AtariWriter Cart flashes back and forth

[800_Rocks]

I have several AtariWriter carts and most or all of them act as follows on my 800.
The title/copyright screen comes up, then menu screen 'Select Letter' for a function/action, then it flashes back and forth to garbage and back to the menu screen every 1 or 2 seconds.

I run several dozen carts and have no other issues with my 800.  Is this a known issue with AtariWriter carts?  I don't have any drives attached.  Could it be that this cart expects/requires a drive?

 

Edited November 11, 2020 by 800_Rocks

[bfollowell]

I would think the cartridge definitely expects a disk drive to be connected. Could you even save to cassette with it? If not, it would be pretty much worthless without a drive. Regardless, that still seems like a really strange bug to pop up just because a drive wasn't connected.

 

[TGB1718]

According to the manual it can work without a disk drive, it says you can save to cassette if you don't have a drive.

 

http://www.atarimania.com/documents/atariwriter_manual.pdf

 

One question, is your 800 modified i.e. U1M or any memory upgrades that could affect the Cart

[800_Rocks]

13 hours ago, TGB1718 said:

One question, is your 800 modified i.e. U1M or any memory upgrades that could affect the Cart

Thanks for asking this one... I nearly forgot that 'Yes' my 800 has an AXLON Rampower 128.  So AtariWriter must not like it.  When I moved the little switch on the AXLON card (I assume making it act like 16K instead of 128K) AtariWriter works fine (does not show the garbage graphics as in my original 3rd picture).  Mystery solved!!  Thanks.

 

[+Nezgar]

You mentioned "most or all" of your AtariWriter carts exhibit that behavior - if there are actually any that behave differently, it would have to be a different ROM version on the cart...

 

[devwebcl]

Any chances to dump that cartridge?