Fdsloader help SOLVED!

[Lios]

I am trying to build a fdsloader cable for the ram unit inside of of a red sharp twin famicom, and have hit a road block in getting it to work.

I have power and ground connected to the ram unit via alligator clips (because I thought the somewhat thing gauge wire might be to blame). When I do this and turn the PC on, the red led indicator on front lights up. I boot into dos via a win98 startup disk, and turn on the famicom. It immediately goes to the "Please wait" screen, like it is reading a disk. I then launch fdsloader with a fds image, and nothing. Just blue bars and no activity. So when I exit, turn the Famicom back off and on again I get the battery error #2, which I would get if no power was connected to the ram unit.

If I load fdsloader first then turn the famicom, both the famicom and fdsloader behave the same way before. If I load fdsloader after booting the famicom and getting the error sometimes it will load a bit and stop, though it's quite random. I also notice after launching fdsloader the first time, the led indicator is dimmer, as if it is getting less power ie not enough. It stays this way until I reboot the machine and get back into dos again. Thinking it was a cheap/wonky parallel port controller, I grabbed an old p1 133 machine and load up everything the same way, exact same results including the bizarre light dimming at certain points. I have tried all modes for the parallel port on both machines, it's on port 378h/IRQ7, and I have quadruple checked all of my wiring, what the heck is going on? Barring me misreading/misunderstanding something in the readme, the only hunch I have is some sort of strange ground loop or floating ground, but I can't figure this out for the life of me. Help....

[aclbandit]

Battery Error #2, at least AFAIK, is the FDS's power, not the RAM cart's power. Since you also mentioned other power issues, I recommend that you both try a different set of batteries and try running the FDS with a power adapter.

EDIT: Wait. FDSLoadr doesn't need an FDS at all. So... how DOES one get error 2? I think you may have a point!

EDIT: The reason I believed Error 2 to be a FDS and not a RAM cart issue is that the RAM cart will boot even if the FDS has no power at all. It's just like a game cartridge in that respect, the only difference being that its contents are received from the FDS's disk reading.

But there's no FDS involved here, just a computer and a haxxed RAM cart. So I actually have no idea and you can disregard my post here.

[Lios]

You may be onto something here actually. I am working with a sharp famicom twin, which has the famicom, ram adapter, and ddu combined into one unit. It doesn't even have a battery compartment so I have to use the sharp twin's power supply, there is no way to power the famicom and ram unit separately.

However, in the process of hooking up the fdsloader cable to the ram adapter, the cable coming from the ddu itself is essentially unplugged and getting no power. The famicom part knows this and spits out a battery error because there is no drive connected whatsoever, and it's not getting any power. In a normal fds you can put in the batteries or use a separate power supply to give it power hence why I would be getting a battery error, zero power is getting to the ddu, the tricky part now is how do i keep the battery sense line connected from the ddu, as I need to disconnect all of the wires to connect the cable to the ram unit. The problem here, I think, is that I am doing this with a sharp twin famicom, and it's not the exact same procedure as with a famicom + fds.

Wait... scratch everything I just said. By providing +5 volts on the ram unit on the proper pin, (it uses this and another battery sense pin on the ram unit to determine if the battery is low, if so it will complain with a battery error) that is the voltage input that would normally be generated internally from the ddu and go into the ram adapter, hence why it does not complain when i boot it the first time with the led very brightly lit. It is getting the full +5v it needs. The problem is that when I run fdsloader the first time, it drains the power away, because the light goes dimmer AFTER I exit fdsloader. So long as fdsloader is booted and running, the famicom gets a nice bright led. I will measure the voltage next time now that I am thinking about it.

This is really bizarre. Even more bizarre, is if i connect power and ground to a SEPARATE pc, I get the same results. How can one power supply affect the power output of a completely different one? I know it has to be a power issue, I just have no idea what could even cause this sort of behavior. I also have a feeling this is something stupid simple. Any more ideas guys?

EDIT: Wait, I just thought of something. The way I have it connected, I don't think the PC's ground and the ram unit's ground are connected to the ground of the sharp twin itself. I think this could definitely cause this bizarreness, and it would mean my original hunch of a ground loop or floating ground is correct. I will test my theory right now.

EDIT #2: Connected all the grounds together and solved the led dimming/power issue, however no change in behavior. I measured it and I am now getting 5 volts all the time now. I should also mention that if i have the parallel port end unplugged i get no battery error. This suggests a wiring error. However, I have yet again checked all connections on both ends across the fdsloader readme and all is kosher, so I am yet again stumped.

EDIT #3 LOTS OF TESTING NO PROGRESS: Well lots of rewiring and testing, and some strange stuff is happening. I soldered wires directly to the inputs on the ram cart part... Now the ground pin, or the one fdsloader says to connect to ground refuses to play nice. If I have anything, even a small piece of wire soldered on the pin it goes to directly, and leave it floating, it goes absolutely ballistic, rapidly changing from teh disk being set to not set randomly and giving me random errors, just about every error you can think of. If I connect this to ground on the pc it does the same, and sometimes even crashes (the famicom twin, not the pc) if i plug in the cable and connect ground I get the battery error, but now if i boot fdsloader, it does the crazy rapidly setting and unsetting of disks again for a bit then sticks on the please wait screen. If I connect the ground to the twin's ground I always get disk error 21 or 22 (except when the cable is plugged into the pc, to which it's the same battery error). What would cause that pin to behave in such a way? It connects to one of the pins of a chip (the ram cart chip i believe) on the main board. Why does it hate anything being connected to it EXCEPT the original configuration? This is driving me nuts, all of the connections check out on an ohm meter, solid. So why is it spazzing the heck out? ARRRRGH!!!

EDIT #4, Man Do I feel stupid. So I made an assumption on the colors of the wires being the same order as the regular fds's order. Not the case, I finally figured out the correct wiring, and am pleased to say all behaves as it should EXCEPT fdsloader makes the twin act as if a disk was inserted upon booting, like normal BUT it fails to even attemp to load the image. However, if I quickly toggle the 3 toggles in fdsloader, it will start to load only after I have just ejected the image, ie after it's too late. I am thinking the parallel port setting may not be correct, or something. People who have successfully gotten fdsloader to load an image, what os and what parallel port settings were you using? I know 378h/IRQ7 but i need to know spp, ecp, epp, ecp+epp, or normal. Thanks

EDIT #5: PROBLEM SOLVED! It was the speed of running fdsloader from a floppy this time. I loaded it from the hard drive, and it's Running Clu Clu Land as we speak!