Custom Bootable ROM Images for BMOW SIMM?

[pb3623]

Hi,

I have a BMOW Mac ROM-inator II for my SE/30 and love it so much that I have held off putting in a newly-acquired Daystar Turbo 040 because it is known that the 040 has its own ROM and tries to patch portions of the system ROM, which has been moved around by the SIMM so it chimes. So for now I've put the 040 in my IIci and am keeping my eyes peeled for a 50 MHz PowerCache as a "consolation prize."

Does anyone else have experience with the combination of the BMOW or DougG3 ROM SIMM and Turbo 040, and can you share your .ROM for me to write to my SIMM?

Also, I have a Q700 and Q950 with close to max RAM and would like to do the same for them; also, to use the bootable ROM disk, possibly for the A/UX MacPartition.

Thanks!

 

[olePigeon]

Yes, I have a special ROM that Doug patched himself to work with an 040.  I seem to recall it required some tinkering and disabling the memory checksum.  It even has a custom "Arrrr!' startup sound, Pirate floppy (see my avatar), and Pirate IIci Mac icon (when the Daystar isn't installed.) 

View attachment olePigeonPatchedROM-normalchecksum_disabled.bin

 

[olePigeon]

Oh, nuts.  Wait.  This is for the original SIMM.  I don't know if it'll work with the newer one.  You can give it a go.

 

[pb3623]

I don’t know how I missed this - but thanks! I’ll check it out and report back. I would think the biggest difference between the two would be the bootable ROM disk size. 

 

[pb3623]

Thought I would leave this here since there isn't but maybe should be a repo for custom ROM hacks for those of us that have a ROM SIMM programmer from Steve or Doug.

Here is a Q900 ROM from Rob Braun via https://www.thinkclassic.org/viewtopic.php?id=616

Quadra-900-mod.rom  - Q900 ROM with ROM checksum disabled and RAM test disabled (he notes that it should work in a 700 as well)

I haven't had any time to play around with my new BMOW ROM SIMM programmer SO... I'm looking forward to getting these up and running on my Quadras. AND testing the one olePigeon shared with the Turbo040 driver baked in for my 030. 

Can anyone else that has custom ROMs (w/ or w/o boot ROM) for other machines share them in this thread for those of us not versed in 68000 assembly?

 

[Sunoo]

Here is a ROM for the IIx/IIcx/SE30 with the same tweaks: 



I haven't tested it myself yet, but Bolle said it works. I have a ROM SIMM being delivered tomorrow with it, so hopefully I did it right.

 

[pb3623]

Here is a ROM for the IIx/IIcx/SE30 with the same tweaks: 

I haven't tested it myself yet, but Bolle said it works. I have a ROM SIMM being delivered tomorrow with it, so hopefully I did it right.

Thanks, Sunoo.

The BMOW ROM-inator II has a universal ROM already applied that works in the IIx, IIcx, IIci, IIfx, IIsi and SE/30 and includes a bootable ROM disk. But good to see alternatives and really good to see others do it by themselves! Because you should be able to apply the same principles to other models with a compatible 30-pin ROM SIMM slot.

 

[Sunoo]

Thanks, Sunoo.

The BMOW ROM-inator II has a universal ROM already applied that works in the IIx, IIcx, IIci, IIfx, IIsi and SE/30 and includes a bootable ROM disk. But good to see alternatives and really good to see others do it by themselves! Because you should be able to apply the same principles to other models with a compatible 30-pin ROM SIMM slot.

I was aware of that, but I really wanted much a much narrower set of modifications that what the BMOW ROM offered. For instance, I wanted all the original graphics and sounds to remain in place.

 

[pb3623]

I was aware of that, but I really wanted much a much narrower set of modifications that what the BMOW ROM offered. For instance, I wanted all the original graphics and sounds to remain in place.

Totally get that. Personally, if I can get the Turbo 040 driver on top of everything else, I'd like to actually drop in the Quadra chimes and as I said in my OP, drop the A/UX MacPartition in there (which is less than 4 MB, IIRC, but I have the MEGA SIMM so that shouldn't be a problem. So many possibilities!

But my 950 is a priority as it's maxed out on RAM and I don't have a lot of patience for cold boots. 

 

[pb3623]

@olePigeon

Unfortunately, your ROM image isn't working - I'll keep trying as I've been playing around with ROM SIMM capacity (looks like yours is 512 KB and I have 4 MB and 8 MB SIMMs) in the programmer utility but I get horizontal stripes, even after holding it in/bracing by hand. I don't know much about disassembly or how to graft your 040 drivers onto a working ROM image. 

 

[pb3623]

Something that I'm not clear on after reading through the ROM-inator II docs & ROM hacking tutorial - using a stock IIsi as an example - (512 KB = 524,288 bytes)

Shouldn't I be able to burn that to a 4 MB or 8 MB (MEGA) SIMM and, with the requisite shimming/bracing, it just works?

And same for olePigeon's custom ROM from Doug - that is also a 512 KB ROM that I assume I should be able to write to a SIMM of greater capacity. Only the "default" 4 MB/8 MB FC3 ROMs that Steve provided with the ROM-inator seem to work for me and I've even tried using stock ROMs on a IIci, Q700 and Q950. I even thought I was being slick by writing the default 4 MB image and only erasing/writing the first 512 KB, essentially appending the disk driver and ROM disk image to the stock ROM. 

I guess the first (poorly worded) question is, "shouldn't I be able to burn that to a 4 MB or 8 MB (MEGA) SIMM and, with the requisite shimming/bracing, it just works?"

 

[pb3623]

Well, the great news is I got everything - including olePigeon's ROM image with the DayStar Turbo040 driver included. What I don't have is a working combination of that base ROM and the 8 MB ROM disk driver - also I would need to tinker with it to disable the memory test, but the Turbo 040 allows you to turn that off in its control panel.

Basically, why I thought I was hosed was, for some reason, I was getting the vertical Simasimac pattern for the entire duration of the mem test (128 MB). Of course I didn't know that was going on so I would turn it off after a minute or so... turns out if I let it sit about 3 more minutes, it would return to the normal stipple pattern w/ pointer and boot soon after.

But thanks @olePigeon for providing that ROM. I'll have to slog through 68k assembly tutorials to see how I append that to the iisi-romdrvr disk image (and simple concatenation doesn't work) 

 

[slipperygrey]

Does someone have a backed up copy of the SE/30 ROM that @Sunoo posted here, by any chance? I think the attachment got lost with the server crash.

 

[Joopmac]

Yes I’d also like it