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From: ranger@ecsvax.UUCP (Rick N. Fincher)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: Re: RamFactor
Message-ID: <2453@ecsvax.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 11-Dec-86 09:46:11 EST
Article-I.D.: ecsvax.2453
Posted: Thu Dec 11 09:46:11 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 14-Dec-86 14:57:05 EST
References: <8612081353.aa00766@SPARK.BRL.ARPA>
Organization: UNC Educational Computing Service
Lines: 54
Summary: No schematic in manual....

In article <8612081353.aa00766@SPARK.BRL.ARPA>, CLAK100@BGUNOS.BITNET writes:
> Attn: Rick Fincher
> I enjoyed reading your comments on the RamFactor card as I am thinking of
> buying one.  Can battery back-up be added without buying the manufacturer's
> back-up kit?  Does the card come with a schematic diagram.  I was thinking about
> adding a NiCad pack or lithium battery mayself.

Earl,

There is no schematic in the Ramfactor manual.  There is a 4 pin co         
connector on the card for connecting the backup power supply.  The
power supply automatically switches into the backup mode when you 
power down the system.  If there is a power failure the backup unit
automatically switches into the battery backup mode (the other mode
is supported by AC power and can be maintained indefinately) and gives
you about 5 hours of battery backup for the RAM card.  The tech support
folks at AE may be willing to give you a hand with this.  The four pins
on the card that the backup unit connects to have two jumper clips on
them when the backup unit is not connected.  I presume 2 of these pins   
are a strobe of some sort for an impending loss of power and the other
2 are the actual voltage lines.  If AE won't help you out I can put a
multimeter on the power supply and tell you what levels are on which pi      
pins.  I don't have an O-scope so I won't be able to help much with what
is on the card pins and the timing.

Rick Fincher
ranger@ecsvax

PS-

I was wrong about not being able to partition the Ramfactor into mu        
multiple Prodos sections so that you can run both an expanded Apple-
works desktop and a Prodos RAM disk.  The Ramfactor CAN do this.  In
fact, the card has onboard software in ROM to partition the card in up
to four separate partitions.  Only one Partition is active at a time.    
If you use a program that needs more than 128K, leave enough RAM in the
first partition for that program.  Software thinks the first partition
is an Apple memory card and is ignorant of the other memory partitions.
Then, set up the second partition as a Prodos Ram disk and you will be 
all set.  This is nice for any program that automatically claims the
Ram card for its own use, like Appleworks 1.3 or SuperCalc 3a.  This way
you get both the extra program RAM and the RAM disk.  This is also nice
because the partitions can be in any operating system (Dos 3.3, Pascal
1.3, CPM or Prodos) and all of the partitions are bootable.  All you have to           
have to do to go from Prodos to Pascal, for instance, is run the built
in program by tybooting the card (if the card hasn't been formatted for
a particular operating system, booting a partition that has Basic in it
and running the chpartition chooser from the monitor otherwise) and s       
selecting which partition you want to be active, and booting that par           
partition.  The whole operation of quitting one operating system and
booting another takes about 10 seconds.  All partitions will maintain
their contents during resets and control-open apple-resets, and if you
have the battery backup, all of the partitions are maintained when the
machine is powered down.