romex/README.md

# ROM eX

ROM eX is a **BETA** enhancement to the enhanced Apple //e firmware ROM.

## Features

 - Upon Control+CA/Option+Reset, presents a menu allowing you to choose to enter the monitor or start the boot a specific slot.
 - Menu displays the type of card found in the slot.
 - Menu identifies Apple II workstation cards and correctly boots them by prompting to press open-apple to start the boot.
 - Delete key works like the left arrow in programs that read input lines using the monitor ROM.

## Tradeoffs/Flavors

First and foremost, this requires a 65C02 or 658xx processor in your //e.

Unlike the Apple //c firmware, there is no free space in the //e firmware.  Therefore sacrifices must be made.  With that in mind, ROM eX comes in two flavors:

 - Sacrificing the tape code ('no_tape').
   - This version has a terse menu in order to fit in the available space.
   - The diagnostics may be entered by pressing both apple keys with ctrl+reset.
 - Sacrificing the diagnostic code ('no_diags').
   - This version has a nicer menu that takes advantage of available space.

## Building

You must have Ruby and Rake installed, the CC65 suite, and probably some other things.  Review the Rakefile.  Author's development host runs MacOS X with the command line developer tools installed.

Change into the directory for your desired flavor and type 'rake' for a single ROM suitable for emulation or the later //e's CF ROM socket.  Type 'rake split" to also get ROMs suitable for the CD and EF ROM sockets on earlier //es.

## Installing

This ROM can be run in emulators that allow specifying a custom ROM image.  It is tested on Virtual ][.

Note that as of 2/7/2019, it has not been tested on actual hardware by the author, but as of 2/8/2019 Tony Diaz has reported success on a platinum //e.  As of 2/12/2019 there reports from several others (Wyatt Wong, Jorma Honkanen, et al.) successfully using it on real hardware.

To install in real hardware, the appropriate EPROMs must be programmed and installed in the system.  A 27SF512 may work in //es equipped with a CF ROM socket, and 'rake sf512' will generate such an image (with 4 copies of the ROM in it).