Nekonomicon

SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of Wanted: Unwanted O2? at Oct. 2, 2009, 6:09 p.m...

iKitsune wrote:

JacquesT wrote:

dc_v01 wrote: Too bad, I used to have a bunch of these I couldn't give away. Don't know what shipping to the UK would be, but O2s aren't that heavy...

Even lighter if you take out the old SCSI HD's!

I have access to skids and skids of em, but I doubt ya wanna pay the shipping from here to Europe. :/

What does Boeing do down there? Up here things started drying up after the Indigo2 era (some Octanes, a few O2s, and some cube-logo O2ks and Onyx2s, but little else).

We lost the surplus store, too. I wonder where Boeing is sending their neat stuff (the surplus website seems to list the occasional generic PC type thing and a few times I've seen Blade-150 era Suns).

Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

Living proof that you can't keep a blithering idiot down.

:Indigo:

(single-CM)

SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of NFS irix and linux server at Oct. 22, 2009, 3:26 p.m...

At least in the IRIX 6.2 era the graphical NFS tools only worked properly with IRIX on the other side, so I started using the command line (which works just fine) and haven't tried it on IRIX 6.5. I suppose I should, but for now I'd say just use the command line (mount -t nfs etc. etc. etc.).

Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

Living proof that you can't keep a blithering idiot down.

:Indigo:

(single-CM)

SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of ID this gfx card... VPRO[V-?]? at Oct. 24, 2009, 8:33 a.m...

If you can look at the top of the board it will give memory size, printed on the PCB: ODY32 or ODY128. Sadly, there's no way to ID a particular Vpro from the outside (a la SE/SSE/MXE).

(edited - trying to banish "though" since I overuse it).

Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

Living proof that you can't keep a blithering idiot down.

:Indigo:

(single-CM)

SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of Solaris 10 10/09 is out at Oct. 24, 2009, 3:33 p.m...

For those of you who want to get the (hopefully) last version of Solaris 10 before Solaris 11 comes out, it's here.

Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

Living proof that you can't keep a blithering idiot down.

:Indigo:

(single-CM)

SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of Solaris 10 10/09 is out at Oct. 25, 2009, 9:43 a.m...

Sun's surprising quiet about their updates.

Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

Living proof that you can't keep a blithering idiot down.

:Indigo:

(single-CM)

SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of HP 9000/8x7 (F,G,H,I-class) memory/CPU/FPU at Oct. 25, 2009, 8:45 p.m...

I know the dual 7100 processor board for the x70 machines requires a slightly different backplane than the uniprocessor board, and I'm not sure whether the faster PA-7100 boards work in the "F" chassis, since HP didn't ship "F" machines with faster than 48MHz processors.

Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

Living proof that you can't keep a blithering idiot down.

:Indigo:

(single-CM)

SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of Solaris 10 10/09 is out at Oct. 26, 2009, 7:13 p.m...

R-ten-K wrote: (SUN's message wrt Solaris is rather unfocused me thinks).

Especially the part where they do everything but ask "are you sure you want to get that one" when you try to get Solaris 10 instead of OpenSolaris.

Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

Living proof that you can't keep a blithering idiot down.

:Indigo:

(single-CM)

SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of Interest in Octane V10 Graphics boards at Nov. 2, 2009, 4:33 p.m...

It would be interesting to finally answer the "V10/V12 in a 1.3 XBOW" question, but my suspicions are that they'll be pretty pricey.

Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

Living proof that you can't keep a blithering idiot down.

:Indigo:

(single-CM)

SAQ
Old Salt
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.
and authored 3874 notes

Wrote on the subject of z9... at Nov. 2, 2009, 5:30 p.m...

What you want to do is poke around on classiccmp or rescue and talk to Sridhar or kjaer here - Sridhar has a home IBM mainframe, and kjaer runs them for work.

I wouldn't get it if you didn't have all the pieces, but if you did it could be fun, and definitely a challenge. First thing - back up that ThinkPad!!!

I don't know what was meant by "Itanium compatibility" - S/360, 370, 390, zWhatever have never run Itaniums.

_________________
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

:Indigo:

SAQ
Who joined July 19, 2006, 7:37 a.m.
and authored 5730 notes

Wrote on the subject of Ayam 1.16 at Nov. 3, 2009, 2:52 p.m...

What exactly is Minerva? I'm not a SI|3D person, but it sure sounds like it might be a sample/example/demo type file, and SI might run just fine without it.

_________________
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

There are those who say I'm a bit of a curmudgeon. To them I reply: "GET OFF MY LAWN!"

:Indigo:

(single-CM)

SAQ
Old Salt
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.
and authored 3874 notes

Wrote on the subject of z9... at Nov. 4, 2009, 11:43 a.m...

R-ten-K wrote:

IBM's licensing for their big iron is a complete PITA from a hobbyist point of view. But then again, I don't think they ever assumed anyone would run one of these things at home.

I have been wondering how they get people who know how to run them. It would be interesting to see if there would be a way to quantify how many more VMS people there are now that the hobbyist program has been around for (what? 12+ years?).

IBM probably wouldn't be interested, though, although you can/could get a limited version of z/VM as a free download. Haven't tried it on Hercules yet, though.

_________________
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

:Indigo:

SAQ
Old Salt
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.
and authored 3874 notes

Wrote on the subject of Another IRIS 4D in trouble... at Nov. 6, 2009, 12:25 p.m...

dexter1 wrote:

jan-jaap wrote:

I'll be damned. I changed both the breaker on the back and the on/off switch panel on the front, and at least for the time being it's working beautifully

Awesome, Jan-Jaap! This is exactly why i really love these old systems: Using soldering iron, steel file and pliers you can repair these machines very quickly.

Nah - that's VAX-11/780 and some PDP-11/PDP-8 models. SGI has always used some custom VLSIs and PALs.

_________________
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

:Indigo:

SAQ
Old Salt
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.
and authored 3874 notes

Wrote on the subject of up2000+ questions at Nov. 11, 2009, 10:19 a.m...

jmd8800 wrote:

here is an answer to my question:

On multiprocessor machines, you will see 'P00>>' instead, or possibly some other number depending on which processor SRM is running.

i found this on the alphalinux.org wiki.

And it's also possible to switch which processor is in the console (in real-time). Same with multiproc Suns.

Note that DEC OSes don't like Matrox cards very well, although I don't think that the µP2k runs VMS. Keep the other card if you ever want to try out Tru64.

_________________
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

:Indigo:

SAQ
Old Salt
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.
and authored 3874 notes

Wrote on the subject of up2000+ questions at Nov. 11, 2009, 1:57 p.m...

jmd8800 wrote:

the guy i picked this up from was running OpenVMS on several of these boxes. i do not know if Tru64 can be installed in the same manner as his OpenVMS workaround. i would like to try Tru64, but i cannot find the hobbyist license on the HP website any more. more than likely discontinued.

i am not very familiar with how Tru64 licensing works, but i got the feeling that it is machine specific. in that case it might not work on this board. or maybe it will see the board as a DS20.

Tru64 is natively supported AFAIK - I think this is the same box as a DS20L. From a technical standpoint the licensing is similar to OpenVMS - it uses LMF and requires a valid PAK, which is legally linked with a specific machine though not technically (doesn't use serial number locking). This is good for hobbyists, as you can use your old license key on a new Alpha if you upgrade.

Rumor has it that if you know who to go to you might be able to get an Enthusiast Pack still, but the last time I heard that was over a year ago. HP isn't pushing it, since they no longer sell Alpha hardware.

_________________
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

:Indigo:

SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of What IBM hardware do we have..? at Nov. 13, 2009, 3:18 p.m...

POWERstation 7012/370. Really need to get something newer, but IBM POWER kit holds its value entirely too well.

"Brakes??? What Brakes???"

:Indigo:

(single-CM)

SAQ
Old Salt
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.
and authored 3874 notes

Wrote on the subject of Oh look. An HP 9000 D series at Nov. 13, 2009, 4:14 p.m...

sybrfreq wrote:

well, a hp-ux machine might be fun to have, but that front panel looks like it might triple the storage space requirements. With a bit of creativity it could look like a regular desktop tower. Plus, did you really need the 400 pounds of ups batteries?

The UPS battery pack is probably dead or dying, given age. A scroller saw/sabre saw/Sawzall will do wonders at slashing the space requirements of the HP front panel.

Probably a PA-8000 at 160-180MHz. HP really liked Differential SCSI during that era. Granted, diff SCSI is a much better system and should have been standard, but the fact that it isn't makes things difficult.

Many external boxes from that era have built-in HVD-SE converters, or you can look for a DEC DWZZB - the one I got was well under $10.

_________________
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

:Indigo:

SAQ
Old Salt
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.
and authored 3874 notes

Wrote on the subject of up2000+ questions at Nov. 13, 2009, 4:16 p.m...

mattst88 wrote:

You should check out Gentoo.

Debian is dead on alpha.

Keep the BSD on DEC heritage going! Several variants run well on Alphas.

_________________
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

:Indigo:

SAQ
Old Salt
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.
and authored 3874 notes

Wrote on the subject of Plotting... at Nov. 16, 2009, 3:22 p.m...

edefault wrote:

yet no real success. Still FTP'ing forth and back. For read only mounts there seem to be a couple of methods...
E. g. a free little MacOSX program called AutomountMaker (go google) does the trick.

Wasn't there a freeware program called IRIXconnect (ran on Macintosh) that mounted NFS drives by GUI?

_________________
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

:Indigo:

SAQ
Old Salt
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.
and authored 3874 notes

Wrote on the subject of up2000+ questions at Nov. 16, 2009, 3:24 p.m...

theinonen wrote:

Still I would like to have more than one choice of Linux distribution for alpha. Having only one choice is comparable to an endangered animal. If there is more than one, there is still a chance. If there is only one, it may live for a some time but after that there is nothing left.
To me having only one choice sounds like communism. It did not work in Soviet Union, and is not working very well in any other place.

Alpha isn't shiny and new enough for the Linux guys to take much of an interest in. xBSD will be around for a while, though.

_________________
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

:Indigo:

SAQ
Old Salt
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.
and authored 3874 notes

Wrote on the subject of Plotting... at Nov. 17, 2009, 7:05 p.m...

edefault wrote:

IRIXconnect does not automatically mount after boot/login, though it remembers what was mounted last.
And I guess if user name and ID matched on IRIX and MacOSX box it were possible to get write access.
Unfortunately I have no idea how to set up the user ID on a Mac manually. Got to find out.

On 10.4 and earlier go to the NetInfo Manager (in Utilities). Haven't worked with 10.5 yet - it might be in NetInfo, or it might be in /etc/passwd (OS X is going more UNIX-y, generally speaking it's a good thing. I haven't used 10.5 because they dropped Classic, and 10.6 doesn't run on PPC.)

Quote:

About my wish for Santa:
In theory, there is X11 on both systems which is famed for a complete separation of a program and its GUI;
practically I never saw any application from a Mac show up on my IRIX desktop nor vice versa.
Since I have apps here that are stuck to IRIX I´d very much like them to show up on the Mac's desktop.
Did I miss something here eventually?

I'll second that there's something rotten in the state of Denmark WRT newer releases of X11 and IRIX X clients. I've had oddities on Linux/X.org 7.things, Solaris 10/Xsun, and Mac OS X X11 (although the XFree86-based X11 on 10.4 runs better than some of the other implementations).

_________________
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

:Indigo:

SAQ
Old Salt
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.
and authored 3874 notes

Wrote on the subject of Oh look. An HP 9000 D series at Nov. 17, 2009, 7:28 p.m...

Don't worry about the graphics cards. HP liked to crow about their Visualize graphics (they liked to say that Visualize/FX was "better than anything SGI has on the desktop"), but really there isn't much out there that uses it. Stock HP X11 works just fine in an 8-bit setup, and unless you have some of the CADAM software that really sold the fancy Visualize workstations (look up the HP Corvette Box to see about it) there won't be anything that actually uses the graphics except, possibly, some freeware software (Blender doesn't even have a HP-UX binary). I had Visualize/FX in a B1000L (faster than anything you can get in the GSC/HSC connected cards) and I wound up pulling it to save on the power and heat output. Run it to a remote X server - you won't miss much. HP didn't ship much of the stuff that SGI did to help you use their graphics - just OpenGL libraries.

What you might miss is the special 25(?)th line where HP does their F-key mapping and suchlike. It's supported on real HP terminals and the glass console, but doesn't work right with Wyse/DEC/other types of terminal. Good news, though - you can get a free Windows HP terminal emulator here http://www.aics-research.com/qcterm/index.html .

_________________
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

:Indigo:

SAQ
Old Salt
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.
and authored 3874 notes

Wrote on the subject of Oh look. An HP 9000 D series at Nov. 17, 2009, 8:22 p.m...

BTW you probably need a HSC form-factor card rather than the horizontal form factor card. Check the HP products guide.

_________________
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

:Indigo:

SAQ
Old Salt
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.
and authored 3874 notes

Wrote on the subject of Plotting... at Nov. 18, 2009, 2:59 p.m...

edefault wrote:

Quote:

I'll second that there's something rotten in the state of Denmark WRT newer releases of X11 and IRIX X clients.

What about the other way round?

Never tried it the other way around. IRIX workstations use X11R6 (for IRIX 6.x where x is greater than or equal to 2) or X11R5 for 5.3/6.0/6.1. I would have been more likely to expect a problem here, with a X client calling something in the X11R7 spec that isn't supported by the IRIX X server, but I need to try that at some point, I suppose.

_________________
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

:Indigo:

SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of new to SGIs at Dec. 20, 2009, 10 a.m...

acidchrist wrote: At this point i was doubting that the problem came from the screens themselves so i took my octane to a friend's house where he has a SOG monitor (an old proview 700P 17" LCD). 150km at night with an SGI octane in the passenger seat of your car is something you have to do once in your lifetime .

Wait a few years to when you're doing it with an Onyx/Onyx2/Origin/Challenge deskside. That's even better.

also i noticed this on one of my friend's install CDs (from the 6.5.11 release):

(Picture of CD with two demo versions)

wtf, SGI ? (my friend also told me that the 6.5.11 gives errors/problems with scripts when installing, on both octane and O2 systems. SGI systems sure are a lot of fun! )

i know, cool story bro

While I haven't used that CD, my guess is that there are Octane/Mardigras (IMPACT *I or *E graphics) demos and probably some other demos specifically for Odyssey/VPro (the 1.0 demos for Octane2), showing off the fancy new features of the Octane2 graphics.

"Brakes??? What Brakes???"

:Indigo:

(single-CM)

SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of Testing the waters: SGI/NeXT/FC/SUN collection (maybe) FS at Dec. 21, 2009, 8:38 p.m...

I'd think that 100 Euros would be more in line with the O2 or Indigo2 - but those are at American prices (Europe might be more expensive for the same SGI).

Without the GIO Presenter interface I'd put the Indy more at the E25-50 range.

"Brakes??? What Brakes???"

:Indigo:

(single-CM)

SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of new to SGIs at Dec. 21, 2009, 8:45 p.m...

SGI uses scancode 3. I've had good luck with IBM keyboards, and I'd suspect that any good PS/2 keyboard would work, but it's likely that the cheap ones won't because scancode 3 isn't used much.

"Brakes??? What Brakes???"

:Indigo:

(single-CM)

SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of Testing the waters: SGI/NeXT/FC/SUN collection (maybe) FS at Dec. 22, 2009, 3:15 p.m...

ck_one wrote: Hello again,
wow, so many responses. Thanks for your input. So, it boils down to the following:
The O2 and Indy are worth close to nothing, the Indigo 2 a bit more (maybe). It does not seem that the rare goodies (Impact compression, Indy bag, Presenter and Dukane stuff) add that much value (you don't want to know how much the compression and presenter boards/displays costed some years ago. The NeXTcube still has some value, but that system would give me lots of pain if I give it away, so compensation would be in the k€ range.

@acidchrist: the indy case is in very good condition, nothing broken or scratched. If there is serious interest I can take some pictures during the christmas holidays.

regards,
ck_one

IMPACT compression is definitely worth something, not nearly what you paid for it, but still something. It's the best video option for Indigo2, and much rarer than the Cosmo (Indigo2Video, Indigo2Video for IMPACT, Cosmo Compress) series. Presenters have a following, but you'll need to find them.

The Indy is in good condition, maxed out CPU/RAM and decent graphics, which puts it over the 10-20 euro range. I stand by my ~U$30-50 estimate.

"Brakes??? What Brakes???"

:Indigo:

(single-CM)

SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of new to SGIs at Dec. 25, 2009, 9:14 p.m...

acidchrist wrote: ...macbook running for now but once i get the core2/CUDA machine back on i should have an acceptable RAC

Isn't that cheating?

"Brakes??? What Brakes???"

:Indigo:

(single-CM)

SAQ
Old Salt
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.
and authored 3874 notes

Wrote on the subject of Period Comparison of Onyx(1) IR and Commodity Graphics at Dec. 25, 2009, 10:16 p.m...

tomo wrote:

Nice numbers for old SGI's.
O2 was only 180MHz R5k and it catch modern graphics with mutch faster processors.

Not to mention that it looks like some if not most of the IRISes were memory-starved (96MB for IRIX 6.5? 256 is better...)

_________________
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

:Indigo:

SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of Graphics Properties Holdings, Inc.? at Jan. 12, 2010, 9:02 p.m...

The renaming of companies when they enter bankruptcy has become common recently. When GM went bankrupt, several unscrupulous types sold "old" GM stock (worthless) when "new GM" started going up.

GPH is to prevent people from capitalizing on SGI/Rackable's skyrocketing stock price by selling "old SGI" stock.

"Brakes??? What Brakes???"

:Indigo:

(single-CM)

SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of Graphics Properties Holdings, Inc.? at Jan. 15, 2010, 6:14 p.m...

Gerhard.Lenerz wrote: Did anyone follow what happened to SGI when Rackable acquired it?

Did Rackable buy the company as a whole (i.e. shares) or did they buy assets out of the ex-SGI which of course then would need a new name before going into final liquidation (like GPH for example)?

99% sure it was just the assets. I threw away the stuff, though.

"Brakes??? What Brakes???"

:Indigo:

(single-CM)

SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of Graphics Properties Holdings, Inc.? at Jan. 17, 2010, 12:32 p.m...

compuman86 wrote: well, these guys seem to think sgi stock is still worth $60 http://www.scripophily.net/silgrapincsg.html If I knew this I would've bought a few before they tanked....

Not stock, stock certificate.

There probably aren't too many stock certificates around for SGI or any other tech companies. You have to go through many hoops to get a broker to issue you a real stock certificate nowadays (nowadays meaning some time in the last 15 or so years).

"Brakes??? What Brakes???"

:Indigo:

(single-CM)

SAQ
Old Salt
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.
and authored 3874 notes

Wrote on the subject of 4D/240GTX troubleshooting at Jan. 26, 2010, 5:09 p.m...

Poke around on the pins with a voltmeter. There should be a little something still there.

_________________
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

:Indigo:

SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of What made you a SGI fan? at Jan. 26, 2010, 7:43 p.m...

sybrfreq wrote: point being, irix makes things easy , windows makes things hard .

IRIX (and Solaris, and OpenVMS, and ...) expect that you know a little about your machine or know how to find it out. They work great if you can be bothered to learn about your machine.

Windows works OK if you aren't interested in learning anything about your machine. Once you start to learn how things work Windows becomes extremely irritating.

My guess is that 80% of the PC hardware/software is made for people who allow themselves to believe that "it's supposed to work (or not work) that way" when faced with something that doesn't work properly.

Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

Living proof that you can't keep a blithering idiot down.

:Indigo:

(single-CM)

SAQ
Old Salt
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.
and authored 3874 notes

Wrote on the subject of 4D/240GTX troubleshooting at Jan. 27, 2010, 7:48 p.m...

zuluchas wrote:

I'm thinking the low-tech battery wire-in is more economical and easier to replace in the future. Thoughts?

Have you been over the Dallas chip with a voltmeter yet? If there's something there (even fractions of a volt) you can find out which pin is connected to the battery and you can wire the battery in where it's supposed to be.

_________________
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

:Indigo:

SAQ
Old Salt
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.
and authored 3874 notes

Wrote on the subject of 4D/240GTX troubleshooting at Jan. 28, 2010, 9:29 p.m...

One (or more) of those pins should go to GND, which should be common with the ground lead shown in the pinout (unless Dallas did something rather strange).

_________________
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

:Indigo:

SAQ
Old Salt
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.
and authored 3874 notes

Wrote on the subject of 4D/240GTX troubleshooting at Jan. 28, 2010, 10:04 p.m...

My bet from looking at the datasheet is that the +95mV is the battery-in lead and the +58mV is the Dallas chip's output to keep the SRAM valid (with a bit of voltage drop from the chip's switching feature).

_________________
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

:Indigo:

SAQ
Old Salt
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.
and authored 3874 notes

Wrote on the subject of 4D/240GTX troubleshooting at Jan. 29, 2010, 7:31 p.m...

rscottdrysdale wrote:

ok, looks like if the A,B,C,D labels on the chip pins correspond (check with an ohmmeter) to the A,B,C,D labels on the circuit board pads in your picture, then you can hopefully just cut the trace stub leading "up" from the A pad. the assumption is that battery + is wired to that pad underneath the carrier board, and cutting that trace will disconnect the battery from the whole circuit. use a SHARP exacto-type knife, being careful not to cut any other traces (or yourself).

try it. you can always bridge the trace with a tiny bit of wire or a solder blob to put it back as it was if this doesn't work as expected.

after making that cut there should be no battery voltage anywhere you previously found voltage, except at the isolated A pad. if that's the case, hook your new battery + to chip pin A or the stub of the cut trace (NOT the pad).

remember we don't want to hook the new outboard battery to the old battery. the new battery would attempt to charge the old battery, at best greatly reducing the life of the new battery, and at worst making the old battery leak or catch fire(!)

The other thing you can do (asuming a plated-through hole) is take a small drill and scrape away the top of the plating where the hole goes through. Then you have the whole pad to attach a new wire to (a zot of nail polish can keep the solder from bridging the gap to the hole again).

_________________
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

:Indigo:

SAQ
Old Salt
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.
and authored 3874 notes

Wrote on the subject of 4D/240GTX troubleshooting at Jan. 29, 2010, 11:10 p.m...

At this point I'd go back to attacking the epoxy with either a solvent or heat.

_________________
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

:Indigo:

SAQ
From Renton, WA
Who joined July 19, 2006, 8:37 a.m.

Wrote on the subject of NVRAM battery...... at Feb. 3, 2010, 5 p.m...

compuman86 wrote: question-
does this hacking technique work on the "watchdog timekeeper" chip (the one with the "bulldog" on the face instead of the "alarm clock") as well? is it in the same location? I'm not seeing the blank pins on the datasheet where it would be....

Same idea - can't recall exactly the details. Try using a magnet to find the side with the battery in it.

"Brakes??? What Brakes???"

:Indigo:

(single-CM)

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