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Article #2905

Piggy back DIY upgrades

#2905
From: AWINFHAH
Date: Mon, 07 Aug 1989 10:18
27 lines
1878 bytes
There has been a lot of upgrading stuff on the net lately. Many of them
discuss some type of piggy back method. This may be somewhat tricky.
The address lines have a 33 ohm series resistor between the MMU and the
RAM array. Somebody noted that they are there to limit the current drawn
from the MMU. This only partially true. Another (and probably the main)
purpose of the resistors is to avoid ringing on the address lines.

Due to the length of the traces on the PCB and capacitive loading by the
inputs of the RAM chips, this gives some LC circuit behaviour. The 33 ohm
resistor damps oscillations, and thus the resistor value is more or less
critical.

Now there are three possibilities.
1. Atari picked the right value for 1 bank installed. In this case the
   resistors are a bit too large when you install the second bank. This
   can cause address setup time problems (causing unexplainable crashes).
2. Atari picked the right value for 2 banks installed. In this case the
   RAM chips that are at the far end from the MMU can be in danger due
   to ringing on the address lines. I haven't seen any blown RAMs in a
   520, but it was a well known problem in the early PC cloning days.
3. Atari picked a value that is nearly good in both cases.

I think number 1 is true for the old 520s (in which case they probably
have 68 ohm resistors), while number 2 should be true for the 520+, the 1040
and the Mega.

I invite inside-the-ST experts to comment.
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From: AWINFHAH@HMARL5.BITNET
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Piggy back DIY upgrades
Message-ID: <8908070940.AA25858@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 7 Aug 89 10:18:00 GMT
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