adam@ste.dyn.bae.co.uk (Adam Curtin) (05/29/91)
A posting in April about this upgrade caught my attention, as the price (299 pounds inc. VAT) was hundreds cheaper than the best price I'd seen elsewhere. The posting erroneously gave IFEL (Interface Electronics)'s address as Portsmouth, when they are in fact in Plymouth - they advertise in the Acorn comics and I'm sure you can get the number from directory enquiries. I ordered my memory that day (19th April) and it arrived on 24th May. The #299 price includes the memory and a MEMC1a, but not carriage which was an extra #4. They also try to sell you a chip extractor for the old MEMC for #20, of which they will refund #10 if you return it within ten days. I declined and used the point of a compass. The upgrade comes with excellent instructions and a "no quibble" guarantee, and consists of a MEMC1a, another little replacement chip which sits between the ARM and the MEMC, and two boards: one holds the memory and your RISCOS ROMs, plugging into the ROM sockets on the Arc pcb, the other holds the MEMC1a and plugs into the MEMC socket. The two boards are connected by a short ribbon cable. After removing the pcb from the machine, you remove the four RISCOS ROMs from their sockets, very gently using a couple of flat-blade screwdrivers, and install them in the matching sockets on the upgrade board. Remove the MEMC from its socket using the extractor tool or any other handy thin pointy object, gradually levering it out working on opposite corners. Beware - this may ruin the socket. It didn't for me. Put the board with the ROMs in, then the other one into the empty MEMC socket. I never feel happy putting this much force on a chip, but you do have to push quite hard. In fact the key to the whole process is gentleness. Don't do anything without stopping to think whether there's a kinder way - it makes you sweat, I can tell you! Then just throw it all together - refitting is the reverse of removal, as they say. Hold down the "R" key, switch on, and ... nothing. When I'd stopped crying, I took it all to bits again and found that the board with the ROMs wasn't seated properly. The pins underneath, which engage with the RISCOS sockets, needed bending in very slightly (which you can do with a wooden ruler or some such), then pushing down into the sockets. The other thing which needed fixing was a little rubber pad which was fouling another chip on the Arc pcb. I cut it down with a kitchen knife at first (sorry Amanda) but it needed cutting below the level of the soldered lumps under the board, so I just pulled it off. Put it all back together again, and ... Dun dun derrrrr! Risc OS 4096K! It fits OK with my Watford Electronics 40Mb hard disk. It works fine, and it's changed my life just as drastically as the hard disk did - no more memory worries in normal use. So now all I've got to do is find a "440" sticker to replace the "310". Note that I have no connection with IFEL, but if I can save you some money and put some business toward a company which isn't trying to rip us off, then I'm happy. I'm not sure how much it's cost altogether, but I've a suspicion that it was cheaper than if I'd bought an A440 in the first place, and that's not bad is it? Adam -- Who was the worst poet in the Galaxy in the original radio broadcast of HHGTTG, later changed to Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings on lawyers' advice?