On Tue, Jan 08, 2002 at 01:38:15PM -0800, Matthew Dillon wrote: > :Those were the days, my friends... > :Dave > > Ah yes. By the time I was ready to throw my PET away the hardware > inside was so hacked up I don't think anybody but me could boot the > thing. I had replaced the character generator ROM with a RAM and wired > in a wire select to an unused bank, which meant the screen was spaghetti > on power-up until i LOAD'd a copy of the character set. I had the > machine language monitor extension rom. I had wired in an extra 16K of > dynamic ram, giving me 48K total (bank selected) (imagine piggy-backing > a bank of 14 or 16 pin DIPs on another bank and soldering each lead, > except for the select, to the one below). I had the NMI button hooked
Ah, but that is easy. I did the same when I got my hands on a free stack of DRAM chips. But mine were J-lead SMD jobs. Interesting... ;-) > These days traces or so tiny and chip leads are so close together (not > to mention the 6+ layer boards!) that hacking a PC's hardware is pretty > close to impossible. Hm. 2 months ago I removed a SMD multifunction I/O chip from a dual CPU slot 1 mainboard. And put a new (well, had to desolder that one from a donor mainboard) chip back on. It *is* doable, but you need a stereo microscope, a Weller fine-pointed thermocontrolled soldering iron and lots of patience. Only downside: people started to dial 112 (our version of 911) when I told them ;)) W/ -- | / o / /_ _ email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] |/|/ / / /( (_) Bulte Arnhem, The Netherlands To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
