Msg: 6268 *Conference*

01-31-96 21:53:38

From: RICHARD HANSON

To : DAN LANDRY

Subj: REPLY TO MSG #6266 (WORRIED ABOUT MY ORDER)

Dan ... you asked a very good question about your Booster Pac order being a bit
late.  And, since you are not alone, I am posting this reply in the public
forum.  I have all the Booster Pac orders on a special bench in the lab where I
have the tools necessary to assemble and test Booster Pacs.

I started making up the orders and forsaw no problem getting them out the door
within a realitively short time.  Then, strange things started happening.  I
burn two separate ROMs for the Booster Pacs.  One is the system ROM and the
other is the Application ROM.  I install the ROMs, connect up a cable I know
works, connect it to a test machine and call the boot routine.  That's when the
problem started ... and this is the first time I've seen this problem.

The Booster Pac boots but low and behold the application ROM fails to boot!

"What the heck," I say.  So I start testing and swapping and buring new
Application ROMs ... but the problem persists!  At the same time, orders are
coming in by mail, fax, e-mail, and pony express.  This is really very cool
except for this Booster Pac problem!  I keep swaping out components but no luck
... and then, one boots!

I think, "What did I do different?  What variable changed?"  Seems I was, for
the first time, buring Booster Pac ROMs using 200ns EPROMs vs. the 100ns and
150ns EPROMs I used to use.  Seems that the slower EPROMs do not work.

Hey!  A simple solution all this time ... and all this time passed, too.  I've
shipped a couple of the Booster Pacs this week and you and a few others are
being readied to ship out tomorrow.

I apologise for the delay.  I appreciate your inquirery.  -Rick-