HP-41 RAMBox Questions

[rprosperi]

I recently acquired a W&W RAMbox from a European seller that was reducing his collection via TOS; after an unusually long shipping delay, it finally arrived a week ago and I started to explore it. I am trying to understand this device to explore later '41 developments but have run into many dead-ends, I'm not sure of the state of the device, and have several questions.

But first, some facts about the device and what I've found so far:

Device has a genuine W&W label "RAMBOX", but no hint if this is a 32K or 64K model.

The switches are set as follows:
A: Pages 8 & 9 are selected
B: All pages are OFF (so acting like ROM)
C: All pages are ON (enabled)

Doing a CAT-2 (in a Halfnut CX) reveals these modules (with info from PG?):

-RAMBOX 64b (Page-8, 31.45)
-KATASTER 1 (Page-9, 9.64) Presumed to be some custom module created by prior owner
-ING-VERM 1 (Page-B, 10.57) Presumed to be some custom module created by prior owner
-ING-VERM-2 (Page-D, 19.24) Presumed to be some custom module created by prior owner
ES RSU- 1A (Page-E, 4.62)

I have located and read the following resources:
a. RAMBox Owner's Manual for 32K unit (2 versions, essentially the same, from TOS)
b. Addition to 41CW and 41CY Manuals (from TOS, describes the extra "PG*" commands in 64K units)
c. "HP-41CY re-initialization ROM" thread here in the Forum, by Jurgen Keller (Thx for the hint Sylvain!)
d. hp41cy-techinfo.pdf, also from Jurgen (excellent resource!) from github site

I've read the above materials, and fully admitting some of this has still not penetrated my thick skull, I have a far better understanding of this than a week ago.

On to the questions:

1. Does anyone have a RAMBox 64 manual they can share, or point to where a copy is located? The seller has one to eventually provide, however he is quite ill and unable to do so for some time.

2. How do I verify if this RAMBox is working correctly? For example, from reading the above materials I believe if I XEQ "PG<>", the CAT-2 listing should change from "RAMBOX 64b" to RAMBOX 64a" but it does not change, and the CAT-2 listings also do not change.

3. Since the device is set to bank B, I would expect to only find modules in pages 9, B, D, and F (odd pages) yet "ES RSU- 1A" seems to be in Page-E (even).

4.a. Is "ES RSU- 1A" simply the name of the OS in the RAMBox, or is it another, totally separate module? The commands appear to be related-to, but all are different from, those seen in RAMBox 64x; also I see references to the "ES RSU 1A module" in the QRG.

4.b. There are also numerous references to "RSU modules", and some commands pertain to "all connected RSUs", implying more than one connected at a time. Does RSU (maybe RAMBox Storage Unit?) mean a RAMBox Page, or an entire device?

4.c. If a full device, did these RAMbox units come in other form factors (such as external box, connecting by port plug, like early MLDL boxes, etc.)?

5. What is the intended purpose of the A switch, since it appears the device OS is always installed in Page-8?

6. When I do CAT-2 on my RAMBox 64b, the results imply some commands appear to have been removed or disabled, with several commands replaced with "*" in the FAT; here is the listing:

*, CLLSTFL, CLPG, CLRFL, COPYPG, CRDIR, *, CRFLDTA, *, ENDPG, *, FRBYT?, *, *, GTREG, GTREGX, GETRGXY, INITPG, *, *, *, LDPGM, LDREG, LDREGX, LDREGXY, PG?, PGSUM, PTCT, READPG, SETPRV, UNPTCT, WRTPG, XQ>XR, PG<>, PG01, PG10, PG00, PG11, ABSP, ACAXY, ACLX, CLA-, PRAXY and PRL.

I believe all the commands from PG<> to the end are new in the 64k RAMBox. In the range up to the XQ>XR command, there are 33 commands in the FAT including the * commands, and this matches the number of commands in the 32K RAMbox manual.

The 9 'missing' commands are: BUFLNG?, CRFLBUF, CRFLKEY, FNC?, GTBF, GTKEY, KEYAS?, LDBUF, and LDKEY. These commands (not coincidentally) exacly fit the * locations when all commands are arranged alphabetically. These are KA and Buffer management functions, and unfortunately, the FNC? command, which may have helped exploring all this.

Is this 'normal' for RAMBox 64, or is this a custom hack?

7. Can anyone recommend additional resources to review/study?

Thanks in advance for any replies!