Re: [NTLK] A bit of a mystery

On 3/15/2007 7:42 PM, Sonny Hung wrote:
> On 3/15/07, Dan <dan@dbdigitalweb.com> wrote:
>> This has me wondering if some of the 130's did have FLASH memory?
>> Everything I have read said only SRAM was used.
>
> Hi Dan,
>
> I think only the OMP/MP100 possibly has SRAM. I know for sure that the MP130
> has Flash RAM...
> Look at the specs below in the link.
> http://www.chuma.org/newton/faq/newton-faq-hardware.html
>

Hmm very very interesting. I have to wonder why in the world they
bothered with a backup battery in the MP130 then? There is certainly no
need for one. They could have just installed a supercap similar to what
the 2x00 or emate have. Everything I have heard and read (up till now)
said SRAM. Even the sales information never said non-volatile RAM
(FLASH RAM). At least the ones I have seen. And due to the backup
battery being there (and the displays saying you will loose information
when it gets low or is missing) I never suspected to the contary.

Another reason that I never suspected, there are several cases with the
120 or 130 wouldn't want to install a package to a FLASH card directly
and you had to first install it to internal then move it to the FLASH
card (due to the internal memory being faster, supposedly the internal
was SRAM therefore faster than a FLASH card). I haven't ran into this
problem for a long time, but have in the past. Also a lot of software
installation instructions gave this as a solution if you had problems
installing the software to a card. Granted it was earlier software but
developers were still saying this when the 120 and 130 were in production.

-Dan

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