Chuck,
No it is nothing that sophisticated. It is just a standard RAM board with
circuitry and BIOS to emulate a HDD. Here is the only blurb I could find on
it online:
"Solid-state disk emulator
The Blue Flame III solid-state, nonvolatile disk emulator boosts access
speed by up to 20 times. The DOS compatible card is an I/O mapped device
built from 14 SIMMs. It features a
16bit data path and transfers data up to 4 Mbytes/s. Capacities range from 2
to 56 Mbytes. Each card fits in a full length, I6-bit ISA bus slot.
Semi Disk Systems; from $595."
Based on this info it seems to max out at 4MB 30 pin SIMMs. I am guessing
this was initially because of a lack or expense of 16MB SIMMs. I wonder if
the BIOS would support a board full of 16MB SIMMs?
If it uses SIMMs, which are DRAM, thgen not only msut the SIMMs be
powered to retain the data, but there mus also be some logic -- running
-- to refresh them. That could take considerable current. A 250mA battery
is not going to keep that running for vrey long (I would guess 1-2 hours
at most).
So I think you're right. The batterty is just there topreserve the memory
contents when other suppleis (PC power supply, external battery pack) are
not.
-tony