really the software is doing ctrl-break-power for me. It erases the > machine WITH a perfectly working battery. > > And I believe this mostly happens when doing save operations,or anything > involving serial - but it's super difficult to reproduce. It's mostly > random. > > Call to the gurus :) > > -- Disclaimer: Any resemblance between the above views and those of my employer, my terminal, or the view out my window are purely coincidental. Any resemblance between the above and my own views is non-deterministic. The question of the existence of views in the absence of anyone to hold them is left as an exercise for the reader. The question of the existence of the reader is left as an exercise for the second god coefficient. (A discussion of non-orthogonal, non-integral polytheism is beyond the scope of this article.) Thanks /usr/games/fortune
Re: [M100] Low battery , crashes wipe the memory of both M102/M200
> > > When you say a Save operation, do you mean write to laptop ram or write to external? You are getting a cold restart for sure. That is the result. What causes a cold restart? Memory corruption, specific bytes in upper ram. When the computer does a restart from instruction , it will eventually look at a specific byte to decide.. warm reboot or cold reboot? So something is causing the machine to reboot and when it does, it is a cold reboot. What software is in use? TELCOM? TSDOS? If you could describe a sequence of failure that would help. > > On Monday, February 6, 2023, Cedric Amand wrote: I'm really not convinced my problem is REX related, at least not yet Is there a process, a type of crash, or something known to basically crash > the Model T and wipe it's RAM (and reset the clock !) ? All of that with a perfectly working backup ram (I can replace the > batteries no problem) It's clearly the crash that wipes the ram/resets the thing, including the > clock ? Is that a type of crash other people have seen ? Or am I cursed ? It's really the software is doing ctrl-break-power for me. It erases the > machine WITH a perfectly working battery. And I believe this mostly happens when doing save operations,or anything > involving serial - but it's super difficult to reproduce. It's mostly > random. Call to the gurus :) >
Re: [M100] Low battery , crashes wipe the memory of both M102/M200
One other thought I just had. Then testing Backpacks I use a REX Classic mainly for TS-DOS. I have noticed that if I’m typing along too quickly in the TS-DOS menus it will lock up as you describe. To prevent this, I wait until the screen is finished rendering before pressing the next button. For example, if I just pressed F4 to switch from DISK to RAM view I need to wait until the screen is done rendering. It seems if you press a key at just the right time while TS-DOS is redrawing the menu something odd happens. Sometimes is seems like a key code is caught in the input buffer and keeps getting acted on over and over and over. I have attributed this to an oddity of TS-DOS that most people won’t come across as they are not trying to test a bunch of TPDD type drives in one setting. If you are just using it to load or save a file on occasion, I would guess you will never see it. Jeff Birt From: M100 On Behalf Of Cedric Amand Sent: Monday, February 6, 2023 11:39 AM To: m...@bitchin100.com Subject: [M100] Low battery , crashes wipe the memory of both M102/M200 Hello, While trying to help Stephen testing new REX software, I've been investigating crashes of both my M102 and M200 (unrelated to REX) It seems that when using batteries that are "bit low" (but the red light does not turn on), together with anything using the serial port (transfers, TPDD,etc) again the light does not turn on, but I have system crashes that wipe the memory (basically equivalent to CTRL-BREAK-RESET) My systems comes back empty, date in 1900, you know the drill. Am I alone ? Is this indeed related to using serial, or maybe just to low battery ? Why doesn't the backup battery protect my work (they are brand new) ? What can I do to avoid those "memory wiping crashes" ? Could it be related to the fact both systems have a REX# ? (I doubt it - but hey, I also doubt these things wiped their memory twice a day back in the day) It's super frustrating because each time they occur I loose a bit of faith in my ModelT's, and you don't want that. If I could at least investigate a possible cause, that would help me.
Re: [M100] Low battery , crashes wipe the memory of both M102/M200
I suspect the RAM is not wiped. The machine is just hard reset, and all relevant pointers set back to defaults. Your data is likely still in RAM you just can’t see it. Jeff Birt From: M100 On Behalf Of Cedric Amand Sent: Monday, February 6, 2023 12:50 PM To: m...@bitchin100.com Subject: Re: [M100] Low battery , crashes wipe the memory of both M102/M200 I'm really not convinced my problem is REX related, at least not yet Is there a process, a type of crash, or something known to basically crash the Model T and wipe it's RAM (and reset the clock !) ? All of that with a perfectly working backup ram (I can replace the batteries no problem) It's clearly the crash that wipes the ram/resets the thing, including the clock ? Is that a type of crash other people have seen ? Or am I cursed ? It's really the software is doing ctrl-break-power for me. It erases the machine WITH a perfectly working battery. And I believe this mostly happens when doing save operations,or anything involving serial - but it's super difficult to reproduce. It's mostly random. Call to the gurus :)
Re: [M100] Low battery , crashes wipe the memory of both M102/M200
I'm really not convinced my problem is REX related, at least not yet Is there a process, a type of crash, or something known to basically crash the Model T and wipe it's RAM (and reset the clock !) ? All of that with a perfectly working backup ram (I can replace the batteries no problem) It's clearly the crash that wipes the ram/resets the thing, including the clock ? Is that a type of crash other people have seen ? Or am I cursed ? It's really the software is doing ctrl-break-power for me. It erases the machine WITH a perfectly working battery. And I believe this mostly happens when doing save operations,or anything involving serial - but it's super difficult to reproduce. It's mostly random. Call to the gurus :)
Re: [M100] Low battery , crashes wipe the memory of both M102/M200
> > Hi Cedric, If you can, please try to replicate the problem without a REX# involved. Maybe I missed something with R2.2. Rs232 does load up the lower supply a bit. There could be a problem with that aspect, but it should be the same with or without rex. Thanks Steve > On Monday, February 6, 2023, Cedric Amand wrote: Hello, While trying to help Stephen testing new REX software, I've been > investigating crashes of both my M102 and M200 (unrelated to REX) It seems that when using batteries that are "bit low" (but the red light > does not turn on), together with anything using the serial port (transfers, > TPDD,etc) again the light does not turn on, but I have system crashes that > wipe the memory (basically equivalent to CTRL-BREAK-RESET) My systems comes back empty, date in 1900, you know the drill. Am I alone ? Is this indeed related to using serial, or maybe just to low battery ? Why > doesn't the backup battery protect my work (they are brand new) ? What can I do to avoid those "memory wiping crashes" ? Could it be related to the fact both systems have a REX# ? (I doubt it - > but hey, I also doubt these things wiped their memory twice a day back in > the day) It's super frustrating because each time they occur I loose a bit of faith > in my ModelT's, and you don't want that. If I could at least investigate a possible cause, that would help me. >
Re: [M100] Low battery , crashes wipe the memory of both M102/M200
It's not normal at all. The backup battery should absolutely protect the RAM even if the main batteries are dead. Do you know if the backup battery is getting charged? And I guess the memory power switch must be on since I don't think it works with it off. I guess you would need to remove main batteries, all cables and see if the RAM is still getting sufficient power. As to the serial port, yes when it's active it does cause additional power drain. -- John. >
[M100] Low battery , crashes wipe the memory of both M102/M200
Hello, While trying to help Stephen testing new REX software, I've been investigating crashes of both my M102 and M200 (unrelated to REX) It seems that when using batteries that are "bit low" (but the red light does not turn on), together with anything using the serial port (transfers, TPDD,etc) again the light does not turn on, but I have system crashes that wipe the memory (basically equivalent to CTRL-BREAK-RESET) My systems comes back empty, date in 1900, you know the drill. Am I alone ? Is this indeed related to using serial, or maybe just to low battery ? Why doesn't the backup battery protect my work (they are brand new) ? What can I do to avoid those "memory wiping crashes" ? Could it be related to the fact both systems have a REX# ? (I doubt it - but hey, I also doubt these things wiped their memory twice a day back in the day) It's super frustrating because each time they occur I loose a bit of faith in my ModelT's, and you don't want that. If I could at least investigate a possible cause, that would help me.
