At 14:53 -0800 01/12/2003, Kennedy Brandt wrote: >Gregg wrote: > >> Would this also explain why NewerTech upgrades are picky about the type of >> RAM used? > >Nope. NewerTech upgrades are especially picky about RAM because Newer never >fully understood the purpose and proper use of the bus speed bit. Apple >didn't tell them how to use it since they weren't paying for the >information, so Newer had to guess, and they repeatedly guessed wrong.
Do you mean the Clock ID pins, pins 15 - 17 of the CPU card? These are used to signal Hammerhead the speed range of the CPU card so that Hammerhead or the firmware (a little hazy on the details) can adjust the bus timings for the speed of the CPU card. >Umax was paying for such information, by virtue of their Mac OS license, so >our engineers knew what it was and how to use it. Consequently, Umax's own >G3 upgrade design (which was sold to MacTell for a paltry sum) worked great >right out of the gate, without the memory spec constraints. Contractually, >Umax couldn't share the info with Newer (or anyone else who wasn't covered >by the same license). The furthest our engineers dared to go was to keep >telling Newer "You got it wrong again." That must have been very frustrating. "I wish I could tell you this simple thing, but I have this contractual obligation not to..." Still, if the issue was the clock ID pins, they should have become fairly apparent to NewerTech if they did a pin by pin analysis of some Apple CPU cards set to run at different speeds. There are only a few pins not connected to the CPU, and an examination of those remaining pins would show different ones connected to GND for different bus speed CPU cards. Plus they're right next to the CLK pins, which doesn't mean anything in an absolute sense, but is a hint because engineers tend to group pins with similar functions when they design things. Jeff Walther -- SuperMacs is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | Service & Replacement Parts [EMAIL PROTECTED] | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> SuperMacs list info: <http://lowendmac.com/supermacs/list.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/supermacs%40mail.maclaunch.com/> --------------------------------------------------------------- >The Think Different Store http://www.ThinkDifferentStore.com ---------------------------------------------------------------
