usenet@clyde.concordia.ca (USENET News System) (12/20/89)
From: smw@maxwell.Concordia.CA ( Steven Winikoff )
Path: maxwell!smw
It seems funny in these days of 486's even to consider the original 64k
PC (not XT, PC!)... But a friend just paid $100 for a prehistoric PC
and a (real!) Epson printer!
Now, of course, he wants to upgrade...
This machine has a memory board with 27 of its 36 sockets populated.
The chips are labelled as follows:
TMS 4164 - 15NLJ
GAV 8410 10
(Actually that might be 6AV instead of GAV; it's difficult to read.)
From the fact that this provides 128k in additional memory, I conclude
that these are 64k x 1, 150 nanosecond parts.
Questions:
1) Am I right?
2) If so, then this board will only hold another 64k worth of these
chips. Can I replace them with larger chips? Who does the
address decoding -- ie will he need a different add-in board?
3) In general, what would you do in this situation?
Also, I would normally recommend replacing the 8088 with a V20, but
I really don't know if this system can handle one. Does anyone still
sell V20's at 4.77 MHz???
One last point. The operations manual that came with this machine is
missing the pages which describe the switches on the motherboard... so
even if I knew what to add, I still wouldn't know how to indicate to
the system that it had additional memory!
Can anyone help???
Thanks in advance!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steven Winikoff smw@maxwell.concordia.ca
Software Analyst
Concordia University Computer Centre voice: (514) 848-7619
Montreal, Quebec, Canada (10:00-18:00 EST) jmv@sppy00.UUCP (Jim Vickroy) (12/21/89)
In article <1747@clyde.concordia.ca> smw@maxwell.Concordia.CA ( Steven Winikoff ) writes: =>From: smw@maxwell.Concordia.CA ( Steven Winikoff ) =>Path: maxwell!smw => => 3) In general, what would you do in this situation? A still own my dinosaur and what I did was install a 384K AST SixPakPlus card. This brought my total memory to 448K...... I now use this machine exclusively to do file transfers to a Mac. jim -- ============================================================================== :::: ::: :: :: : : Jim Vickroy |OC| ||| || || | | Telecommunications Systems Engineering |LC| ||| || || | | Online Computer Library Center, Inc. :::: ::: :: :: : : Dublin, Ohio ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Internet: jmv@rsch.oclc.org UUCP: {att|pyramid|killer}!osu-cis!sppy00!jmv domain: jmv@sppy00.uucp USSNAIL: 6565 Frantz Rd., Dublin, Ohio 43017-0702 ==============================================================================
tcm@srhqla.SR.COM (Tim Meighan) (12/21/89)
In article <1747@clyde.concordia.ca> smw@maxwell.Concordia.CA ( Steven Winikoff ) writes: >The chips are labelled as follows: > > TMS 4164 - 15NLJ >Questions: > > 1) Am I right? Quite so, these are 64K DRAMs with 150nS access time. > 2) If so, then this board will only hold another 64k worth of these > chips. Can I replace them with larger chips? Who does the > address decoding -- ie will he need a different add-in board? The original PC will NOT take 256K chips. An add-on board would work. > 3) In general, what would you do in this situation? My honest answer? Junk the motherboard, spend at least the $100 for a Turbo-XT clone board that'll do 10Mhz clock speed. Your friend is truly wasting their time trying to upgrade an original PC board at this point. BTW, RAM is extra but fairly cheap. It would cost more to buy add-on boards, accelerator boards, etc, than to just get a new mother board and some 256K DRAM chips and be done with it. Your friend might look at this as $100 for a case, power supply, original-style layout PC keyboard, and whatever other boards were included. If they got a monitor and monitor card, or a floppy drive and floppy controller out of the deal, they probably got good value for the money. Your friend may want to consider leaving the PC as is for historical reasons -- in 30 years an original IBM-PC may have collectable value. (Now it's MY turn to say "don't laugh!") Tim Meighan SilentRadio
amichiel@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Michielsen) (12/21/89)
In article <1230@srhqla.SR.COM> tcm@srhqla.SR.COM (Tim Meighan) writes: >In article <1747@clyde.concordia.ca> smw@maxwell.Concordia.CA >( Steven Winikoff ) writes: OC........> >My honest answer? Junk the motherboard, spend at least the $100 for a >Turbo-XT clone board that'll do 10Mhz clock speed. Your friend is >truly wasting their time trying to upgrade an original PC board at >this point. BTW, RAM is extra but fairly cheap. It would cost more >to buy add-on boards, accelerator boards, etc, than to just get a >new mother board and some 256K DRAM chips and be done with it. > That's ridulous. He said PC that means 5 slots. WHERE are you going to buy a 10 MHZ clone 5 slot board. FURTHER, You still will have only 5 slots. a 63.5 watt power supply. You spend a easy $ 300 bills for a 8088. for LESS than another $ 300 you can get a (i.e. $ 585 delivered) a inboard pc 386 16 MHZ 80386, 1 MB 32 bit ram, and a 32 bit slot for more memory. Pull ALL that memory & sell it or junk it. junk that piece of xxxx 8088. Get a rom upgrade if needed (or when needed), & pop in a inboard 386 pc with a 5 YEAR warrsnty from intel. By the time you add a new case, to get more slots it's even worse. This way whe the power supply goes, it's $ 60 then. When you run out of slots, it's $ 150 or a new case & motherboard. By then the old xt's will probably be had for free, for door stops. al
smw@maxwell.Concordia.CA ( Steven Winikoff ) (12/22/89)
I'm the one who posted the original cry for help.
Well, I'm overwhelmed. To all who answered,
THANK YOU!
Just to acknowledge these wonderful people, here's a list (in strictly
chronological order) of those who either wrote or posted helpful
information:
Tom Haapanen <tom@mims-iris.uwaterloo.CA>
davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.com (bill davidsen)
dale@wucs1.wustl.edu (Dale Frye)
Les Flodrowski <les@uwovax.uwo.CA>
mdfreed%contact.UUCP@Larry.McRCIM.McGill.EDU
jpn@genrad.com (John P. Nelson)
amichiel@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Michielsen)
huilin%hpinddf@hplabs.hp.com (Hui-Lin Lim)
tcm@srhqla.SR.COM (Tim Meighan)
lynch@spiff.stanford.edu (Bill Lynch)
Kevin Trojanowski <troj@umaxc.weeg.uiowa.edu>
jmv@sppy00.UUCP (Jim Vickroy)
All the above deserve much thanks and a great round of applause.
If anyone else is interested in what they had to say, let me know and
I'll mail or post a summary.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steven Winikoff smw@maxwell.concordia.ca
Software Analyst
Concordia University Computer Centre voice: (514) 848-7619
Montreal, Quebec, Canada (10:00-18:00 EST)