PG Designs M100 RAM Expansion

Intro

PG Designs made several ram expansion boards for Model 100 that ranged from 32K to 224K.
These devices added extra ram to a Model 100 in the form of 32K "banks", where each bank was essentially a whole separate computer. You use the extra ram by switching from one bank to another, and while in one bank you generally only have access to the files in that bank. It's almost as if you put one Model 100 away and pulled out a different one. The PG Designs ram adds to the original ram inside the Model 100, so if you have 32K installed in the Model 100, and add the the 224K PG Designs, you have a total of 256K available, in the form of 8 banks, where your original normal built-in ram is bank #1.

Files

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bys6eLbSbYyhTTdmeGc0b2trODg

Installing the bank-switch utility

1. Back up any files you care about currently on the M100.
2. Hard reset the M100 (wipe the ram): Hold down all 3 keys SHIFT+CTRL+BREAK and press RESET next to the serial port.
3. Use Teeny (or any TPDD client) and dlplus (or any TPDD server) to copy "menu.ba" to the M100.

   You could alternatively use:

   hexfer & telcom (several steps, hxfer encode the file to a .DO, telcom and some pc comm prog to copy a hexfer.do and the menu.do, load the hexfer.do in basic and run it to convert menu.do back to menu.ba)

   or xmodem (which would require hxfer & telcom first anyway just to get an xmodem program installed. pointless unless you happened to already have an xmodem util installed previously)

   or CLOAD from cassette (except no cassette file of menu.ba exists)

   or you could build a Teeprom and program it with the TS-DOS option rom image (sweet end result, but non-trivial)

   or you could build or buy a REX, which has TS-DOS option rom built in (even sweeter end result, but even more non-trivial to build, or expensive to buy)

   or you could CLOAD the ram version of TS-DOS from an mp3 file (that does exist and is pretty easy if you have the cassette cable and a phone that still has a headphone jack)

   ...

   You just can't transfer this file directly with TELCOM or even with LOAD "COM:..." in BASIC. You have to use xmodem or better, and the simplest of those if starting from scratch and without any fancy option roms etc, is generally tpdd, since it is fairly convenient to bootstrap teeny.

4. Run menu.ba

   You will answer some questions.

   You will see "saving and moving program".

   Ignore the “FC error in 4” error.

   It will then delete the first 5 lines of itself and rerun itself.

   The program is now in lowmem.

   It will also remove the next 5 lines of itself.

At this point the program IS installed, though you can't see it.
It is an invisible program called 0MENU. (number zero, not letter oh)

Type 0MENU at the main menu and hit enter.

You should now see a new menu, and you can switch to another bank.

0MENU is only installed in bank 1 at this point.

When you switch to another bank, 0MENU won’t exist there, and so you can't use it to switch back.

To get back to bank 1, or get to any other bank, you can:

• Power off and back on, which puts you back in bank 1. And since bank 1 has 0menu, you can go from there to any other.

Or

• Repeat the install procedure in every bank, so you have 0MENU in every bank.

Usage

0MENU also allows you to copy files from any bank that has 0MENU to any other bank that has 0MENU.

You can use INVISO.BA to make the program visible (MENU.BA), or invisible again (0MENU).

TODO

Find or create an mp3 cassette version of 0menu.

Create a 0menu injector similar to the teeny or floppy installers?

Credits / References

Thanks to Stephen Adolph for documenting the install and usage procedures and providing a pdf scan of the manual to an early 32k (single bank) model.

Pictures: https://photos.app.goo.gl/HgBp1QsyNhM4JUg78

M100SIG.ZIP: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bys6eLbSbYyhNE05SjNYUTIzeVU

Lib-09-Periferals/BANKSW.100

Lib-13-Reviews/BIGRAM.REV

http://www.tmne.com/downloads.html (see floppyco.txt from the menu_ba.zip here)

http://www.club100.org/memfiles/index.php?direction=0&order=&directory=Steve%20Adolph/MENU%20add%20on%20for%20M100%20and%20T102& 0menu v1.3

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bys6eLbSbYyhZTY1a3VXVFRUQmM 0menu v2.01 (from Richard Hanson below)

http://www.club100.org/library/libups.html See the RICHARD HANSON section

PG Design Data Transfer Utility v2.01 for 32K - 224K RAM Expansion units.

Please note: The MENU.BA file is not in ASCII due to embeded machine language code. You must download with xmodem or greater. The INVISO.BA file in ASCII.

MENU.BA

INVISO.BA

Apparently these were also sold under the name Enterprise Systems. https://drive.google.com/open?id=1pJcSvFAw4smcPIzbVWhnBLERoaKb3xqX

Compatibility issue, and work-around, with the stock Tandy dos for TPDD and TPDD-2: http://www.ordersomewherechaos.com/rosso/fetish/m102/web100/docs/pdd2-dos-patch.html