A few weeks ago, I finally purchased a MegaFlashROM with SD slot. I've always used my FDD up until now and it's amazing to have so much storage and fast file access. I'm really loving the device.
I ran into freezing problems while writing files, though. I've been mailing with Manuel, trying to figure out what could be the problem. He even sent me a second MegaFlashROM to see if I could replicate the problems with that cartridge as well. I have the freezes with both cartridges, and I think it might be a problem with Nextor instead.
What happens, is this: when saving files in Basic, Compass and sometimes in Xtor, my MSX locks up. The caps lock, kana and pause keys still work, and pause even seems to function like it should: when paused, caps lock and kana won't do anything. I've been able to reproduce the freeze by writing a Basic program that I'll post below. Every time, I manually type it in, and I renum and save the program regularly. The freeze occurs while writing the final part of the program.
I've also tested saving to my diskdrive, and the freeze even happens then, so it's not directly related with SD-card access. When I try the same thing without the cartridge (and thus also Nextor), I don't run into freezes while writing to my FDD.
I'm thinking (and Manuel is as well, I believe) that the problem lies within either Nextor or the Nextor disk rom. I've found an old work in progress topic about Nextor in which Néstor mentions a user having a similar problem. The topic is here, and the post about the freeze-problem is on page eight:
https://www.msx.org/forum/msx-talk/development/nextor-work-progress-topic?page=7
My hardware setup is pretty basic:
- MSX turboR A1ST without modifications, using a step down transformer
- MegaFlashROM SCC+ SD 512K in slot 1
The Basic program (it's nothing special or even well coded or anything, but I can consistently freeze my MSX with it):
100 ON STOP GOSUB 340 110 STOP ON 120 ' 130 GOSUB 190 140 GOTO 410 150 ' 160 ' Start Program 170 ' ------------- 180 ' 190 SCREEN 5 200 COLOR 15,1,1 210 CLS 220 ' 230 COLOR=(1,1,1,1) 240 COLOR=(2,0,0,0) 250 COLOR=(3,1,0,0) 260 COLOR=(4,2,1,1) 270 COLOR=(5,3,1,1) 280 ' 290 RETURN 300 ' 310 ' End Program 320 ' ----------- 330 ' 340 SCREEN 0 350 COLOR 15,4,4 360 END 370 ' 380 ' Main Menu 390 ' --------- 400 ' 410 X = 50 420 Y = 50 430 W = 100 440 H = 100 450 GOSUB 600 460 ' 470 A$ = INKEY$ 480 IF A$ = "" THEN 470 490 ' 500 GOTO 350 510 ' 520 ' Draw Panel 530 ' ---------- 540 ' 550 ' X - X-coordinate 560 ' Y - Y-coordinate 570 ' W - Width 580 ' H - Height 590 ' 600 XW = X + W 610 YH = Y + H 620 ' 630 LINE (X+1,Y+1) - (XW+1,YH+1), 2, B 640 ' 650 LINE (X,Y) - (XW,YH), 3, BF 660 ' 670 FOR N = 4 TO 8 680 LINE (X+N,Y) - (X,Y+N), 4 690 LINE (XW-N,YH) - (XW,YH-N), 5 700 NEXT 710 ' 720 FOR N = 10 TO 14 STEP 2 730 LINE (X+N,Y) - (X,Y+N), 4 740 LINE (XW-N,YH) - (XW,YH-N), 5 750 NEXT 760 ' 770 FOR N = 0 TO 3 780 LINE (X+N,Y) - (X,Y+N), 5 790 LINE (XW-N,YH) - (XW,YH-N), 5 800 NEXT 810 ' 820 FOR N = 5 TO 5 STEP 2 830 LINE (X+N,Y) - (X,Y+N), 5 840 LINE (XW-N,YH) - (XW,YH-N), 5 850 NEXT 860 ' 870 RETURN
And, yeah, I know lines 820 .. 850 don't need the loop, but that's because I first copy lines 720 .. 750 and save before cleaning up. The freeze mostly occurs around this part, while saving.
Any help would be greatly appreciated, as I really hope I can figure out what's causing the problems. I'm loving the MegaFlashROM cartridge and using Nextor has been amazing as well. I'd like nothing more than to see this fixed. :)
