Uhhh, Mysterious AP8? Or Am I Confused?

[JesusFreak1959]

OK, so I was given 2 AP8's to tinker with.  I haven't even gotten into the programming yet - just want to get sounds on the card correctly.  I got one of the cards to work... mostly.  But weird things were happening that didn't make sense.  So I created 7 files, each 6 seconds in length.  The last file was 14.5 seconds long.  Each file should just fit into each segment with a little time for human error.  Each file contained a sine wave with a voice indicating which file it was (e.g. the file that said "zero" was recorded into segment zero).  I recorded them into the AP8 one at a time, verifying each one recorded correctly immediately after each recording.  All is swell in coolsville.

Then I double check and here's where I need some help.

seg 0=groovy, plays the file correctly
seg 1=cool, plays the file correctly
seg 2=nice, plays the file correctly
seg 3=Whaaat?  ??? If I press and release the PLAY/REC button, it plays .2 seconds of the file I recorded to segment 4 (wrong file) and then stops.  If I press and hold the PLAY/REC button, it plays the correct file after .2 seconds of the wrong file, but it has .2 seconds chopped off the top.  Continuing to hold down the button, I now hear segment 2, segment 1, segment 0, and then, two leftover recordings from earlier that should have gotten flushed from memory.  After I hear all this, the card must crash because I have to power it off and back on to get it to do anything.
seg 4=swellsville, plays the file correctly
seg 5= ??? plays the last 2 seconds of the file I recorded into segment 7
seg 6=plays 6 seconds of the file I recorded into segment 7
seg 7=plays the file correctly

Is this card faulty or is it me?  It not only seems to record less than 6 seconds into segments 0-6, but seems to put the leftovers into preceding addresses instead of ones that follow.

Any light you can shed on the subject would be greatly appreciated.

[JonnyMac]

I can't pin it down -- could be a duff card (who knows what happened to it before it fell into your hands).

I would:
-- wipe the slate clean by
    * set address switches to %000 (segment 0)
    * disconnect anything from audio input
    * put in record mode and press (hold) play for > 60

Now... doing this will prevent the ISD chip from properly resetting if you try to do a playback now so don't.  Power down, then record your normal tracks into 0..7 (make sure the slot 7 sound does not exceed the track length else you'll have that marker problem again).  After all sounds are recorded, power down, set the mode to play, and then give it another whack.

You can see why we're not doing any more ISD-based products....

[JesusFreak1959]

Thanks Jon.  I'll have a chance to check it out soon because the card I've been using to learn on is now required for the location.  And speaking of which, where would be the best place on this forum to ask if anyone is selling their old AP8s?