12 Dec
2004
12 Dec
'04
3:58 a.m.
In message <f16f6cf804121209392fa82ab3(a)mail.gmail.com>
Brian Mahoney <mapleleafman(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Tandy used roms in some
of their models, didn't they? I mean to store applications. Acorn too,
I think.
Sounds like you're referring to the "5th Column ROM". All the Acorn
machines
I've seen have RISC OS in ROM anyway (No HDD? No problem!), though.
The 5th Column ROM socket was - IIRC - fitted to all the Acorn A-series
machines up to the A5000. I don't think there was much that ever used it. The
Acorn A4 laptop had a ROM fitted to the 5th-column slot that included copies
of the battery manager (BatMgr), I2C and Portable RMA modules.
Speaking of which, I've got a pair of A4s here. One works fine and doesn't
look too bad, the other is a bit dirty and needs a new floppy drive
(strangely enough, the drive will work after the machine has been running for
an hour or so). Swapping the drive between machines caused the fault to move
with the drive :-/
Later.
--
Phil. | Acorn Risc PC600 Mk3, SA202, 64MB, 6GB,
philpem(a)philpem.me.uk | ViewFinder, 10BaseT Ethernet, 2-slice,
http://www.philpem.me.uk/ | 48xCD, ARCINv6c IDE, SCSI
... Take care of the pennies and the Inland Revenue will take care of the rest.