jbaron@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Jeffrey Baron) (02/23/91)
Hi again, everyone...
First off, I thank the gentleman who responded to my question about putting
a second serial port into a Panasonic by using the internal modem socket.
It wasn't a "I have blown out 3 machines trying to do the same thing" story,
but it gave me an idea of what I was talking about.
I am still open to responses about this. Another gentleman asked me to
forward anything I got to him (equally curious).
But, as always, I have more questions. Namely, according to computer shopper,
the CF-170 has a SIMM slot with which you can add a meg of memory. I don't
like tearing apart laptops unless I know what I am going to find in them.
Did they do the same thing with the CF-150/Bs? Is a 1.6 meg laptop only
$39 away?
Idle curiosity. On another note, what experience is there with Parallel Port
Disk drives like Backpack? This is, frankly, akin to a Moses Irrigation
System for your laptop if it works. Can you boot off of it? Or is it just
a data dump/retrival box?
Questions, questions everywhere, and not a user-friendly-800-tech-support-no.
to call...
<---(.X.)---{{
-__- Phaedrus
----------------------
jbaron@silver.ucs.indiana.edupwong@theory.tn.cornell.edu (Patrick Wong) (02/24/91)
In article <1991Feb23.053309.1081@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> jbaron@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Jeffrey Baron) writes: >Hi again, everyone... >First off, I thank the gentleman who responded to my question about putting >a second serial port into a Panasonic by using the internal modem socket. >It wasn't a "I have blown out 3 machines trying to do the same thing" story, >but it gave me an idea of what I was talking about. >I am still open to responses about this. Another gentleman asked me to >forward anything I got to him (equally curious). > I asked the exact question about a year ago when I wanted to put a second serial port on my T1000SE by making use of the connector in the dedicated modem slot of the machine. However, back then, I found out that it is not as easy as one thinks. The reason is that the modem Port is a dedicated modem port, not a RS232C port. Therefore, it is not as simple as getting the pinout info of the modem port and connecting it to a DB9 or DB25 connector. I had talked to a Toshiba engineer on the phone and he even faxed me a sheet which lists all the signals coming to the modem port. However, as I am no hardware guru, I don't seem to recognise all these signals. But, I am certain that there is nothing like CD, DTS, DTR, etc. It seems like the special matching connector, tHat I tried very hard to get, to connect to the modem port can not be put into good use. The closest thing I could find is a company that makes a RS232/422 card that can be put in the modem slot of a ZENITH laptop. They had explicity told me that they only make this 2nd serial port card for ZENITH laptop, nothing else. So, if you have any more info. now or in the future, please let me know. (I think at some point I will have enough of swapping of a serial mouse, modem, and a serial printer). ><---(.X.)---{{ > -__- Phaedrus >---------------------- >jbaron@silver.ucs.indiana.edu Patrick Wong
schraudo@beowulf.ucsd.edu (Nici Schraudolph) (03/05/91)
anthony@convex.csd.uwm.edu (Anthony J Stieber) writes: >In article <1991Feb23.053309.1081@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> jbaron@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Jeffrey Baron) writes: >>But, as always, I have more questions. Namely, according to computer shopper, >>the CF-170 has a SIMM slot with which you can add a meg of memory. I don't >>like tearing apart laptops unless I know what I am going to find in them. >>Did they do the same thing with the CF-150/Bs? Is a 1.6 meg laptop only >>$39 away? >Even if this is a standard SIMM socket, you probably wouldn't want to >stick one of those $39 SIMMs in it. Those are DRAMs, and consume >plenty of power which would drain your battery much more quickly than >than a static RAM SIMM would, if available. The non-volitile RAM drive >might last only hours instead of weeks. On the other hand, the RAM >expansion probably isn't too expensive from Panasonic. Well... is $350 expensive enough? Looks like a rip-off to me -- anybody know how much 1MB static RAM usually costs? If someone has any idea how to build your own CF150B RAM expansion, I'd really like to hear from you! With this price differential, there might even be some small back alley electronics store that make their own... any leads appreciated. -- Nicol N. Schraudolph, CSE Dept. | "I don't know about your dreams, but mine Univ. of California, San Diego | are sort of hackney: same thing night after La Jolla, CA 92093-0114, U.S.A. | night, just this repetitive. And the color nici%cs@ucsd.{edu,bitnet,uucp} | is really bad..." - Laurie Anderson.
anthony@convex.csd.uwm.edu (Anthony J Stieber) (03/08/91)
>Well... is $350 expensive enough? Looks like a rip-off to me -- anybody >know how much 1MB static RAM usually costs? If someone has any idea how >to build your own CF150B RAM expansion, I'd really like to hear from you! >With this price differential, there might even be some small back alley >electronics store that make their own... any leads appreciated. Well, $350 is pretty high compared to $50 (or less) for standard dynamic RAM SIMMs. But this is a pretty typical price for low power proprietary RAM modules. The 768K card for my T1000 now costs $250 (list $600). If you think these are high prices, a *128K* RAM card for an HP48s handheld computer is $320!. The RAM cards used in the new Toshibas at least are popular enough that there is more than one third party making them, competition brings the price down. Hopefully there will be a single standard that all machines, Atari Portfolio, Hewlett-Packards, Poquet handhelds, and the various MS-DOS laptops can use. It hasn't happened yet. -- <-:(= Anthony Stieber anthony@csd4.csd.uwm.edu uwm!uwmcsd4!anthony
nelson@skid.ps.uci.edu (Matt Nelson) (03/08/91)
anthony@convex.csd.uwm.edu (Anthony J Stieber) writes: [stuff about expensive ram deleted] >(list $600). If you think these are high prices, a *128K* RAM card for >an HP48s handheld computer is $320!. ^x ^^^^ let's not exagerate too much... i paid something like $190 for mine. (still quite expensive, though...) -matt nelson (nelson@psroot.ps.uci.edu)