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From: malpass@VLSI.LL.MIT.EDU (Don Malpass)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.zenith.z100
Subject: RE: re: NEC chips
Message-ID: <8912142230.AA00269@ll-vlsi.arpa>
Date: 14 Dec 89 22:30:04 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
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For the record, I received several responses to my reply to Gern's
condemnation of NEC chips.  There seems to be more basis for such
statements than we've been treated to in the past.  But I am still
puzzled by WHY the experience three of you have had differs so
completely from what four of us in this area have had - all of us use'd
V20's with only the IMPROVEMENTS noted and NONE of the problems, in my
case with Gern's own turbo speedup board.  And I think we've all
upgraded our mother boards to 768K per the procedures so kindly posted
here ages ago.  Virtually the only abnormality my Z has EVER given me
(which wasn't explained by some dead component or the ubiquitous
unseated connector) is trouble making a memory board behave properly as
an extended ramdisk.  For the hellovit, I'll try it with my old 8086
(if I can find it) sometime.  And while the lid's off my Z, I
will note the following and post them, as one of you requested.

>  1. What rev of the motherboard you have
>  2. What rev of the monitor you have
>  3. What speed you are running at (and rating of v20)
>  4. What you changed other that the v20
>  5. Do you use any graphics intensive software

In summary, I will now freely concede that there's room for caution,
but I must also add that NEC stuff has NEVER given me any trouble, and
I sure can't say that about many of the other dozen or two semiconductor
manufacturers I've had to deal with during 3+ decades of digital
design.

> I'm just trying to figure out what might have
> caused my problems (as I have nothing to compare
> it to). If you have MASM, maybe I could email
> you some code that bombed mine and see if it
> sends yours out to lunch.....               Scott

I know I'll not get to it for a long while (not this year  :*)  , but
I'm genuinely curious, so feel free to fire it off and I'll try to
take a look.
---
Don Malpass   [malpass@LL-vlsi.arpa],  [malpass@gandalf.LL.mit.edu]
 "Why should the TAXPAYERS have to pay for it - let the GOVERNMENT
   pay instead."  [Example of the mentality that got us in this mess.]  12/89