grahamt@syma.sussex.ac.uk (Graham Thomas) (12/21/90)
Here is a message, from John Hannah of Edinburgh, which gives the best
information I've yet seen about STEs which are not being shipped with
SIMMs. The bottom line seems to be: let the buyer beware. You won't
know what's there until you take the machine apart.
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From john@castle.ed.ac.uk Thu Dec 20 12:17:37 1990
From: John Hannah <john@uk.ac.ed.castle>
Subject: Re: STE's in Europe..lack of SIMMS
To: Graham Thomas <grahamt@uk.ac.sussex.syma>
In-Reply-To: Graham Thomas's message of 17 Dec 90 17:58:44 GMT
Date: Thu, 20 Dec 90 12:19:30 GMT
Message-Id: <9012201219.aa15395@castle.ed.ac.uk>
Status: OR
I can confirm that STE's are being sold with soldered-in memory - I have
just received one!! The memory is in the form of SIP's ("homebuilt" by Atari
I wouldn't wonder) which have 256Kb DIL chips soldered onto a small PCB. These
boards have pins which are soldered to the mother board. The machine I have is
a 520 STE and the mother board appears to have holes for another two SIP's -
but NOT SOCKETED. The supplier claims that they have seen very few such
machines and that most still have SIMMS. They point out that the only way
to find out is to open up every machine since Atari have nothing clear to
say on the subject.
It is all a bit of a confusing and annoying situation presumably resulting
from attempts to cut production costs by not using "normal" SIMMS (or SIPS).
I suspect that many machines are now shipped in this way but we will never
find out the extent of the problem until people come to upgrade them!!
John Hannah
----------------
Anyone who saw my previous comments on this will know what I think about
it. I'll not repeat them - after all, it's Christmastime. Peace and
goodwill to all decisionmakers at Atari.
Graham