Hi,

I've found a friend of a friend who is willing to perform the 16 MB -> 32 MB
memory upgrade using pgrzelak's bulk order memory chips. He is also
very confident of his ability to do this without damaging the unit.

I'm considering to invite him to do bulk upgrades at amersfoort.
There may be others in the audience who are able to do so,
but of course, no one wants to miss any of the sessions.

So I'd like to know how many of you would consider having
a memory upgrade performed while you're in amersfoort,
and how much you are willing to pay for this service.

You would have to bring your own memory chips.

Please reply to the group.

Pim

Would be great, so we don't have to lock up RobS, Hugo, God and the Lord in an extra room with tools and soldering irons and a bunch of empegs.

Can he do the lightning-hack, too?

I'd be interested in upgrading and lighting up two mk2a-units.

The money... hmm, free beer AFTER the installs...

Sounds like a good plan to me. I'm hoping to be in Amersfoort this year and I've ordered my memory from Paul.

Would also like to know about the lighting kits as well.

I've already got my memory chips and think it's a great idea! I would bring 3 players, all Mk2a.

Lightning kits would indeed be cool too !

How much of the meeting does your friend want to miss ?

As for payment. Gee, I have no idea. What sounds reasonable?

Bah. This would have been great except I'm not going to get to come to Amersfoort *again*.

Would there be anyone capable of doing this at the Cincinnati Meet? And also for the MKl?

OK, just to lighten things up, this is a friend of a friend. I haven't met him yet.
Maybe he doesn't want to do this at all.

He's not into the Empeg/Riocar scene, but obviously he's a techie.
But we need money to draw his attention.

And of course, I cannot enlighten him about the wonders of our
toy, as this would only distract him from his soldering job.
I will need to tell him how boring people you all are and what a
crap product this is

Lightning kits would indeed be cool too !

I'll ask that too.

As for payment. Gee, I have no idea. What sounds reasonable?

What about EUR 25,- for a mk2a upgrade? Maybe we even should put
something aside in a fund in case a board dies ...

Pim

Would there be anyone capable of doing this at the Cincinnati Meet?

Yeah, that might justify a trip to Cincinnati

--John

Yep, it shouldn't be forgotten that the Mk1 upgrade to 16MB is *very* easy in comparison to the chip-stacking and patch-wire mullarky required for Mk2's. It's just a case of solder the chips down (you can probably get away without extra decoupling, as there's almost certainly enough on the other side of the board)

Hugo

Would it take a different chip?

We just need to pry more of those old chips from your tape reel of them, Hugo!

I could use a strip of them here, and would solder them to people's Mk1/Mk2 units for a modest installation fee only.

cheers

Can he do the lightning-hack, too?

Yes he can. But there would have to be more upgrades than have been requested so far in this thread.

I sense he's not quite sure what to ask for these upgrades. He's not
doing this just for the money. So far, his primary request was a place
to sleep ...

Pim

By the way, his name is Hubert

I'm asking for C$0.50 per pin for the memory upgrades, which is something like (very roughly speaking) EU0.30/pin, or EU30.00 for soldering a pair of chips. He may offer a better price at Amersfoort, since doing a bunch of them all at once will speed up any learning curve and likely take a LOT less time per unit than my one-a-week piecemeal throughput!

Cheers

The time needed for each unit also depends a lot on the ability of the owner to disassemble the unit and just deliver the board.

Maybe we should arrange for a big table in the back of the conference room, so Hubert can follow the discussions as well, and the customer in question can (dis)assemble the unit at the same table, also without missing any of the good stuff.

Pim

Would there be anyone capable of doing this at the Cincinnati Meet?

Possibly. I'm hoping to get there.

I'll bring the reel along to the EU meet

It's a reel of chips suitable for the Mk1 and Mk2 (not the Mk2a). I sent over 100 to Eutronix, but have no problem sending more to other people if they can cover the postage somehow (ideally somehow that doesn't involve complicated things - so stamped addressed envelopes are ideal though rather hard internationally)

Hugo

I'm willing to help disassemble/reassemble units with him if that helps.

cheers

That would be great!! Maybe I will go with 5 cabins. I better call them right now.

>I'll bring the reel along to the EU meet

Good! I hope to snip off a small handful of 10-16 chips from it then!

Cheers

Maybe we should arrange for a big table in the back of the conference room, so Hubert can follow the discussions as well, and the customer in question can (dis)assemble the unit at the same table, also without missing any of the good stuff.

Sounds like a plan! I think the price (25€) is acceptable too. I've never pulled the motherboard from one of my Empegs, but I don't imagine it to be that difficult.

What would be cool is if someone could bring a laptop so that immediately after the soldering work the latest version of Hijack could be put onto it to see if everything works correctly. I'd use my own laptop, but mine doesn't have a COM port anymore.

Yeah, uh, that'd be cool, since i also have a Mk1 here.

If we get someone who can do the upgrades at the Cincinnati Meet, maybe altman will let us have some of the chips. I also have a MKl besides the MKlla.

What would be cool is if someone could bring a laptop so that immediately after the soldering work the latest version of Hijack could be put onto it to see if everything works correctly.

From what I know you can upload the newest hijack kernel now, and have it detect the extra memory when it's there.

Pim

Yes, but I believe you'd still need a hyperterminal serial log of some sort to actually see if there are errors or not.

Unless there is a way to display that on the screen of the Empeg itself of course, but I don't believe there is.

I'll have my laptop with me so no problem. Let me know if I need to load anything special other than the standard tools.

A laptop and serial cable should be fine.

Mmm.. I wonder if I have time to add code to dump the diagnostics (for failed DRAM tests) to the front panel display.. ?

Not to bring anyone down, but this may not be completely practical. I can't see this upgrade taking less than about 30-40 minutes per board, possibly longer with testing, and that assumes everything works first time. To be on the safe side I personally would budget an hour per upgrade. This means you can do perhaps 8 per day.

Secondly, and more importantly, I have a strong feeling that the hotel will get pissy about setting up a soldering station for all-day use. I know there have been problems in the past when we've done soldering work, something about fire regs and the like. I strongly suggest that you clear it with the hotel first.

Thirdly, I think it would probably be a good idea to check with Rob Schofield to see if there are any problems. I know that there are more people turning up this year than ever before, and the conference room is likely to be more or less full, so there may not be any room for ad-hoc additions like tables. It would also be the polite thing to do, as he's organising the meet.

pca

You're right. This started out as a poll to see how many people are interested, but I probably got overexcited.

I'll take this up with Rob.

Pim

wouldn't it make more sense to dump it out to serial? But I guess its a bit early for the serial port to be activated

It already dumps it out to the serial port.