[comp.sys.cbm] Hdwe repair help

euloth@dalcsug.UUCP (George Seto) (02/12/88)

I am posting this for a friend who has no access to the net.

In the RTC C-Link interface, there are three IC's. They have had the
part numbers sandpapered off. HE is trying to repair it and needs to
know what the chips are. Can anyone help? Thanks in advance.

.

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elg@killer.UUCP (Eric Green) (02/15/88)

in article <337@dalcsug.UUCP>, euloth@dalcsug.UUCP (George Seto) says:
> I am posting this for a friend who has no access to the net.
> 
> In the RTC C-Link interface, there are three IC's. They have had the
> part numbers sandpapered off. HE is trying to repair it and needs to
> know what the chips are. Can anyone help? Thanks in advance.

The big chip is either a 6820 or a 6821. I bet 6821 (pinouts are identical
between the two, fanouts are different from the i/o port). It's the one that's
most probably gone. The TTL closest to the edge connector is a open-collector
high-voltage buffer that most probably is still good unless your friend really
fried things. I forget the exact number, alas, it's been awhile. I suspect
either a 7407 or its non-inverting mate.  Finally, the TTL closest to the
computer is that old standby, the 74LS30, the 8-input NAND gate used so often
in these "transparent" interface thingies. 
     A long long time ago, right after RTC declared bankruptcy and went under,
I blew up my computer with that "#$"$% stock Commodore power supply, C-LINK
included (took $40 worth of chips to rebuild everything... practically every
MOS chip in the entire computer was fried to smithereens). I had to do it the
hard way... by looking at what lines went where (stripping the board helps),
and then matching it against the TTL databook. The 74LS30 was a piece of cake,
it has a pinout that's singularly distinctive (8 inputs, 1 output?  sheesh!).
The idiots thinking that filing the number off of it was a deterrent were
either brain dead or just weren't thinking... I suspect the former,
considering that RTC went under. No wonder. As for the big chip, what the hell
could it be besides a PIA or VIA or CIA? It's easy enough to tell the
difference... a PIA has 3 chip selects, a VIA two, a CIA only 1. Sheesh.
Anyhow, pinouts matched with a PIA. Case closed, mystery solved. Those people
at RTC musta had noodles for brains, because I make no bones about being
software, not hardware, and if even I could figure it out...

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