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(c) Garry Lancaster, 2000-20052023

[ Flash Card programming (c) Thierry Peycru, Gunther Strube ]

Introduction

RomCombiner is a BASIC program which allows you to combine several ROM images onto a single card, thus enabling you to use many applications from a single large (eg 128K or 256K) ROM, instead of having to continually swap cards. With the new Flash Cards, you could fit just about every application ever written for the Z88 onto a single card!

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The latest version of RomCombiner and other free Z88 software is always available from the Z88 Forever! website.

Using the program

RomCombiner is a collection of three files:

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the "wait" mode, and exit the program.

Read ROM card to image files

Upon selecting this option, you are asked for the slot containing the ROM you want to make image files from, and a name for the card (this

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Advanced users may like to choose to take an image of a single bank, or range of banks, from a card.

Combine image files of cards

When you have got all the images of the cards you wish to combine, select the "combine" option. This presents you with a further menu

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At this point you can add further cards, or alter the details of the applications loaded so far.

Key

This option lets you specify a different letter for the application to be called by. This is useful if you have several applications using the

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You can also choose 0 in this option, in which case the application will not be given a hotkey, but must be selected from the Index menu.

Order

This lets you change the order of the application list in the Index.

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Diskfiler 2 if you do not have a disk drive!). However, note that doing this does not actually save any space on the new card.

Rename

This lets you change the name of an application. The new name must be the same length or shorter than the original one.

Patch

Some applications are written expecting to be located in specific banks in a certain-sized cards, and do not usually work correctly after

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When combining a card with a patch, you may see some warnings displayed. This could mean you have the wrong patch selected for the application (in which case the application probably won't work correctly). However, it's more likely that the application has been patched previously when combined into another card - in this case the warnings can be ignored.

Info

This displays technical information on the selected application for advanced users.

Disp

This toggles the display mode. When on, you will always see a list of the current applications on the combined card. However, if this list

becomes too long, you may prefer to turn it off with this option.

Wait

This toggles the wait mode (you can also do this from the main menu). If "Wait mode" is on, the program will tell you whenever it needs to

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always has access to the files it needs.

Techy

Another set of options for advanced users. They allow you to:

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The main use for these options is to allow you to create very large ROM cards in two or more stages, without having to set the wait mode on.

Save

This option saves all the details of the ROM you are currently creating. This is useful when you are making a lot of changes or adding

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to save the configuration of a ROM you are creating, so that if you want to make changes at a later date you don't have to start from

scratch.

Load

Re-loads a previously saved configuration.

Create

Once you have added all the cards you require, and are satisfied with the application list, press C to finish and create the final images.

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Then the program will create the new card images. This can take a long time!

Quit

This aborts the combination process and returns you to the main menu.

Verify EPROM banks properly erased

If you're unsure whether your EPROMs are being properly erased (perhaps you have problems blowing ROMs to them), this option allows you to

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will dislodge any particles which may be on the window and preventing the UV light from reaching the chip.

Blow image files to blank EPROM

This main menu option allows you to create a ROM on a totally blank EPROM in slot 3 (it must not have been catalogued by Filer).

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Note that this option will refuse to write any bytes if the batteries are low, to ensure EPROM integrity.

Flash Card

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sector erase

This option allows you to erase blocks sectors of your Flash Cards (in slot 3), either individually , either individually or all at once.Enter  Enter the block number (1-16 for 1Mb Flash Cards) sector number, or 256 to erase the entire card.Each "block" is the smallest unit of a Flash Card which can be erased, and consists of 4x16K

• 1-16 for 1MB Flash Cards
• 9-16 for 512K Flash Cards or 512K Flash / 512K RAM hybrid cards

The appropriate valid range will be automatically offered.

Each "sector" is the smallest unit of a Flash Card which can be erased, and for most cards this consists of 4 x 16K banks. They are arranged as followsas follows:

    Block    Banks

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Each Z88 slot offers 1MB of address space which can be addressed by the Z80 CPU in 16KB banks. 64 x 16KB = 1MB, hence why banks 0-63.

Exceptionally, SST Flash memory uses a 4K sector size, which means that it can directly support the Z88's native 16KB bank size. SST Flash devices will be detected and a valid range of 16KB banks will be offered for erasing, instead 64KB sectors.

Emulator file conversion

This option allows you to convert between the bank files used within this program (eg name.62, name.63 etc) and the name.epr files used by

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can be used by Z88 emulators.

Adding an EPROM filing system to your card

It is now possible to add files to your application cards. This is not an automatic process, but it is well worth the effort to create a card

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Don't forget that the size of your ROM images plus the size of your EPROM files cannot exceed the total physical card size!

Known problems

You should be careful not to use your new combined ROM at the same time as the original ROMs. This is because the new ROM will have the same ID as the first card that you entered, and this sort of thing confuses OZ no end! To avoid this, you could alter the Card ID (in [T]echy options)

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