Does anyone know what this memory tester is?

[steddyman]

I suspect my memory may be faulty on my 800XL. I've had a couple of tape loads crashing and today I got an SIO2SD fully loaded and quite a lot of the games i've tried crash with weird corruption on screen.

 

Last week when I was messing loading stuff from tape I accidentally came across a memory tester which loaded, but I reset it before it completed. I've been unable to find it since.

 

Does anyone know what this app is and could point me to an XEX for it?

 

Alternatively is there another I can use to test the system?

 

Thanks

[+kheller2]

A screen shot of the corruption would be nice... most program require basic to be disabled, so try doing a power on with the option key held down.

The screenshot is of the built in memory test. There are others.

[steddyman]

Thanks. I didn't know about the Option key needed to be held down.

 

How do you launch the built in memory test?

[+kheller2]

Hold down OPTION while powering on, and no peripherals turned on.

[_The Doctor__]

Looks like built in memory test but might be the Radon Boot memory tester in his picture?

I would start with checking power supply voltage with sio2sd running. I would also make sure the sio2sd cable is not getting flakey.

 

Memory Test Radon Boot.atr

Edited April 24, 2017 by _The Doctor__

[steddyman]

Thanks. That did the trick, all tested clear.

 

Also, holding down Option when starting games seems to fix the random crashing with garbage on screen. It looks like the game is loading over the screen memory then it crashes with random junk on the screen like this:

 

Thanks for your help. I'm such an Atari noob

[_The Doctor__]

That is because most Atari games are run without basic...

I wish more software would just turn it off or on for itself....

when you hold down option your force basic off and that allows more memory space for binary (machine language programs) to load among other things...

Edited April 24, 2017 by _The Doctor__

[steddyman]

Thanks again to you both. Appreciate the help.

 

You wouldn't think I can program in a dozen languages and code FPGA's would you

[_The Doctor__]

ah there is no way for you to know unless you mash keys at power up looking for ways in on older equipment.... which was actually common for the longest time... even on televisions and such...

[+DrVenkman]

Thanks. That did the trick, all tested clear.

 

Also, holding down Option when starting games seems to fix the random crashing with garbage on screen. It looks like the game is loading over the screen memory then it crashes with random junk on the screen like this:

 

Thanks for your help. I'm such an Atari noob

 

The names of the programs you're trying to load might be helpful - some games actually require BASIC, most don't.

 

However, the tape loading problems may have nothing to do with BASIC enabled or not. Most tape drives these days are unreliable at best, or completely unusable at all, due to degradation of the rubber drive belts. I have four Atari program recorders and none of them work at all due to this issue. So even if the tapes are fine, magnetically, and even if the Atari is working perfectly, the tape loads may still fail unless you or someone else has replaced the drive belts recently.

[steddyman]

That screenshot was from an SIO2SD load of Donkey Kong.

 

The corruption is happening with the SIO2SD too, but I haven't had a single problem since holding down OPTION and starting games.

[+DavidMil]

I remember that screen... I was playing Frogger and drinking Wild Turkey (101proof)!

 

David

[Kyle22]

Careful of those alligators!

 

[gargoyle]

Hold down OPTION while powering on, and no peripherals turned on.

 

Or type BYE from Basic, that's of course if you can get to Basic.

Edited April 26, 2017 by gargoyle