Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!lll-crg!mordor!sri-spam!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!decvax!mcnc!ecsvax!ranger 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.