[comp.sys.cbm] REU Upgrade...A Cheap Solution

lcs@steely.rutgers.edu (Lyle C. Seplowitz) (11/22/90)

Sorry for not posting all the information at once. The following is
taken from the letter Mr. Day sent me:

Pricing:
256K to 512K	$25
256K to 1 MB	$75
256K to 1.5 MB	$110
256K to 2 MB	$145
512K to 1 MB	$60
512K to 1.5 MB	$95
512K to 2 MB	$130
pricing includes shipping and handling

(for 128K REU owners, please contact Mr. Day for more information)

Modifications to REU:
Mr. Day installs two lights (green & yellow) to indicate which 512K
bank the REU is current accessing. Suppose you expand your REU to 2
MB. The original design of the units only allows 512K to be accessed
continuously. It is possible to use all 2 MB continuously with
specially written software. For example, if you were to access memory
at 65535, the next byte would be at 65536. However, if you access
memory at 524287 (512K), the next byte would be at 0, not 524288 or
not 0 of the next bank. Therefore 2 MB REU has 4 512K banks. Thus the
two lights indicate in binary which of the 4 banks is being accessed.

Also installed is a switch that lets you use the REU's full expanded
memory, or have it emulate a 1750 512K REU so that it remains
compatable with all software.

I am very impressed witht the professional quality of Mr. Day's work.
Not only is no tape required to keep the REU closed, the switch and
the lights look as if they were factory installed--no messy cuts!

If you use GEOS, Mr. Day has a copy of Configure 2.1 (v2.2 I think is
coming), so if you need it just ask him to send you a copy with the REU.
With 1 MB or more REU's you can have a RAM 1581 under GEOS 2.0!!!
Version 2.2 is suppose to add Shadow 1581 drive support.
I am not a member of Q-Link, so I greatly appreciate any information
on v2.2 or any other GEOS public domain software (Q-Link is too
expensive).

Address:
Raymond J. Day
9601 Morton Taylor Rd.
Belleville, M.I.  48111-1328
313-699-6727

Mr. Day recommends that you ship your REU via priority mail (about
$2.40) for fastest turnaround time. Normally he can have your REU back
in a week.

If you want more information, please write to him. Besides my REU he
has also upgraded Peter Hughes and Roger Ledbetter.

----
I have been working on the design of a new deskTop application to
replace the current one, which is real clumsy (at least for me).
Hopefully, over the holiday break in December-January I can get most
of the programming complete. If anyone is interested or has some
suggestions for improvements in the deskTop please let me know. My
version will replace the old deskTop, so when you quit or boot you are
returned to the new deskTop (but will still be able to use the old
one). Currently it is only in the design stage.

Have a good Thanksgiving...

EAO102@psuvm.psu.edu (11/26/90)

     A DeskTop replacement was published in an issue of Compute!'s Gazette a wh
ile ago, around '88 I guess.  This new version had some limitation, but gave yo
u almost 30K (?) of memory on your disk to add other utilities.