If I remember correctly a few of you here are owners of the original C64 Reloaded (MK1). I was able to finally beat my friend in arm wrestling and get an MK1 for myself last week.
The reason I wanted it over my MK2 was so I could use a Wifi modem with it without any hassles or screen garbage/noise.
However, I soon discovered I needed to make my own Kernal ROM. So, with the help of my friend Crispy, I ordered the proper EPROMs from DigiKey. Meanwhile, he taught me how to burn the ROMs using my Mac (all the tutorials and how-tos out there are for Windows folk, as usual). I plan on making a nice little mini-guide for others who would like to burn their own kernals using a Mac can follow in my footsteps.
I got everything working and burned the ROM.
Now, the way the chip works is kind of interesting. In an original C64 there are 3 separate ROM chips on the motherboard: BASIC, Character and Kernal.
With the MK1, you are to put all of those on 1 single ROM. In addition, there is space to support 2 character maps and 2 kernals. Excited and giddy, I made copy/pasted an original kernal ROM in one space, and created a customized JiffyDos kernal for the second space (with a black screen and white text, like some of the CMD disk software looks, which is nice).
Burned the ROM, verification passed.
Plopped it in the one remaining empty socket and flipped on the power.
Bam! Gorgeous and nostalgic light blue and dark blue BASIC C64 screen. Sweet!
Then I looked over at the instructions on how to flip to the alternate kernal.
iComp Wiki:
I press and hold the RESTORE key for what was probably more like 15 seconds.If you press and hold the RESTORE key for more than three seconds, the C64 Reloaded will switch to the other Kernal ROM upon release of the RESTORE key.
Nothing happens. Not even a flicker.
So I do what we always go do at a time like this, I run to Google.
All I could find was a mention by MtnBuffalo having a similar problem. For him, holding the RESTORE key for 3+ seconds, releasing the key and then rocking the power switch to reset did the trick for him.
Now that does cause a brief flicker for me but nothing changes. It looks more like it's trying to change its character set or something, but simply returns the normal default blue CBM screen.
Anyone else with an MK1 get this to work? Does it make a difference I'm in NTSC land and this is a feature PAL machines use? (or should I be using a different key combination?)
I have 2 extra EPROMS in case my changing some of the color codes borked it (but that just seems so highly unlikely - but who knows?).