RAM Upgrade for R-1800's

[kc7gr]

Fellow techies,

It's probably common knowledge, for those familiar with the units, that the R-1800 suitcase programmers only came with 1K RAM by default. Said RAM is made up of pairs (one pair per 1K) of type 2114 SRAM chips, 450nS speed, a type that has been considered "obsolete" for many moons and is increasingly tough to find.

I'm happy to report that I've found at least one source for NOS (New/Old Stock) 2114's for those wishing to upgrade their units to 4K (required for some of the larger Syntor X or MX-S codeplugs). Specifically, Jameco Electronics. All you need to do is order up six of their catalog #38957PS, $2.29 Ea. for 1-9 pieces, $1.99 Ea. for 10-99, or $1.79 Ea. for 100 and up.

Once you get 'em, install them in the six empty sockets on the CPU board (usually the second one up in the stack). Upon power-up, you should then receive the message '4K RAM on board.'

http://www.jameco.com

Happy hunting.

[DJP126]

That is good news! Just a reminder to those that do upgrade their RAM. Remember to properly orientate the chips. The only program that REQUIRES 4M was the MSF program, Syntor X and MX-S will work with 2M.

[d119]

I did this upgrade several months ago on my R1801, and I still get the "1K RAM ON BOARD" message, but MSF runs fine.

Odd.