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DRAMscope 1.5
⚠ Fixes a display bug that affects every earlier version on real hardware.
What changed
$D016 was never initialised. Bit 3 of that register (CSEL) selects 40-column or 38-column display, and in 38-column mode the VIC blanks column 0 and column 39. On an ordinary boot the KERNAL sets it; DRAMscope boots in Ultimax with no KERNAL, so it held whatever it powered up with — and a real C64 was showing 38 columns while VICE showed 40. The symptom was the version number in the corner reading 1. with the last digit missing.
If you ran 1.4 or earlier on real hardware, the outermost column of the screen was not being displayed. Nothing was lost from the report itself — the map, the test list and the verdict all sit well inside — but this is worth updating for.
Also in this release, since 1.4 was stamped:
- Counters are decimal.
RUNS 1 BAD BYTES 0, not$0001. A$on this screen now always means an address. - The chip row says
LIKELY, not the part number as a fact — the bit is measured, the chip is a lookup. - A verdict that changes kind no longer leaves the previous one's tail behind.
- Chip chart for all five board assemblies, each confirmed by two independent sources agreeing on all eight bits.
Download
| File | What it is |
|---|---|
| dramscope.crt | The tool. Put it on your cartridge and start it. |
| READ-ME-FIRST.txt | Every colour, every mark on the map, what to do with a fault. |
| CHIP-CHART.pdf | Print this. Two A4 pages: which chip carries which bit, and what to check before desoldering. |
| CHIP-CHART.txt | The same chart as plain text. |
| g1probe.crt | Will DRAMscope run on your cartridge? Sweeps $DE02 and reports. |
dramscope_roml.bin / dramscope_romh.bin |
Raw 8 KB halves, for EasyFlash-compatible hardware. |
Needs an Ultimate II+, Kung Fu Flash or other EasyFlash-capable cartridge.
⚠ Set it up before you need it
Both devices can boot straight into the cartridge with no menu — and both have to be told to, on a machine that still works.
- Ultimate II+ — use Copy to Flash. The
.crtis copied into the device own flash and loads on restart. - Kung Fu Flash — it boots the last cartridge you selected.
⚠ Either way the menu is a C64 program: it runs on the 6510 and draws using C64 RAM, so on a machine with no working RAM you cannot reach it. Arm the device while the machine is healthy — that is what makes DRAMscope available later, when it is not.
No warranty of any kind; see LICENSE.
DRAMscope is free and open source. If it finds a fault for you, or saves you from replacing a chip that was never the problem:
