HP 1000 new arrivals

Bob wrote... Nah, don't worry a bit. The board you have in the I/O card cage in slot 10 isn't a MEM board. It's a FEM board (the red extractor handle is a hint {you can't always trust that though} but the jumper at the back is a dead giveaway). MEM boards (memory expansion module) go in the front card cage and are used if you need to address more than 32kw of memory. FEM (firmware expansion module) is a board that goes in slot 10 (theres some exceptions here) in the rear card cage and holds microcode chips. A FEM board is just like a FAB board that mounts under the cpu board (functionally anyways). I vastly prefer the FEM board. Some say FEM is a negative over FAB, because it takes up an I/O slot and FAB doesn't. I disagree - perhaps because most all my E's are 2113's and thus I/O slots don't need to be rationed. It's far easier to change microcode - either by pulling the board and replacing chips or by swapping FEM boards - than it is to try and pull the FAB board from the bottom. About FAB boards... (and M series microcode daughterboards too)... it appears that it's not totally rare for the mounting posts to electroplate to the pads on the daughterboards or FAB boards. Since the mounting posts actually DO carry current to the daughterboards be careful when removing them. The pads are plated through, so pulling some of the plate off is damn near irreversable damage. Now more curious... the FAB board in your box isn't connected to the cpu board with a shielded ribbon cable. This effectively disconnects the FAB board - it's microcode isn't available to the cpu. Note you can't use a regular ribbon cable stub to connect the two, it has to be a shielded one. You'll definitely want that. Oh, another FEM advantage... it provides more capacity than the FAB, and more flexible addressing options. Jay West