Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!think!bloom-beacon!athena.mit.edu!dcw
From: dcw@athena.mit.edu (David C. Whitney)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: Re: The Apple ][GS battery
Message-ID: <10958@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU>
Date: 30 Apr 89 00:43:46 GMT
References: <4473@brains.UUCP>
Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU
Reply-To: dcw@athena.mit.edu (David C. Whitney)
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Lines: 20

In article <4473@brains.UUCP> robert_macausland%brains@iisat.UUCP writes:
>Re:The Apple ][GS battery:
>  I was wondering why the GS would have the control panel settings backed u p
>by a battery and not an EEPROM which I assume wold hold the data longer and
>wouldn't need to be replaced... 

Well, for one thing, EEPROMs take a *long* time to write to - upwards
of 100 milliseconds or so. Compare that to the 150 nanoseconds it
takes to write to RAM. The computer would have to come to a complete
halt (well, almost) just to change the control panel.

The BIG loss with EEPROMs is they can only write a hundred or so
times. Then they go on the fritz. If you're the type who sets his
machine and that's it, then EEPROMs wouldn't be a bad idea. But it
would be costly for those who like to change things all the time as
they'd have to change the chips every now and then.
Dave Whitney	A junior in Computer Science at MIT
dcw@athena.mit.edu  ...!bloom-beacon!athena.mit.edu!dcw  dcw@goldilocks.mit.edu
I wrote Z-Link & BinSCII. Send me bug reports. I use a //GS. Send me Tech Info.
"This is MIT. Collect and 3rd party calls will not be accepted at this number."