[net.micro.mac] Disturbing rumor re -- ROM upgrade and RAM/Hyperdrive upgrade

msimpson@bbncca.ARPA (Mike Simpson) (04/18/85)

The following is forwarded for your perusal from INFO-MAC.

==> From: <bang!crash!bwebster@Nosc>
==> Date: Tue, 16 Apr 85 07:59:11 PST
==> Subject: UPGRADE ALERT
==> 
==> TO: Everyone who is considering a RAM/Hyperdrive upgrade
==> 
==> 	I've just heard some disturbing information from a
==> usually reliable source.  As many of you may know, Apple is
==> coming out with a ROM upgrade (128K) this year (probably in
==> September) to fix bugs, accomodate the double-sided disk drives,
==> etc.  Well, according to my source, Apple is instructing its
==> dealers *not* to perform the upgrade on any Macintosh that has
==> been modified in any way.  In other words, if you have done
==> anything to your Mac (RAM upgrade, Hyperdrive, etc.) other than
==> buy the official (and incredibly overpriced) Apple 512K upgrade,
==> your dealer may not upgrade your ROM for you.  I have not yet
==> been able to get a confirm/deny/no comment out of Apple; I'll
==> keep you posted on what I find.
==> 
==> 
==> Additional information and commentary is, as always, welcome.
==> 
==>                               ..bruce..
==> 
==> [These are, of course, my own opinions, and do not necessarily
==> reflect anyone else's . . . though I suspect they just might.]
==> 

	Ouch.  Say it ain't so.

-- 
   >> don't shoot me, I'm just trying to be helpful ... <<
   Mike Simpson, BBN
   msimpson@bbn-spca  (Arpanet/Internet/CSNet)
   {decvax,ihnp4,ima,linus,masscomp,sunybcs,wjh12}!bbncca!msimpson (Usenet)
   617-497-8196 (Ma Bell)

ix408@sdcc6.UUCP (Cris Rys) (04/20/85)

If apple is not going to let people upgrade their ROM who did their
own memory expansion, then they are really blowing it! (Scientificly
speaking of course).
 
There are too many faults in this procedure to make it worth
anybody's while. For instance:
 
1. The dealer is only hurting his own business if he won't upgrade
   someone's ROM. WHy would a dealer turn down money to be made?
2. People will bypass the check and get friend's of standard Mac
   boards to get a ROM upgrade. Exchange chips in thier own Mac, and
   then get the ROM upgrade again and so on and so on....
   Or if Apple requires serial numbers to be given, just change the
   boards in the computer also. I'm sure someone who was up to
   upgrade thier Mac will tempory change boards and then exchange
   chips in order to get a ROM upgrade.
3. Worse comes to worse, the hardware hackers who upgraded their Mac
   will just copy the new ROM from a friend. Please Apple don't
   drive us to this!
 
So it doesn't make too much sense to have a closed door policy.
Even if Apple does put that rule into effect, it will be easy
to get around.

Cris Rys

chuqui@nsc.UUCP (Chuq Von Rospach) (04/21/85)

I hate to ruin a great argument with reality, but what the heck...

In article <2019@sdcc6.UUCP> ix408@sdcc6.UUCP (Cris Rys) writes:
>If apple is not going to let people upgrade their ROM who did their
>own memory expansion, then they are really blowing it! (Scientificly
>speaking of course).

Scientifically? Sounds like an opinion to me...

>1. The dealer is only hurting his own business if he won't upgrade
>   someone's ROM. WHy would a dealer turn down money to be made?

It'll be the dealers option, of course. I will point out that the 128K to
512K upgrade was handled simply by shipping a 512K logic board and swapping
it whole. I assume that Apple will handle the ROM upgrade that was as well
because it really reduces the chances of error and infant mortality. The
ROM's, I believe, are soldered in place, and I suspect few service centers
want to be more than boardswappers if they can help it. It is faster, more
reliable, and cheaper that way.

Now, if Apple sends out a new logic board, and the service center opens
your mac and replaces your logic board with their logic board, all of your
custom fixes stay on your old logic board. Since your machine is still
officially a 128K machine, you get a 128K machine back. Now, since your
board is modified, Apple may not accept it back as a core charge from the
service center, so they would eat that cost (I think it was $300 for the 
512K upgrade). Now, who is making money on this deal? 

>2. People will bypass the check and get friend's of standard Mac
>   boards to get a ROM upgrade. Exchange chips in thier own Mac, and
>   then get the ROM upgrade again and so on and so on....

If you don't mind soldering, great! Assuming, of course, the new logic
board doesn't have hardware changed needed for the new ROM, hardware
changes for bug fixes, or other things that might make old logic boards
incompatible with the new ROMs.... I don't know that this is the case, but
I wouldn't ignore the possibility.

>3. Worse comes to worse, the hardware hackers who upgraded their Mac
>   will just copy the new ROM from a friend. Please Apple don't
>   drive us to this!

Illegal, but that's never stopped people before. 

>So it doesn't make too much sense to have a closed door policy.
>Even if Apple does put that rule into effect, it will be easy
>to get around.

I don't think it'll be as easy as you might expect, but I also expect that
the people who are building cheap 512K upgrades will figure out some way of
doing ROM upgrades for their customers. People who do their own will have
to wait for DDJ or someone to help out, likely. If they can.

Please remember in all of this that Apple designed the Mac NOT to be hacked
in hardware. So, this isn't a closed door policy on their part, since you
weren't supposed to be in the building at all. I don't have figures, but I
expect that the number of 'modified' Macs are a rather small minority of
total machines. Most new machines being sold are probably 512K, and I
expect that most of the 128K machines are either upgraded through Apple
(like mine was) or still at 128K. You have to remember that Apple's
Macintosh service is built around the board, not the part, so if anything
goes wrong they shove a new board in the machine and give it back. The old
board goes back to Apple for repair, and eventually ends up in some other
Macintosh. People who modify their boards can't expect Apple to fix their
board -- Apple isn't set up that way, they don't have knowledge of the
changes that have been made, they don't know that the changes aren't
causing the problem, and they don't have time to figure it out.

What this means, of course, is that if you do things to your machine that
you were told not to, like hack the hardware, you are on your own. There
will be third party groups that will support you, I'm sure. For a price, of
course. Any good group will be able to take hardware modifications from
Apple such as ROM's and get them to their customers. Don't expect Apple to
do it for you, because their system simply isn't set up that way, and it
shouldn't be. When you have 250,000 machines out there, you simply can't
survive trying to figure out 10,000 different custom modifications done by
people who might or might not be qualified to hold a soldering iron.

chuq
-- 
:From the closet of anxieties of:                 Chuq Von Rospach
{cbosgd,fortune,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo}!nsc!chuqui   nsc!chuqui@decwrl.ARPA

There is nobody as small as those who refuse to accept the success of others.

planting@uwvax.UUCP (W. Harry Plantinga) (04/22/85)

> The ROM's, I believe, are soldered in place, and I suspect few service centers
> want to be more than boardswappers if they can help it. 
> 
> Now, if Apple sends out a new logic board, and the service center opens
> your mac and replaces your logic board with their logic board, all of your
> custom fixes stay on your old logic board. Since your machine is still
> officially a 128K machine, you get a 128K machine back. Now, since your
> board is modified, Apple may not accept it back as a core charge from the
> service center, so they would eat that cost (I think it was $300 for the 
> 512K upgrade). Now, who is making money on this deal? 
> 
> >2. People will bypass the check and get friend's of standard Mac
> >   boards to get a ROM upgrade. Exchange chips in thier own Mac, and
> >   then get the ROM upgrade again and so on and so on....
> 
> If you don't mind soldering, great! 

These arguments are all well and good, but unfortunately based on a
false premise.  The roms are in fact in sockets, at least in my mac,
which is an earlyish one, and the extra address line to the roms is 
already in place (or so I have heard).  If Apple won't sell me the 
new roms, I'll be sorely tempted to get them some other way, I'm 
sure.  

			Harry Plantinga
			planting@wisc-rsch.arpa
			{seismo,allegra,heurikon,ihnp4}!uwvax!planting

ward@hao.UUCP (Mike Ward) (04/22/85)

> The ROM's, I believe, are soldered in place

You believe wrong.  The ROMs are in sockets, and can be easily
replaced.

> What this means, of course, is that if you do things to your machine that
> you were told not to, like hack the hardware, you are on your own.

This is the real issue, isn't: we weren't doing what we were
told to do.  Well, you've been a good boy, so you get to be the
ball monitor.  I stopped letting my mommy and daddy tell me what
to do a long time ago, and don't intend to let a greedy corporation
take their place.

Sooner or later there will be a computer company that cares about
the people that buy its products.  At that time Apple will just
dry up and blow away like the rotten fruit it is.

jimb@amdcad.UUCP (Jim Budler) (04/23/85)

In article <2618@nsc.UUCP> chuqui@nsc.UUCP (Chuq Von Rospach) writes:
>...
>because it really reduces the chances of error and infant mortality. The
>ROM's, I believe, are soldered in place, and I suspect few service centers
>...

Much of what you said was true, however, the ROM's are socketed.

-- 
 Jim Budler
 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
 (408) 749-5806
 UUCPnet: {ucbvax,decwrl,ihnp4,allegra,intelca}!amdcad!jimb
 Compuserve:	72415,1200

jss@sjuvax.UUCP (J. Shapiro) (04/23/85)

Andy Hertzfield recently commented at Drexel that if you have put foreign
hardware in your mac the 128k rom upgrade somply may not work. Though he
personally feels that the hyperdrive is really the way to go, his comment is
that the hyperdrive is one example of something which probably will *not*
work in it's current incarnation with the new ROMS. It is expected that
the hyperdrive folks will soon come up with a new edition.
-- 
Jonathan S. Shapiro
Haverford College

	"It doesn't compile pseudo code... What do you expect for fifty
		dollars?" - M. Tiemann

pc@unisoft.UUCP (n) (04/23/85)

<munch>
> The ROM's, I believe, are soldered in place, and I suspect few service centers
> want to be more than boardswappers if they can help it. It is faster, more
> reliable, and cheaper that way.
>
> :From the closet of anxieties of:                 Chuq Von Rospach
> {cbosgd,fortune,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo}!nsc!chuqui   nsc!chuqui@decwrl.ARPA

	This is not true!! The ROMs are in sockets, not only that but they are
64k ROMs in sockets wired for 128k chips as well, seems someone at Apple
thought ahead ......

			Paul Campbell	..!ucbvax!unisoft!paul

jimb@amdcad.UUCP (Jim Budler) (04/23/85)

In article <1486@hao.UUCP> ward@hao.UUCP (Mike Ward) writes:
>...
>Sooner or later there will be a computer company that cares about
>the people that buy its products.  At that time Apple will just
>dry up and blow away like the rotten fruit it is.

What did Apple do to you?  I've watched your continued implied slurs
such as above, all over whether or not Apple should warrent and repair
SOMEONE ELSES WORK.  If you can find a computer company, auto company,
dishwasher company, record company, or any other form of company which
will warrent someone elses parts and labor, good luck.

Isn't it time you traded in your Mac on an IBM PC or something.  They
won't warrent any non-IBM boards or mods to the machine.  And in fact
if you take the machine in to them and they find out you had someone 
else's boards plugged into it they will do their damndest to prove to
you that the other board did the damage and you have to pay the hourly
rate for repairs instead of the flat rate.
-- 
 Jim Budler
 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
 (408) 749-5806
 UUCPnet: {ucbvax,decwrl,ihnp4,allegra,intelca}!amdcad!jimb
 Compuserve:	72415,1200

chuqui@nsc.UUCP (Chuq Von Rospach) (04/24/85)

In article <1486@hao.UUCP> ward@hao.UUCP (Mike Ward) writes:
>> The ROM's, I believe, are soldered in place
>
>You believe wrong.  The ROMs are in sockets, and can be easily
>replaced.

Mea Culpa. So much for checking my facts before I blather. sigh.

>> What this means, of course, is that if you do things to your machine that
>> you were told not to, like hack the hardware, you are on your own.
>
>This is the real issue, isn't: we weren't doing what we were
>told to do.  Well, you've been a good boy, so you get to be the
>ball monitor.  

This is an insulting comment. Do YOU want to try to build a decent hardware
support organization for ~250,000 machines that have hardware hacks of
varying degrees of sophistication and varying degrees of success with no
schematics? When you are talking about something that size, there simply
aren't enough dollars to hire EE's to hand hold all of the people that
want to save $XXX by doing something they aren't qualified for and the
EXPECT someone else to bail them out, free. To do this the prices for
things would have to go up, hurting all of the people who DO play is
straight with higher prices off the top, perhaps making a successful
product a failure because of pricing?

>I stopped letting my mommy and daddy tell me what
>to do a long time ago, and don't intend to let a greedy corporation
>take their place.
>
>Sooner or later there will be a computer company that cares about
>the people that buy its products.  At that time Apple will just
>dry up and blow away like the rotten fruit it is.

Every time I've talked to Apple about the Mac, and about my dear departed
II+ they have bent over backwards to get answers. Having worked with a
number of computer manufacturers over the years (insert your favorite
manufacturer here) I am consistently impressed with Apple and their
support. You have to remember two things: Apple is only familiar with Apple
products, and you have to go through channels. If Apple asks you to handle
something through your dealer, then go through your dealer.

Look. You may not like what Apple is doing. Fine. I'd like to point out
that their service arrangements don't really differ from the rest of the
industry. I suggest you buy an IBM PC, pull the motherboard, cut three
traces, add two wires and 5 chips of unknown quality and ask IBM to fix it.
you can do the same with Tandy (remember when breaking the seals of a TRS80
meant they wouldn't admit to its existence?), or Data General, or Dec, or
just about anyone. They won't do anything different that Apple is doing. 

If you don't like Apple's policies, don't buy Apples. When you realize that
Apple needs to handle 250,000 (and growing) machines in the field the
reasons for some of these policies become evident. The way things are is
the best way things can be for a group of machines that size at the most
reasonable cost and service turnaround. It serves the needs (and well) of
the vast majority of the users -- the ones that DO pay attention to what
Apple says, rather than trying to do what they want and force the world to
follow them... 

chuq
-- 
:From the closet of anxieties of:                 Chuq Von Rospach
{cbosgd,fortune,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo}!nsc!chuqui   nsc!chuqui@decwrl.ARPA

Remember me, for that which I must do shall ring out upon the heavens and
my name shall be renounced by the tongues of all mankind! - J. Iscariot

ward@hao.UUCP (Mike Ward) (04/25/85)

> What did Apple do to you?  I've watched your continued implied slurs
> such as above, all over whether or not Apple should warrent and repair
> SOMEONE ELSES WORK.  If you can find a computer company, auto company,
> dishwasher company, record company, or any other form of company which
> will warrent someone elses parts and labor, good luck.

If I have posted any implied slurs, I apologize.  If I have asked
Apple to warrant any one else's work, I am very surprised.  It
has been my intent to *expressly* condemn Apple computer Corporation
for failing to provide sufficient support to allow SOMEONE ELSE
to warrant their own work.

If you have an instance of a posting of mine in which I have
asked Apple to warrant someone else's work, please show it. 
Otherwise, you have my permission to take your alleged opinions
and place them where the sun don't shine.

ward@hao.UUCP (Mike Ward) (04/25/85)

> If Apple asks you to handle
> something through your dealer, then go through your dealer.
> 
If you have a dealer that can handle you problems, then you are
incredibly fortunate.  Most dealer I know have nerver heard of
an assembler.

> Look. You may not like what Apple is doing. Fine. I'd like to point out
> that their service arrangements don't really differ from the rest of the
> industry. I suggest you buy an IBM PC, pull the motherboard, cut three
> traces, add two wires and 5 chips of unknown quality and ask IBM to fix it.

I can do that to an IBM PC, and if doesn't work, I can fix it
myself.  If I do even the simplest thing to a Macintosh, I can't
fix it because Apple won't tell me anything about the machine.
This is a level of support that is significantly inferior to
any other vendor with which I have dealt.  I have been dealing
with professional oriented vendors for meny years, and have never
encountered one that gave as little support as does Apple.  Their
attitude is strictly amatuer - which is ok if they are selling
to the home market.  But for the professional market, they suck.

omh@brunix.UUCP (Owen M. Hartnett) (04/28/85)

<>

After thinking about this situation for a while, I can see Apple's
justification in not doing this (upgrading an unofficially modified Mac).
I would think that the main reasons are:
	They intend to reuse the old boards, and they would have to
separate those with do-it-yourself chips from the Apple certified chips.
Here, I think it's a case of "We don't want to guarantee someone else's
parts"
	In the case of a hyperdrive, here the old board is physically
modified to accept the drive.  Wouldn't Apple have to make a modification
to their new board to match the modification done to the old?

	These are conjectures on my part, but I think they're valid   
points.  I don't think it's malice on Apple's part against third party
RAM updates, but merely an attempt to limit their liability and to
insure the functionality of parts they receive/reship.

Owen Hartnett
omh%brown@csnet-relay

royt@gitpyr.UUCP (Roy M. Turner) (04/28/85)

Ok, okay, enough already!!  If you folks have something to say on the subject,
great!  If you just want to flame each other, why not do it in net.flame,
/dev/null, or better yet, by personal mail??  And if you want to roast
Apple, why not yell at them directly, ie, to their faces, and not on the 
net?



-- 
Roy Turner
(a transplanted Kentucky hillbilly)
School of Information and Computer Science
Georgia Insitute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332
...!{akgua,allegra,amd,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo,ut-ngp}!gatech!gitpyr!royt

bass@fastime.UUCP (John Bass) (05/03/85)

Boy oh Boy ... here I go again ... If you hack your MAC (like I have) then
you simply CAN NOT expect apple to take the board back as an exchange if it
breaks ... WHY?? ... because the board is now more than WORTHLESS ... its
a LIABILITY!!! ... it will COST Apple MORE than the manufactured cost to repair
it (IE put it back to original). They will take a NET LOSS since flat rate
repair prices are less than new board costs in most cases PLUS the repair
center and return handling costs to determine the board is salvage.

Problem issolation is done by placing the board in an automated tester that
has pins that contract the solder pads on the bottom of the board. Then
preset analog and digital tests are run to identify the problem chips and
select the board for rework or salvage.

To get a board back from the dealer, ship him a replacement, and test the board
probably costs between $50-75 ... plus the tech time to repair it and additional
funds to retest and inventory the board if repaired. Repair center costs
over the life of a machine can easily exceed the cost of manufacture without
very deliberate cost controls.
Apples policys are good on this issue ... which make the cost of ownership lower
for the majority of owners. Hackers beware ... life is not free once momma
cuts the allowance off. There is no reason I should expect the normal user
pay for my hacking with increased flate rate repair costs.

By the way there is no reason to sacrafice your original 128k board to do
hacking ... I now have 3 128k boards obtained by offering people the $125
exchange price that Apple pays. There are also sources for repaired boards
salvaged by apple or dealers ... I bought an Apple 512k board at the San Jose
swap a few weeks ago for $400 that was repaired and working fine.

I am working on a tiny piggyback board with an NCR5380 SCSI chip on it to
publish (in either DDJ or MacWorld?) as a hack this summer. Anybody interested
in doing the software for it to be published at the same time and released
public domain? Would like a driver and desk accessory like the hyperdrive.
Would put a 50pin SCSI connector in a wide hole comming out the back and mount
the disk/tape in an outside box most likely under the mac. I would guess the
costs for the piggy back board to be under $200 plus the cost of a SCSI disk
(< $1000). For the real hacker 100mb disk plus tape would cost about $3500.

If interested write DMS Design, PO Box 12508, San Luis Obispo, CA 93406, Attn
John Bass. Give your background and experience programming ... particularly on
the mac. We will choose several of the applicatants and send them a piggy
back board at cost ... and make the best solution or several solutions available
for publication and distribution.

John Bass

Have fun ... John