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From: pnelson@hobbes.uucp (Phil Nelson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: Parity Checking / ECC RAM on the A3000
Summary: maybe parity checking is useful
Keywords: parity error detection and correction, marketability
Message-ID: <3620@tymix.UUCP>
Date: 28 May 90 23:19:44 GMT
References: <1641@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca>
Sender: usenet@tymix.UUCP
Reply-To: pnelson@hobbes.UUCP (Phil Nelson)
Organization: BT Tymnet, Inc. / San Jose, CA
Lines: 28

In article <1641@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca> lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips) writes:

>Right.. ECC is not parity, and vice versa. Parity checking is totally,
>completely, and utterly useless.

 Oh really? Please explain why parity checking would not have saved me much
time and trouble in 1986 when I bought a flaky Pacific Cypress RAM expansion
and then spent the next 2 months covincing them that the problem was not in
the then buggy Amiga software. It turned out that they needed larger bypass
caps in their memory array, since the problem was intermittent, it did not
show in their memory tests. If that box had parity, I and everyone else who
bought that box before they were finally convinced that they had a problem
and fixed it could have saved a whole lot of wasted time.

 The advantage of parity checking is diagnostic, intermittent problems on
complex systems can be very difficult to diagnose, particularly by end
users like me, who, even if they have a certain amount of expertise, have
not the time and equipment isolate the tough ones.



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Phil Nelson . uunet!pyramid!oliveb!tymix!hobbes!pnelson . Voice:408-922-7508

	The words of the wicked lie in wait for blood,
           but the mouth of the upright delivers men.   -Proverbs 12:6