Msg: 5018 *Conference*

03-19-94 23:09:40

From: DONALD ZONGKER

To : ROBERT BENSON

Subj: REPLY TO MSG #5015 (BOOSTER PACK CONNECTION CABLE)

I had already taken the machine to the Radio Shack store when your response
came through.  I just have tried the obvious, although they didn't say what
they did to get it working again. It was back in two days and cost $ 35.00.

So much for impatience on my part.  I haven't tried to reconnect the Booster
Pack to the computer since I got it back because of the pin which is broken off
the rectangular connector.  I was afraid I'd damage something else and end up
with another repair bill.   Incidentally, it's pin 20 which is broken off, and
that is at the other end of the connector from where it appears most of the
cable wires go through. Does pin 20 do anything ?  Am I risking anything by
trying to connect the Booster Pack back to the computer without pin 20 in the
connector ?

Another question I have is why there's so little memory indicated as being in
the machine when I just have dos100.co loaded.  It was so long ago that I
bought the machine that I don't remember how much memory it was supposed to
have contained.  I bought the Booster pack so soon after I bought the machine,
that the memory in the machine seemed adequate for the small word processing
files I was writing using Ultimum ROM II.

Right now there are three chips in the machine which appear to be memory chips
in sockets marked M3, M4 and M5.  The chips have three rows of characters on
them:  first row is: JAPAN 8512, second row is: HM6264LP-15, third row of
characters on each of the chips is UOO1255O (or it could be U0012550). At any
rate, if these are the memory chips, I don't know how much base memory is in
the machine.

Can you tell by noting the characters on the chips, whether they are memory
chips and if so, how much memory I am supposed to have ?

I do know that I need to buy 8 more chips for the Booster Pack to bring it up
to the maximum. Right now, I am uncertain about how to proceed because I don't
want to do some damage to the machine by connecting the Booster pack, and I
can't see buying more memory chips for the Booster pack unless I can safely
connect the two.  Incidentally, the chips in the Booster Pack are labelled with
two lines of characters:  first line is: SRM20256LC12    the second line is:
F81E727.  I assume these are 32K chips and are the type I would want to get to
fill up the Booster Pack.

So my questions are:  how much memory do I have in the basic machine (or am I
even looking at the right chips?)
 2. Does pin 20 on the Booster Pack connector do anything ?
 3. and can I safely plug the connector back into the computer and feel that
nothing bad will happen to the machine ? 

Thanks for the help. Obviously I'm new at all of this internal workings stuff.