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RAM on a ROM board

markfptuson Page Icon Posted 2014-01-26 8:33 PM
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Hi again dudes, since trying out the battery thing I was talking about yesterday, I took apart my broken C120 (torn display cable, there wasn't another fault) to keep the parts handy for if the one I've got that works ever goes wrong. Now, I've not long since found this out, but apparently the ROM boards have a space for extra RAM. When I took the motherboard out of the old unit I saw its RAM chip, which would clearly fit the space on the ROM board I also took out (a CE1 ROM), so I thought of maybe putting that RAM chip on the board so my C120 would have more RAM.

But then I wondered... would there be any possibility of getting a higher-capacity RAM chip that would work? Having a C120 with, say, 10 or 12 MiB of RAM instead of 2 would be awesome, even if only because I'd done the upgrade myself.

On a mildly related note, does anyone have any old ROM boards for these old HPCs that they aren't using? I've recently got a 320LX which runs CE2, and have considered downgrading it to CE1 - because I'd rather like to have a 620LX to play with CE2 on with it's higher memory and colour display.
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C:Amie Page Icon Posted 2014-01-27 9:30 AM
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When you say it has space, do you mean in terms of area or that there are unused pin-outs on the board waiting to accept more RAM?

I *think* I have some ce1 boards for the 320lx somewhere.
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markfptuson Page Icon Posted 2014-01-27 1:27 PM
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Quote
C:Amie - 2014-01-27 9:30 AM

When you say it has space, do you mean in terms of area or that there are unused pin-outs on the board waiting to accept more RAM?

I *think* I have some ce1 boards for the 320lx somewhere.
I meant an unused pinout:


I believe that could carry a small memory upgrade, like the 2MiB chip on my CE2 ROM, but I'd rather like to see if I can put a higher capacity chip on this one, or else just put the 2MiB chip pictured on the motherboard above onto it. If I can find a fine enough element for my soldering iron.

If you can find a CE1 ROM, would you be prepared to part with it? How much might you want for it?

Edited by markfptuson 2014-01-27 1:28 PM
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nbzwt Page Icon Posted 2014-01-28 3:12 AM
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Well, I have a ROM card the same as yours, CE1 ROM card for Compaq C120.And I'm looking for a CE2 ROM card for it.Adding more RAM would be ineresting.
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nbzwt Page Icon Posted 2014-01-28 3:14 AM
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Rich Hawley Page Icon Posted 2014-01-28 12:14 PM
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I've been researching the same thing for several years now...or at least similar. Adding a second chip is normally more involved than it seems. There are accessory components to a memory chip like timing crystals and data diodes for directing the memory path and little things that make a critical difference.

Replacing a chip with a larger one is more feasible..you just have to insure that the voltages remain the same, the memory is handled the same, they they are essentially identical in every respect electronically except for the capacity.

These things are not like to old style ram chips that you could actually piggyback atop one another...
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markfptuson Page Icon Posted 2014-01-28 12:53 PM
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Interesting, I'll have to do some more research myself. I know at least there's another slot on the motherboard, and another 2MiB chip. I've been trying to find out what other RAM chips were made in that series, but I've found nothing so far.
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