moriarty@tc.fluke.COM (Jeff Meyer) (08/15/87)
The other day, I noticed that one of our hardware engineers had got some
sample 1-Megabyte SIM RAM cards from a vendor for trial. On a whim (OK,
some self-interest involved), I decided to try upgrading a Mac+ with these
surface-mount cards -- they looked quite similar, and the sockets were the
same (their access time was 120ns, which is certainly fast enough for a Mac+
or even a Mac II). Well, no combination of two Mac+ 256K cards / 2 1 MB
cards (for a total of 2.5 MB) seemed to work -- Funny screen patterns, weird
backup screens), so I had little hope of getting it to work.
However, when I stuck four of the 1MB boards in.... Ding! Everything works
like a charm -- EXCEPT the Finder reports it has only 2048K (read: 2 MB)
available. Well, shoot.
A friend tells me that something needs to be jumpered on the Mac+ board so
that the other 2M can be accessed, and he frowned on the possiblity of a
2.5MB combination. Two questions for you hardware people, or people who
have installed Dove upgrades WITH the 1 Megabyte cards (eight or nine chips
per card): Is 2.5 MB an impossibility? And what jumpered operations need to
be made to get a Mac+ to recognize that other 2MB? (This is the one I REALLY
want to get an answer to).
"One of the problems I've always had with propaganda
pamphlets is that they're real boring to look at.
They're just badly designed. People from the left
often are very well-intended, but they never had
time to take basic design classes, you know?"
-- Art Spiegelman
Moriarty, aka Jeff Meyer
INTERNET: moriarty@tc.fluke.COM
Manual UUCP: {uw-beaver, sun, allegra, hplsla, lbl-csam}!fluke!moriarty
CREDO: You gotta be Cruel to be Kind...
<*> DISCLAIMER: Do what you want with me, but leave my employers alone! <*>sterritt@ge-mc3i.UUCP (Chris Sterritt) (08/15/87)
Hi, I'm *gleefully* running 2.5 megs thanks to the Dove 2H upgrade (get the 2S if you can, it has shorter chips. I've told Dove that none of the MacConnection type places even know about the 2S, and perhaps they'll do something about it.) What NO ONE TOLD ME was that to upgrade your Plus beyond a meg, you almost CERTAINLY HAVE to clip out a resistor on your motherboard! DRAT! I sneer in your general direction, Apple! YOU SHOULD HAVE PUT THAT STUPID RESISTOR ON THE SIMM!!! But then, I'm a software person, and it's a minor miracle that I can *recognize* a resistor, let alone know where to put one :-). So. The Dove manual mentions that in (I believe) inside mac volume four,there is a place where it tells you which of two things to do: First, in one place, there is a resistor to clip out if you're using 1 megabit simms (as opposed to the 256k simms it comes with). Second, in another place, there is a resistor slot to PUT IN a resistor if you're not going to use the (front?) two slots. That is, if you want 2 megs, you have to SOLDER IN a resistor, but if you want 2.5, you don't. So why would anyone run 2 megs? I dunno. I *for sure* ain't going to solder up my motherboard just to have .5 fewer megs! --chris sterritt
stew@endor.UUCP (08/15/87)
In article <1492@sputnik.COM> moriarty@tc.fluke.COM (Jeff Meyer) writes: >A friend tells me that something needs to be jumpered on the Mac+ board so >that the other 2M can be accessed, and he frowned on the possiblity of a >2.5MB combination. Two questions for you hardware people, or people who >have installed Dove upgrades WITH the 1 Megabyte cards (eight or nine chips >per card): Is 2.5 MB an impossibility? And what jumpered operations need to >be made to get a Mac+ to recognize that other 2MB? (This is the one I REALLY >want to get an answer to). There are two spots on the Mac Plus and Mac SE motherboards that you have to fool with in order to get different memory combinations. In the SE, they are just above the SIMMs, and in the Plus they are (I believe) near the mid-to-upper left edge with the SIMMs at the bottom. The allowed combinations are 0.5 MB, 1 MB, 2 MB, 2.5 MB, AND 4 MB. The two spots are labeled "One Row" and "256K". Normally, the "One Row" spot is empty, and the "256K" spot has a 150 ohm resistor. If you want 2.5 MB or 4 MB, replace with 1 Meg SIMMs the SIMMS in the slot nearest the CPU (the bottom one) for 2.5 MB or in both slots for 4 MB and remove the resistor in the 256K spot. I just clipped one end and left the thing hanging there in case I wanted to easily resolder it. If you want 0.5 MB or 2MB, you have to solder a 150 ohm resistor into the spot marked "One Row" and put one pair of SIMMs into the slots nearest the CPU, leaving the other slots empty. On the Mac II, you don't need to fiddle with resistors. You do have to replace the SIMMs in sets of four, giving possibilities of 1, 2, 4, 5, and 8 MB with 256Kb and 1Mb SIMMs. I can hardly wait for 4Mb SIMMs and a 32MB Macintosh (full color frame buffers take a lot of memory). Stew Rubenstein Cambridge Scientific Computing, Inc. UUCPnet: seismo!harvard!rubenstein CompuServe: 76525,421 Internet: rubenstein@harvard.harvard.edu MCIMail: CSC
graifer@net1.UUCP (08/16/87)
So enough already! Clearly it works. Would whomever started this thread
finally confess where he got the simms from and what their order number is.
I'm sure the manufacturer's rep that supplied the samples would love the
unexpected business!
Thanks in advance...
Dan Graifer
graifer@net1.UCSD.EDU
Disclaimer: Nobody ever listens to me anyways; Why should they start now?clubmac@runx.ips.oz (Macintosh Users Group) (08/17/87)
moriarty@tc.fluke.COM (Jeff Meyer) writes: > A friend tells me that something needs to be jumpered on the Mac+ board so > that the other 2M can be accessed, and he frowned on the possiblity of a > 2.5MB combination. Two questions for you hardware people, or people who > have installed Dove upgrades WITH the 1 Megabyte cards (eight or nine chips > per card): Is 2.5 MB an impossibility? And what jumpered operations need to > be made to get a Mac+ to recognize that other 2MB? (This is the one I REALLY > want to get an answer to). > You need to remove resistor R8 - which should be found toward the rear of the Mac+ logic board in the general area of the modem and printer ports. It's clearly marked with "256K BIT" on one side and "RAM SIZE" on the other. Which brings me to my question: How much are the SIMMs and who's the best supplier? A supplier here in Australia is selling their own SIMMs ( made with Toshiba (where's that damn sub?) 120ns 1-mbit chips) for $995 for 2 meg (US$700). We would like to see whether it is worthwhile to buy them from the US.
eacj@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Julian Vrieslander) (08/20/87)
In article <1063@runx.ips.oz> clubmac@runx.OZ (Macintosh Users Group - Sydney, Australia) writes: > > Which brings me to my question: How much are the SIMMs and who's the best > supplier? The cheapest supplier I found at the Mac World Expo in Boston was an outfit called "Hard & Soft, Inc." They had a show special going on: $497 (US) for a pair of 1 Megabytes SIMM's. One pair will upgrade a Plus or SE to 2.5 Meg, two pairs upgrade a Mac II to 5 Meg. These were claimed to be the 120 or 100ns types (suitable for the Mac II). I think I heard them say that the price was going up to around $560 after August 21. Well, I ordered up a mess of their stuff for the Macs in my lab. You can bet that I'll post a flame if their stuff turns out to be junk. Address/phone for these folks: Hard & Soft, Inc., 2005 West Cypress Creek Rd., Fort Lauderdale, FL 33309 (305) 772-0430 At the Expo they were also introducing an internal RLL SCSI hard disk for Mac II called "The Silver Server." I hope they do better QC on their hardware then they do on their jokes... -- Julian Vrieslander (607) 255-3594 Neurobiology & Behavior, W250 Mudd Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca NY 14853 UUCP: {cmcl2,decvax,rochester,uw-beaver,ihnp4}!cornell!batcomputer!eacj ARPA: eacj@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu BITNET: eacj@CRNLTHRY