Free Linux and OpenOffice - even if your email address doesn't

You have sense!. Although I suspect I'm one of the few people who actively uys serivce manuals for cars (and other devices) that I am very unlikely to ever own. Just for interest. I certainly read through the IBM PC/XT Techref before I got my first PC-compatible machine (which was a genuiine 5160 PC/XT). I also took that machine totally apart the day I got it, looked at the PCBs, read the schemaitcs again, and so on. On a couple of occasions I've bought (small-ish) bits of classic computer hardware becuase I had the technical manuals. An example : Many years ago somebody was clearing out an office and said 'Hey, you like old computers, are these any use to you?' and handed me the manuals for the Sharp PC1350 pocket computer. Not just the BASIC-programming user manual, but also the machine language manual and the service manual. Of course (beling me), I accepted them with thanks. About 10 years later I fianlly found an affordable example of that machine to go with the manuals. ObCC. That machine takes litlte RAM cards, specific to Sharp. Mine came with 2 or 3 8K cards, and upon taking one apart (very easy to do, but be careful separating the very thin PCB from the self-adhesive bits fo the frame -- the correct way to pull it is shown in that service manual...), it was obvious that the card consisted of a single SMD 6264 RAM chip and that there was space on the PCB for a second RAM chip and a 14 pin chip, which, after a little tracing, had to invert a signal. It was clear a 74HC00 would do the job. Those were easy to obtain in SMD packages, the RAM is not easy to find now. In the end I took apart an HP42S calculator, carefully desoldered the RAM from that machine, replaced it with a 62256 and moved the link (thus making a 32K HP42S) and soldered the salvaged 6264 and a 74HC00 into the Sharp RAM card, thus making it a 16K one. And yes, it did all work in the end. -tony