[comp.laser-printers] Add memory to old LaserWriter Plus?

briand@tekig4.len.tek.com (Brian Diehm) (09/14/89)

A few years ago, there was a company offering a memory upgrade for Apple
LaserWriters and LaserWriters Plus. They figured a way to place and wire
in a small board with 4 256K SIMMs. The result was an Apple LaserWriter or
Plus with an extra megabyte of memory.

Unfortunately, I have forgotten the name of the company. When the DRAM shortage
came along, they dropped this product because it became too expensive, even
using 256K chips. I do not know if they ever re-introduced the product.

Now, my company has dozens of LaserWriters around, and everybody is taking out
256K SIMMs to upgrade memory in Mac Plusses and SEs. In other words, we
have the printers, we have the memory lying around, and I would love to hook
part A to part B, ending up with a LW+ that can feasibly hold some downloaded
fonts.

My query is in two parts: 1) Does anyone have any lead on the name of the
company that produced this product originally, and 2) does anyone have any
information that would help us engineer such a mod for ourselves. To be
specific, any information or schematics on the addressing system would be
helpful.

Finally, a comment. It would seem that this would be a very nice short-term
niche market for someone - perhaps the company that originally produced the
mod would consider doing it again, and offering it either with or without the
SIMMs. The conditions are now right for this, and my company can't be alone in
having lots of still-useful LaserWriters and lots of idle 256K SIMMs. Or, an
alternate would be to use a single 1M SIMM, which is also pretty cheap these
days.

Any help is appreciated. If I am successful, I am be willing to share the
resulting information. If I "succeed" by purchasing a commercial product, I
will only share the name and address of my source, not their technical secrets!

-Brian Diehm
Tektronix, Inc.                (503) 627-3437         briand@tekig4.LEN.TEK.COM
P.O. Box 500, M/S 39-383
Beaverton, OR   97077                        (SDA - Standard Disclaimers Apply)
-- 
-Brian Diehm
Tektronix, Inc.                (503) 627-3437         briand@tekig4.LEN.TEK.COM
P.O. Box 500, M/S 39-383
Beaverton, OR   97077                        (SDA - Standard Disclaimers Apply)