🚀 go-pugleaf

I seem to have narrowed my frances troubles to two main problems:
1   The modeload doesn't program the controller most of the time.
If I call it several times in sucession, I can manage to get the controller
properly programmed. I have observed that the CAP pin on the controller
seems to be high when the controller is sucessfully programmed and
low if it is not. What does the CAP pin do anyway?

2 When I managed to get the controller programmed and working, I looked
at the memory at 0x400000 and it seems to exist and be stable, eg I can
change values there and they stay changed. The problem occurs when I try
to add the memory to the system using addram. Addram reports that the memory
test succeeded, but after the memory is added to the system, the computer
crashes when I first try to execute a command, or when I resize the CLI
window. I have noted that after addram, each keypress causes the
frances CS line to blip low. This occurs only after calling addram and I'll
be darned if I can figure out what is going on. 

The frances is in an A500 and as I said before, my Lucas works fine as far as
I can tell. I have a grounded copper clad board under the frances and the
symptoms seem to dependable to be a noise related problem. 

Has anyone seen either of these problems before or have any ideas?
Could the system somehow be thinking that the frances ram is CHIP ram?
How would that explain the keypress !CS toggles?

                              Thanks again in advance
                                         steve collins

 {_     ALT rep^?{ly : !hacgate!trwind!mcosm!collins