🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <hendersoDrMvx4.KqF@netcom.com>,
Mark C. Henderson <henderso@netcom.com> wrote:
>In article <4nle52$9p7@jedi.apana.org.au>,
>Craig Dewick <cdewick@jedi.apana.org.au> wrote:
>>Mark Henderson's NVRAM/HostID FAQ might also include how to do this, but I
>>haven't seen anything about it there.
 
>>You need to use a 3 volt cell, not a 4.5 volt one. I had a few spare 3
>>volt lithium cells out of old calculators, so I used one of them, and
>>hacked up a battery holder out of a 3.5 mm phone socket and a small piece
>>of veroboard. The assembly is stuck on top of the NVRAM with some 
>>double-sided tape. It's ugly, but it works. 
   . . .
>I was relucatant to include this in the FAQ, because it seems silly 
>to go to this kind of trouble to avoid buying a US$20 part. I finally 
>did add a descrption of the procedure taken from an old FAQ near the 
>end of the document in the "Odds and Ends" section, due to popular 
>demand. 
 
>I still don't think this is worth the trouble and inconvenience. I 
>keep a couple of spare M48T02 chips on hand, and when one fails, I 
>just pop in a new one. 

    It is not silly to go to the trouble of attaching an external
battery to the old MK48T02 when it fails. Sometimes it is
essential. It took me literally months to find where to get a
replacement. Fortunately the problem has been discussed on the net
and many people know the solution (SGS-Thompson M48T02).  But there
will still be people who need to do an emergency repair where
ordering the new part will take too long. Or there are people in
places far from distibutors or who cannot easily send US$20 out of
their country. The problem of failing NVRAM's happens on Motorola
VME boards; I passed on the info I got from Mark Henderson's old
NVRAM faq to the writer of the VME faq and he tells me that he's
gotten many thanks from people who desperately needed to know how
to attach a new battery. So keep that hack in the faq.

-- 
   Michael Coughlin      mikc@gnu.ai.mit.edu      Cambridge, MA USA