Re: is there any easy way to upgrade a C116 to 64k

On 05/02/2013 06:28 PM, Bil Herd wrote:
>> I like the C16 since it has the BASIC and simple Assembler in the Monitor
> that the C64 should have had from the beginning. TED also has a few
> features VIC doesn't (hardware cursor, >hardware reverse, full 64K access,
> colors, programmable counters for horizontal and vertical position).
>
> We were accused by the head of CBM England of having made the TED the
> perfect machine for pirating software.

Why? Because of the monitor? The large CBM systems had one as well, just 
not as sophisticated (no Assembler), but good enough to dump a memory 
image to disk or load it.



> I used to know the temperature we were running the die at,  if I could
> have save $.25 by running it 5 degrees C hotter I probably would have as
> that was the incentive.  With that said my background previously had been
> instrumentation and there we lived by an industrial MTBF.

Still good enough though... Especially how you get some of the systems, 
afer being stored for sometimes more than a decade in an uninsulated 
attic or damp basement. Usually you only have to replace some 
electrolytic caps to get them to work again.

There is one of the first C64 boards though where 2 caps (C107 and C108 
near the VIC) tend to leak and destroy traces in the process. Annoying 
to fix...

And the one most common fault of an cold C64 is not the large chips but 
if it contains MOS-TTLs (77xx chips). They do fail in interesting ways.


> The Rev 7 VIC was the first to use a Beryllium Copper Lead Frame to get
> the heat out, so the outside would be hotter and the inside would be
> sparkling less.

Most of the early VICs came in ceramic. Was this also due to heat?


> We were definitely purchasing CMOS gate arrays for the LCD machine,
> (someone found the missing wafers sitting in a carrier on a manger's desk
> being used as a paperweight), and CBM was transitioning to full ERC/DRC
> based tools and some outlandish autorouters for the gate arrays  (compared
> to carefully crafted layouts) that we were sourcing.  I remember Kyocera
> packaged them but I don't remember if they were also the chip fab for the
> CMOS.  Meanwhile the drawers still held rubylith and the punch card reader
> was in a corner of the hallway.  The LCD also got to break some of the
> rules for cost at least initially for where to purchase parts, but then
> was using our own LCD glass from Eagle Pitcher which we owned (Only US
> glass at the time)

And then someone told upper management at Commodore that there is no 
money in portable computers... We all know that's true, right? ;)

  Gerrit



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