no ram!?!?

I bought a 780 from Ebay, $25.00, they were listed as having no ROM board.
Cool! I have a 780 ROM from my 790 upgrade.

It arrived today. It came in one of the original Nec carry cases, not bad looking, some scratches on the outside of the lid. Hey! What's this? Its not a 780, they sent me a 790.

I opened it up to swich the ROM boards, thinking I just lucked into a cheap 790.

NOT!!! No RAM module! Oh well, it was listed as gauranteed D.O.A.

Well since I already had it open, I stuck the 780 ROM in and hit the reset button.

IT WORKS?!?!?!?!?! I'm sitting here running a "781" sic, with no RAM! I even went online with it to check my Yahoo mail.

I didn't think this would work

Btw, it has the best DSTN screen I have ever seen.

the nec rom modules have the ram on them, don't they? i still didn't look at my 790 rom that arrived a few days ago but on the pics they look like they have the ram too.
the jornada rom modules certainly have the ram too! they have 5 chips, three rom, two ram.


that could be the explanation. believe me your 781 has a ram module.

btw i should've bought one of those 25$ 790's ah well! which is better for a hpc collector, having a 770 + 789 (780 with 790 rom module + 780 rom sitting unused), or a 780 + 790? well, the first combination looks more interesting... but second is slightly "better" or more "useful"

(but maybe i should get a 25$ 790 too, and stick the 790 rom (and ram ) module in that?! then 770, 780, 790... the problem is shipping costs, that's 35-40$ depending on seller )

Edited by cmonex 2006-02-02 8:44 PM

Well I looked again. The Rom is in the front slot. The housing is marked ROM and RAM , on the bottom, the RAM module is missing. There must be some RAM on the Rom chip or the mobo.

go figure

Mmm, what does the System Properties say about your Memory?

Says' 16353 storage- 16354 program
in use 866kb 1811kb

This is wierd, I can create docs and save them, browse the web on my LAN or via Dialup ISP. There is no apparent loss of function.

The real test is if you can log into HPCfactor and post with it?

i'm not surprised / shocked at all i'm used to jornada daughterboards where the ram and rom are on the same board.
so why would the NEC be different. how many chips do you have on the rom board?

They are different...the 770/780/790 have two slots, one occupied with the ram chip, one with the rom chip. The 790 has the ram on the motherboard, and has the ram slot underneath on the device unoccupied.

Rich

ah, so that explains it!

Thanks Rich, this was what I suspected. I think I will convert my 780 back to it's original state, which is almost perfect, and use it as my model "example" for my collection.

So, maybe I did get a good working 790 for +/- $30. As I mentioned earlier, this 790 has the sharpest DSTN display I have ever seen, no wear on the keyboard, no case cracks, just the lid is scratched all over. I might just give it a shot of spray paint and use the crap out of it.

I wonder what would happen if I used both the original 790 ROM and a RAM module in a 790????

To get further off track, I noticed that Fujitsu Pencentra hpc units use a NEC RAM module that looks very similar to the one in the 780.

BTW, I contacted the seller, to see if I could get some more and he said that he only got 7 units and they sold in 3 hours. Apparently these were part of a corporate I.T. department buyout. They had been robbed of components to keep other units running. I told him to keep on the lookout for handheld components and that I would like to buy "lots" of working parts for NEC and Jornada models. Perhaps I can find some sources for the parts a lot of us need.

Edited by stftclmshell 2006-02-03 11:49 AM

"I wonder what would happen if I used both the original 790 ROM and a RAM module in a 790???? "

Nothing happens at all....

Rich

Correct again! I tried it, just because. Doesn't do anything.
I did set the 790 up with a790 ROM and put the original ROM and RAM back in the 780.

I think I'll start using the 790 for my "day use" unit and retain the 780 as a back-up/ collection piece.

WARNING! WARNING! DANGER WILL ROBINSON! INCOMING THREAD HIJACK!
(hijacks own thread, how tacky!)

It's funny, I have 7 "handheld" size devices and one on the way, and my favorite to use is the MobilePro 780/790. I like the 720 but, I just can't type on it very well.

I'm still looking for a good deal on a 900, and figure the h/pc version will work for my purposes as well or better than the "C". The USB host is really all the 780/790 is missing, IMHO.

Oh, how I agree. The 790 / 890 would be nearly perfect with USB. I'm so fond of the MP keybaords it's hard to enjoy using anything less.

I confess the same thing. Even though I have a 718 and a 780, I still prefer the 780, due to the keyboard size. It also feels a lot more confortable to type on, compared to the Jornada and I make little typos, due to its larger size.
Talking of keyboards, the Jornada doesn't feel like its got that soft touch, you press a button and you can feel it suddently hit the bottom of the keyboard, the MP seems to have a softer approach.

Then again, I love the NEC screensize, but the Jornada screen looks better IMHO (brighter)

hmm, my opinion is only a little different..

MP keyboards are the best ive seen and i've seen alot of hpc's it is even better than the psion netbook, IMO

but i still enjoy the jornada and sigmarion keyboards too..