• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

Magnavox 500 Headstart memory

M

Mangus

Member
Joined
Feb 18, 2018
Messages
27
Hey all, thanks for the group.

I picked up a Headstart 500 the other day which is in like-new condition. 386sx-16, 80 MB hard drive, 1.44 and 1.2 floppies.
1 MB of RAM.

It has 8 slots for RAM and can support up to 16 MB. It's been a decade or two since I worked with 30 pin RAM. I'd love to put 8 to 16 MB inside of it. It has 4 256KB sticks in it now.
What do I need for RAM? I see a bunch of 30 pin on Ebay.

Thanks much!
 
386sx takes 'em in pairs, I'd go for a matched set of 4 4MB 60ns, 9 chip if you can find it cheap enough. It's possible that it only supports up to 1 meg modules, but I don't see how you'd get to 16MB that way.
 
Let me know if you need memory, I have tons of it, most it new old stock. I'll beat those fleabay prices... ;)
 
Thanks everyone. I've got 4 sticks of 4MB on order. I will post back and let you know how it turns out!
 
Hi all, well I ordered 4 sticks of 3-chip non-parity, 4MB per stick - and that didn't work. I get errors at POST about Parity and such.
So I ordered 2 sticks of 3-chip parity, same deal. Machine finds some of the memory as long as the original 4 3-chip 256KB sticks are installed.
Hitting ctrl-alt-ins takes you into the BIOS on this machine where you can tell it how much memory is installed. Only allows 8 MB onboard and then allows another 8 MB on a expansion card, if you have one.

Any thoughts are appreciated. I'd be happy with 5-8MB if I can get there.
 
Mangus said:
Only allows 8 MB onboard and then allows another 8 MB on a expansion card, if you have one.
Click to expand...
Ah, sounds like it doesn't support 4 meg simms then. I've got a very early 486dx motherboard like that - 16 slots, 16 meg total. Doesn't connect the A11 address line to the simms for 4 meg.
 
You most likely need low density ram aka 9 chip. My early dells are like that, wont take 3 chip ram at all. Also be forewarned alot of stuff on ebay really isnt tested well, I be happy to send you known working ram, as I offered before. :p
 
That is def possible as well just because it has 8 ram slots doesnt mean it will use 1mb in all 8. Remember that 256kb ram was still popular.
 
twolazy said:
You most likely need low density ram aka 9 chip. My early dells are like that, wont take 3 chip ram at all. Also be forewarned alot of stuff on ebay really isnt tested well, I be happy to send you known working ram, as I offered before. :p
Click to expand...
Thanks twolazy. How do we proceed? I'd like to start with getting 4MB working and hope to get up to 8MB onboard. The BIOS seems to support it. Thanks again!
 
Most PCs of this era do require parity RAM, unless there's an option in the CMOS setup to disable parity checking.
 
twolazy said:
You most likely need low density ram aka 9 chip. My early dells are like that, wont take 3 chip ram at all. Also be forewarned alot of stuff on ebay really isnt tested well, I be happy to send you known working ram, as I offered before. :p
Click to expand...
Hi twolazy, how can I go about taking you up on some RAM for my Magnavox?
 
Sure what exactly do you need? 4 x 1mb sticks? I can dig em out for ya and test em prior to shipping. Need to know what metal are the slots, silver or gold?
 
Yes that would be great, 4 x 1mb sticks. Silver slots. Let me know how to send you some $. Thanks again!
 
I'll put out my 30 pin ram tonight and test it. Make a few more posts if you cannot message me. Once you can, throw me your address.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top