memory upgrades at amersfoort

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.

MMmmmm... good point about the fire code thing. Will the hotel be as paranoid as an american one? Possible, I suppose. I wonder if we can arrange for an extension cord to the outside, and do a few mods during the afternoon outdoor session.

I think the mod will take closer to Hugo's estimate of 5-10 minutes (soldering) per unit, though.

Cheers

It already is dumped out to serial.

But to see it, requires a laptop or terminal to be attached.

Might be better to just dump it to the built-in display.

Cheers

HI PIM,

Count me in, please!

bye

I could bring an old serial terminal. Less likely to be stolen than a laptop ...

Pim

It's not too bad, and if one person does the straightening/re-bending of the pins whilst another does soldering, then it can be pipelined nicely.

The piggyback soldering takes only about 15 minutes, including checking.

The nasty bit is the connection of the RAS lines, which is fiddly and fraught (as people have found out!)

Hugo

If we need more upgrades to make it interesting for Hubert, i'd like to have my MK1 and MK2 done, too... buying the chips from Hugo...
And a place to sleep shouldn't be a problem. A few euros extra per upgrade will pay a room at the hotel...

And the idea of a damage-fund should be discussed again.

Maybe I coud have one done as well

J.

Fine precision soldering and amersfoort meet i don't think that is really a good combination but Rob S is a diva with a soldering iron when shall we say well lubircated

Hi all.

It has been a long time since I really checked this board on a regular schedule, but I kept an eye on the mail gateway posts, and finally Paul's bunch order an this thread triggered my interest again.

Well, if this memory upgrade will be possible at the Amerfoort meet, I would actually like to have it done on my two units: MkII and MkIIa.
If I understood everything correctly, [edit] Hugo will bring some chips for the non-a MkII while the set I ordered from Paul is for the MkIIa, right? I am willing to pay up to 60EUR (possibly even more) to have both my units done, plus hardware cost of course.

cu,
Sven

BTW of soldering: Is Rob S providing support again? My MkII needs a new rotary encoder as far as I can tell.

I'd be interested in a memory upgrade for a mk2 ...

Reading between the [censored] lines, I'm guessing this will be a go(?). Anyone care to confirm?

I'll have my empeg, laptop, serial cable, and a set of memory chips. Anything else that I need to bring?

It's not in the plans AFAIK. We need to keep the hotel very happy and I don't think a soldering station will be conducive to that.

Rob

Hi.

Any official news? I thought I read in another thread that the hotel thought the soldering station would be OK?

cu,
Sven

Why would anyone make the effort to attend the meet and spend all their time soldering memory upgrades?

I hear what you're saying here. Perhaps one possibility is that the solderer could take the mainboard away with them, fit the RAM and ship it back to save (one way) on postage costs?

I have not heard anything more from Pim, and he's not signed up for the meet. I know he had tickets for the NSJF. He may turn up for the meet on the day, but as to whether his friend is going to do the work or not - I don't know. The hotel's attitude is a bit negative (I am a bit disappointed with them, actually - new management) but at the moment there is no sign that upgrades will be happening at the event.

Sorry to be this late with this bad news. Rob S tried to get
last-minute permission, but the hotel will not let us solder there.

Hubert will do upgrades at his home in Delft, though. You might
drop by has place on your way back home. If you read this
while on the way, you might leave your empeg there and pick
it up on the way home.

Hubert's email address is just hubert. The domain name
is two I's (eye eye) under the netherlands top level domain.
Sorry to be so cryptic, this is to protect him from spam.

If you PM me BEFORE 15:00 CET, I will give you his mobile
phone number. Otherwise, I'll announce it on saturday.

Pim

I can give you his address right now:

Hubert Hoefsloot
Isaac da Costalaan 81
2624 XS DELFT

Attached you will find directions.
The starting point is exit "Delft Zuid"
from highway A13 (Den Haag - Rotterdam).

Please make an appointment first!

Pim