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WTB: 4MB 30pin SIMM 60ns or 70ns preferred but willing to consider 80ns

S

Shadow Lord

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Anyone out there with a tone (say 30-40) sticks of 4MB 30pin SIMMs? I'd want something that is 60ns or 70ns FPM but can work with 80ns non-FPM as well. Parity can go either way. TIA.
 
joekster said:
Somewhat hard to find, I guard my stash (<10 pieces) very jealously ;)
The 'bay usually has them for about $5 a piece +/-
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Thanks for the info. BTW: slightly OT but any thoughts on Parity vs. Non-Parity or FPM? From what I understand FPM only helps if it is supported otherwise it makes no difference. Not so sure about parity.
 
Well, I'll go ahead and say it; everyone out here is wondering what the heck you plan on doing with all of those RAM sticks. (lol) So, what gives? :whaasup:
 
Agent Orange said:
Well, I'll go ahead and say it; everyone out here is wondering what the heck you plan on doing with all of those RAM sticks. (lol) So, what gives? :whaasup:
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What else? Max out the ram on a couple of 386/486 systems I have plus spares for the future.... :) I technically need 20 sticks to max out my systems but always nice to have extra around in case of bad sticks or new systems.

To be honest it was not this hard to get them before. For example when I maxed out my Everex Step 486 (16 sticks of 4 MB FPM 60ns RAM) and my Semidisk (12 sticks of 4MB) I was able to find them nice and easy on the bay....

These days when I find parts at a good price I always buy extra. I may never need it but I've learned that if I do need it two years down the road I will be kicking myself for not buying it.
 
I prefer parity if possible to avoid having hidden errors. Won't matter too much if one is using the old system for period gaming. Don't forget that a lot of systems permit the installation of parity memory but also allow the parity check to be turned off in case the system has some other problem.
 
krebizfan said:
I prefer parity if possible to avoid having hidden errors. Won't matter too much if one is using the old system for period gaming. Don't forget that a lot of systems permit the installation of parity memory but also allow the parity check to be turned off in case the system has some other problem.
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But if you put parity memory in a system that does not support it, it should not be an issue, correct? Pricewise they seem to be the same (probably because the parity SIMMs seem to use slower chips (e.g. 80ns vs. 70ns for non-parity)) so its just a question of usability. I do agree with you if your system supports parity then you should definitely be using it but given that I do not have the manuals to most of my system I have no idea if they do or not. I've tried checking the BIOS to see if there is an option for it but a lack of an option to turn it off in BIOS is not really definitive IMHO.
 
Shadow Lord said:
But if you put parity memory in a system that does not support it, it should not be an issue, correct? Pricewise they seem to be the same (probably because the parity SIMMs seem to use slower chips (e.g. 80ns vs. 70ns for non-parity)) so its just a question of usability. I do agree with you if your system supports parity then you should definitely be using it but given that I do not have the manuals to most of my system I have no idea if they do or not. I've tried checking the BIOS to see if there is an option for it but a lack of an option to turn it off in BIOS is not really definitive IMHO.
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If you can turn parity checking on/off on your mobo, that would be an indicator that it supports the function. I believe I have mixed parity and non-parity SIMMs with okay results. However, you wouldn't want to mix them in the same bank as it will give you problems.
 
krebizfan said:
I prefer parity if possible to avoid having hidden errors. Won't matter too much if one is using the old system for period gaming. Don't forget that a lot of systems permit the installation of parity memory but also allow the parity check to be turned off in case the system has some other problem.
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Most 386/486 machines requires parity. Memory chips got expensive late in the 486 product life (look up memory dumping tariff) thus some board BIOS started allowing user to disable parity while some SIMM manufacturer started shipping sticks with fake parity part. Really the only machine that never had parity were the Macs.
 
Not really. IBM and clones seemed to be the only machines using parity bits in RAM, from what I remember.
 
Let's not forget the 'synthetic" parity chips. Instead of an extra DRAM, a parity encoder (much cheaper) was installed on some cut-rate SIMMs to generate the proper parity. Hence, they could be sold as "parity" SIMMs and were guaranteed never to throw a parity error exception!
 
dorkbert said:
Most 386/486 machines requires parity. Memory chips got expensive late in the 486 product life (look up memory dumping tariff) thus some board BIOS started allowing user to disable parity while some SIMM manufacturer started shipping sticks with fake parity part. Really the only machine that never had parity were the Macs.
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Thinking about it, it is funny that MS had to fit Win95 into 4MB while DRAM manufacturers was showing high profits.
 
yuhong said:
Thinking about it, it is funny that MS had to fit Win95 into 4MB while DRAM manufacturers was showing high profits.
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I don't really see the point of that comment. IBMs OS/2 v2 & v3 state 4mb as it's starting minimum as well. "Connect" states 8mb which is the recommended Windows 95 ram size. I'd imagine the same 8mb, if not more, would go for using various *nix with Xwindows.

Most of the clued up folk knew better and by 1995 ram prices had dropped a fair from what they were earlier in the decade. For example the previous owner of my 386DX25 system, with modo manufactured in 1989, had the nouse to install 8mb of ram for Wfw 3.11.
 
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Caluser2000 said:
I don't really see the point of that comment. IBMs OS/2 v & v3 states 4mb as it's starting minimum as well. "Connect" states 8mb which is the recommended Windows 95 ram size. I'd imagine the same 8mb would go for using various *nix with Xwindows.

Most of the clued up folk knew better and by 1995 ram prices had dropped a fare from what they were earlier in the decade.
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The point is that MS had to spend effort to fit Win95 into 4MB and the oldnewthing blog mentions some of what they had to do, for example how they had to deal with the Explorer shell which used OLE2. I thought it was after Win95 released that DRAM prices dropped drastically, for example from http://smithsonianchips.si.edu/ice/cd/MEMORY97/SEC02.PDF: "Although they started 1996 priced around $11.50, 4Mbit DRAMs ended the year priced at $2.55!"
 
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So they managed to do it, good on them. It still stands the their "recommended" minimum amount of ram was 8megs. Look at the price of ram around 1990-92 and you'll see a huge price drop between then and 1995.
 
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Caluser2000 said:
So they managed to do it, good on them. It still stands the their "recommended" minimum amount of ram was 8megs.
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And my point is how much that 8MB of RAM costed back when Win95 released compared to a year later, and OEMs was already selling sub-$1000 PCs where spending ~$100 for an extra 4MB of RAM would have caused a noticeable difference to the price.
 
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