Re: Laptop //c

[Roger Johnstone <news2006@roger.geek.nz>]

In <qOidnYpWKIwNC57ZnZ2dnUVZ_tydnZ2d@comcast.com> Michael J. Mahon wrote:
> julian814 wrote:
>> I might want to sail into uncharted waters with the memory. The 
>> Service Manual says the memory can be expanded to 16 meg, but I'd 
>> think that with current flash technology, that could be upped even 
>> further. Granted, software converted over to Newton OS is 
>> considerably smaller, but the more I can get this thing to do, the 
>> better.
> 
> Flash memory is more like disk than RAM.

The standard eMate has 1MB of DRAM (used for running software) and 2MB 
of flash RAM (used for program and data storage), plus 8MB of ROM 
holding the operating system and various applications. There is an 
internal expansion slot which can take a memory upgrade card for both 
DRAM and flash. I can't remember if Apple ever sold one but there were 
third-party ones available.

You can also add extra flash memory via the external PC Card slot. 
Unfortunately the OS is only capable of handling linear flash memory, 
which is almost impossible to get now. Most modern memory cards have a 
controller between the computer and the memory so it appears as a block 
storage device. There is a commercial driver available which allows a 
Newton to use ATA flash memory (normally CompactFlash cards in a PC Card 
adapter) for storage.

-- 
Roger Johnstone, Invercargill, New Zealand
http://roger.geek.nz/
________________________________________________________________________
  No Silicon Heaven? Preposterous! Where would all the calculators go?

              Kryten, from the Red Dwarf episode "The Last Day"