Thinker Toys (was: KFC (was: Mark your calendars for VCF 4.0

From: Douglas Quebbeman <dhquebbeman_at_theestopinalgroup.com>
Date: Thu Jun 22 12:39:13 2000

> > I am the proud owner of two Thinker Toys products, the Wunderbus, and
> > the EconoRAM IV (hope that's the right model, this was one of those
> > really EARLY dynamic RAM boards; the ceramic gold-topped versions of
> > these chips worked fine, the but the plastic ones had trouble forgetting
> > things when they got hit by cosmic rays).
>
> It was the gold eutectic weld that was the source of alpha particles
> that were the concern at the time. The later problem was Dram timing
> problems and there were fixes.

Ah, I stand corrected... and that would explain why the system was
always flaky with that board in, and stable without it (I was blaming
the bus).

So, knowing nothing about the half-life of the welding material,
can you tell me, has the material in the welds decayed enough now
that the board should operate in a more stable fashion?

-dq
Received on Thu Jun 22 2000 - 12:39:13 BST