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Turn the wayback machine to 30-pin SIMMs

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    #1

    Turn the wayback machine to 30-pin SIMMs

    Because I have the bug like a lot of people on this board, and just like to dink around with old hardware, I've often has fantasies about recreating old hardware with new technology so that it's smaller or faster, whatever. For example, remember 30-pin SIMMs? Back then we were actually concerned with how many nanoseconds they ran at because you could actually notice a difference between say 60ns simms and 100ns simms. Or at least we thought we could.

    Anyway, I was wondering how comparable the speed of a 60ns SIMM would have been compared to the actual memory bus. What if you put modern chips with access speeds below 10ns on a 30-pin SIMM? At what point would the access speed of the chips be faster than the bus for a 30-pin SIMM?

    I just think it would be cool to create new CPU's and RAM which completely max out the capabilities of the older motherboards. I dream about it... a lot. Am I sick?
    Presonus Audiobox USB, Schiit Magni 3, Sony MDR-V700
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    #2
    Re: Turn the wayback machine to 30-pin SIMMs

    Sick? Not quite. What you are thinking of is not impossible, but 30-pin SIMMs is a bit old already. I used to have a pimped out system running on 68-pin SIMMs. ASUS P55T2P4 motherboard, Pentium-MMX 200 @ 292MHz under an Athlon XP cooler, 96MB SIMM, with tweaked timings and all.

    I don't know how accurate Everest's tests are, but with the read and write speeds i would be at the P4 level, and the overall memory latency shot up right there under Core 2 Duo. I still have the screenshots lying around somewhere. That machine would boot XP (installed just for kicks, it ran 98) in 30 seconds flat from power switch to desktop. Of course, it was tweaked too, with the bare minimum of things running, but i'm still amazed that was possible. Ran Diablo II quite respectably.

    AFAIK, mobos with 30-pin SIMMs support 5x86 or Pentium Overdrive processors at most, so you'll eventually bump into the CPU limitation. Also, weren't 30-pin SIMMs limited to 4MB or something per stick? Whereas they made 68-pin ones in up to 128MB. That they're close to unobtanium, that's a different point. However, 32MB ones are still pretty common, so you can get 128MB on a typical Socket 7 motherboard. I have a cool Compaq in my closet with 8 (eight!) SIMM slots, but i'm not giving that away.
    Originally posted by PeteS in CA
    Remember that by the time consequences of a short-sighted decision are experienced, the idiot who made the bad decision may have already been promoted or moved on to a better job at another company.
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      #3
      Re: Turn the wayback machine to 30-pin SIMMs

      I have a 30 pin simm

      on my keychain
      Cap Datasheet Depot: http://www.paullinebarger.net/DS/
      ^If you have datasheets not listed PM me

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        #4
        Re: Turn the wayback machine to 30-pin SIMMs

        ^
        That was such a 90's thing.....hahaha
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          #5
          Re: Turn the wayback machine to 30-pin SIMMs

          Hi logistics, you might find this interesting. Remember Commodore Amigas? Believe it or not a German company individual computers is producing new accelerator cards for these machines today! The CPUs run at comparable speeds to the original 80s/90s expansion cards, (~25-48 MHz), but boast ~30% performance boost due to using more modern SDRAM. Maxing out old machines is a lot of fun, if you're sick, you're not the only one.

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            #6
            Re: Turn the wayback machine to 30-pin SIMMs

            My 1991 Macintosh quadra had 65MEGS of 30 pin ram not to mention 2 megs of video ram and built in 10base eithernet, was really ahead of its time. 25Mhz 68040 POWER!
            My Computer: AMD Ryzen 9 3900X, Asrock X370 Killer SLI/AC, 32GB G.SKILL TRIDENT Z RGB DDR4 3200, 500GB WD Black NVME and 2TB Toshiba HD,Geforce RTX 3080 FOUNDERS Edition, In-Win 303 White, EVGA SuperNova 750 G3, Windows 10 Pro

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              #7
              Re: Turn the wayback machine to 30-pin SIMMs

              Some of these came with a junked motherboard. 70ns with parity, vintage 1991, chips vintage 1989 NEC brand, apparently a kit.

              Do old SIMMs ever have collector value? I saw some where each chip was in a metal can, and they were from IBM.
              Attached Files

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                #8
                Re: Turn the wayback machine to 30-pin SIMMs

                I remember getting the 56k modem in my sisters windows 95 computer to work after her fiance upgraded it to a massive 48M.

                I learned later she only went online to look at porn back then
                Cap Datasheet Depot: http://www.paullinebarger.net/DS/
                ^If you have datasheets not listed PM me

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                  #9
                  Re: Turn the wayback machine to 30-pin SIMMs

                  Simms with 30 pins? I remember 2114 individual 4k static ram chips with 16 pins. And they were expensive. And 4116 dynamic ram that could be swapped out and replaced with 4164's to quadruple the memory. I had an Atari ST that came with 512K which I bumped to 1Meg by piggybacking and running 'blue wire' CAS and RAS signals. Solder most of the pins to the original memory, and then jumper three {I think} pins that were bent upward and the wired to the GLUE chip ... maybe.
                  Thirty pin simms are too easy.

                  tom

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                    #10
                    Re: Turn the wayback machine to 30-pin SIMMs

                    Originally posted by tmwalsh View Post
                    Simms with 30 pins? I remember 2114 individual 4k static ram chips with 16 pins. And they were expensive.
                    In my digital applications class last semester (I'm an EET student at Purdue in New Albany, a freshman last sem), I got to wire an array of those using a discreet tri-state buffer IC in addition to one (and later, two) 2114 ICs.In a bit I'll post my report from that lab which includes schematics.

                    Edit- Attached the .pdf of the report.
                    Attached Files
                    Last edited by ratdude747; 08-02-2012, 10:01 PM. Reason: Forgot that the 74LS148 was only in the stuff we did "on paper."
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                      #11
                      Re: Turn the wayback machine to 30-pin SIMMs

                      ^ With your report, it has your name on it. Not sure if you want to fix that or not.

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                        #12
                        Re: Turn the wayback machine to 30-pin SIMMs

                        Originally posted by lauren View Post
                        ^ With your report, it has your name on it. Not sure if you want to fix that or not.
                        No problem. I have similar documents uploaded on the site already and I have not had trouble. It's not like my email is in the document as well.
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