[NTLK] Jim's dead Newton

[Sylvain Pilet]

Frank,

Following your answer, concerning the fact that exchanging two Newton 2x00 ROMs of the same language does not cause a Brain Wipe, I had for a while a doubt about what I had said. It's true that I often use this manipulation to put a Watson ROM in a Newton 200, because there is no place to connect the Interconnect dongle on the Watson, the shell prevents it. So I would have to remove the Watson every time I want to connect it to my Macs. So, since the Watson is disassembled, I put its ROM in a 2000, the one I use for my tests, just to protect the Newton part of this Watson.

I said to myself "Frank must be right", you've been dismantling Newtons for longer than me, and moreover my knowledge in electronics is mediocre. 
But it turned in my head for a few days, then as I was almost certain of what I said. 
As I have a broken Newton 2000 US at the moment I thought, I'll see if that's the case. 
Result: after more than 12 tries, each time I switch between two 2x00 US ROMs, the Newton warns me at startup that the Brain Wipe has happened. As I'm doubtful, I obviously put a few notes and pkg on each ROM before changing it...
Now a question comes to me following this observation, would some ROMs be too different? In any case, physically they are identical, below the link to see the two ROM in question:
http://message-pad.net/Download/Documents/Newton-Pictures/ROM-NEWTON-2x00.jpg.

I absolutely do not want to contradict what you say but I would just like to know why I have a different result than yours.


> …
> Switching a ROM board will NOT brainwipe a 2x00 Newton unless it is
> a) a different language ROM from a 2x00 or
> b) an eMate ROM. If you'd simply transfer the ROM board from your
> working English Newton to your dead English Newton, this will only
> resurrect the latter if its ROM board is in fact
> kaput. Although this is theoretically possible, I have never had such a case
> in 20 years. I've only seen one dead Newton ROM board in all my life, and
> that was from a Newton 120.
> …
> Frank


Sylvain Pilet

http://message-pad.net
http://messagepad.no-ip.org:3680 [NPDS Tracker]