[Coco] tandy 512k board and the triad board & MPI test

[Gene Heskett]

On Sunday 29 March 2015 12:50:25 Mark Marlette wrote:
> I have seen enough power supply failures through out the years.
>
> With that said, I have also seen many 512k systems run 24/7.....hot!
> :)
>
> The surface temps on the DRAMS are over 150 degrees F, that is very
> uncomfortable to the touch.
>
> SRAM temp deltas from ambient hardly change.
>
>
> Mark Marlette
> http://www.cloud9tech.com
> mark at cloud9tech.com

This is essentially the same as Tony D's 2 meg kit, the Sims it uses are 
dynamic, meaning they need a refresh, but are cmos so their power 
consumption is directly related to the access speed asked, which on the 
coco3 is rather leasurely.  With my psu being external, I can lay a 
photo thermometer on the grill above the memory, toss a furniture 
blanket on top of that, and lift the blanket the next day and the 
thermometer is showing about a 3F rise over ambient.

Another advantage of that cool down not considered until just now, its 
been several years since I've had to get out one of my PLCC pullers and 
take a lead pencil eraser to both the gime and the socket to grind off 
the oxidation and make it run again.  Normally that is an almost 
annual "Rite of passage" when all the heat from the tandy 512k and the 
power supply stuff is inside the coco's case.

My office machine never got any of that TLC stuff as I didn't normally 
run it 24/7, and I could keep my coffee at a semi-warm drinkable temp 
sitting on top of it at the end of a long day.  Here, it runs 24/7 
because the HD's are killed by power cycles at a much higher rate than 
if left spinning.  Those 2 old Seagate Hawk 1Gb drives started life in 
an Amiga back when that gigabyte drive was >$200/copy.  Probably north 
of 200k spinning hours on them now, and running just fine.  Its kind of 
like waiting for the other shoe to drop, so at some point I'll have to 
see about dsaveing them to the cocosdc.

So I'll join the crowd saying Marks Triad kit is a heck of a way to 
prolong the life of the coco3 by cooling it off quite a bit.

So my question to Mark is:  Do you have in the works, a way to make it a 
full megabyte since that is the size of the chips? I suspect the "power" 
nitros9 users would keep you busy for a while making it if there was 
such a kit to go with the Triad.

Cheers, Gene Heskett
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