Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!public!thad
From: thad@public.BTR.COM (Thaddeus P. Floryan)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: Re: I'm worried about EPROM labels....
Message-ID: <1896@public.BTR.COM>
Date: 24 Feb 91 05:51:59 GMT
References: <8505.27b915d3@jetson.uh.edu> <13650003@hp-and.HP.COM>
Organization: BTR Public Access UNIX, MtnView CA, Contact: cs@btr.com 415-966-1429
Lines: 22

In article <13650003@hp-and.HP.COM> panek@hp-and.HP.COM (Jon Panek) writes:
>Here at Hewlett-Packard (Andover Division), we use EPROMs regularly to
>store microprocessor code in our medical products.  We cover the quartz
>windows using standard, adhesive paper labels.  As one responder noted,
>commercial users like to label their EPROMs by printing on the labels with
>a dot-matrix printer prior to covering the windows.  These paper-based
>labels have proven completely reliable for use in medical products.  Do
>note that these EPROMs are inside closed instruments, and probably never
>see the light of day.  

Precisely true!  I have terminals from the late '70s whose code exists in
paper-label-covered EPROMs which still work fine.

One of my own company's products, since 1983, includes EPROMs shielded by
paper labels on which version numbers were printed by a dot-matrix printer,
and not ONE of those EPROMs has ever lost its data; to be fair, the circuitry
containing the EPROMs is entombed in Pac-Tec plastic cases (thus no direct
exposure to daylight or flourescent lighting).  I don't know what would happen
if we were to use transparent cases and the customer base included tanning
salons, but ...  :-)

Thad Floryan [ thad@btr.com (OR) {decwrl, mips, fernwood}!btr!thad ]


Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com