[NTLK] eMate 300 Memory Upgrade

[Greg Goodwin]

Really glad I got the upgrade card when I did.  

Doctor Clu


> On Apr 4, 2018, at 9:30 PM, Randy Glenn <randy.glenn at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Also, does anyone have the eMate diagnostic PC card? That will probably be
> useful for testing whatever card we wind up with.
> 
> On Wed, Apr 4, 2018 at 10:29 PM, Randy Glenn <randy.glenn at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> A larger part might work. From the research I was doing yesterday, the RAM
>> chips used in the eMate card have 12 row address bits and 8 column address
>> bits, with the lower 8 row bits sharing pins with the column bits. Two
>> strobe signals are used to indicate whether the address present is a row or
>> column address. A part with 12 or more row bits and 8 or more column bits
>> might work - the problem with an exact replacement is that the 1Mx16 chips
>> I found still being sold, all use 10 row and 10 column address bits. I
>> don't think the eMate will be able to see all of that memory.
>> 
>> If you have a schematic in that ZIP file that you're willing to share, I
>> can start checking into alternatives.
>> 
>> On Wed, Apr 4, 2018 at 7:02 PM, NewtonTalk <newtontalk at pda-soft.de> wrote:
>> 
>>>> Duplicating the layout is probably not a huge problem these days - it's
>>> locating compatible RAM and Flash memory. I don't think that stuff has
>>> been
>>> made in about a decade and a half.
>>> 
>>> Folks, hold your horses for a while. As I recently mentioned on the list,
>>> I've bought everything David had left from his SER001 and his eMate
>>> upgrade
>>> board projects.
>>> 
>>> David also kindly mailed me a zip file that, as far as I can judge it,
>>> contains everything I'd need for having new PCBs made. I can't open most
>>> of
>>> these files, but that's not surprising since I do not have any PCB
>>> software
>>> on my computer yet. But there are folders named Gerber, Plot, PCB etc. So
>>> I'm inclined to think that as to having new boards made, I already have
>>> what
>>> is required.
>>> 
>>> You probably can't believe this, but my life has been so busy recently
>>> that
>>> David's box has been sitting on my desk for weeks. So I don't know yet
>>> what's in there. I think David mentioned unpopulated boards. I could use
>>> those to rig up a 2nd edition prototype. The eMate memory upgrade
>>> basically
>>> consists of three memory chips. You can buy memory chips today. Most
>>> likely
>>> not those needed for the board, but so what. The chips you CAN buy will
>>> provide much more memory than the original chips and have more pins.
>>> However, as long as voltage, current and timing are similar, which they
>>> very
>>> often are, all it depends on is the pinout. You can easily turn a 16MB RAM
>>> into a 4MB RAM by bending two address pins up and wiring them to ground.
>>> The
>>> eMate wouldn't know it's working with a chip whose memory size we just
>>> shrunk (Honey, I shrunk the chips...).
>>> 
>>> Once everything works, we can adjust the data files I have from David and
>>> have new boards made.
>>> 
>>> Cheers
>>> 
>>> Frank
>>> 
>>> -- Newton software and hardware at http://www.pda-soft.de
>>> 
>>> 
>>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> 
>>> http://newtontalk.net/
>>> http://twitter.com/newtontalk
>>> 
>> 
>> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> http://newtontalk.net/
> http://twitter.com/newtontalk