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Old EDO RAM Sticks

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First post, by Pascinus

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Hey people,

I hope I chose the right medium to ask about this, as this is my first post.

I recently acquired 67 old EDO RAM sticks. So I'm wondering if there are still people in need of stuff like this?

See this link for individual pictures of these sticks: https://imgur.com/a/z0u8sHU

Kindest Regards

Reply 1 of 4, by dionb

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Only part of that - some of the 72p SIMMs - is EDO. Most of it - the rest of the 72p SIMMs and all of the 30p SIMMs - is FPM and there's what looks like a COAST module, probably with PLB cache SRAM.

To determine the type, configuration and capacity you need to see the chips, you photographed most of the modules with the chips down so can't say anything about those (other than that they are 30 or 72p SIMMs). Actually you need both sides of each module as the modules can be single or double sided and some more exotic one do things like putting chips for parity bits on the back.

As for what I can see:
- 4MB (or 8MB if double sided) FP module with two LG 1Mx16 60ns chips visible.
- 16MB (or 32MB) EDO with eight Hyundai 4Mx4 60ns chips visible.
- 4MB (or 8MB) FP with eight TI 1Mx4 60ns chips visible.
- 4MB (or 8MB) EDO, Micron-branded with eight Micron 1Mx4 60ns chips visible. Labeled "8" so I'm assuming it's double-sided.
- 4MB (or 8MB) EDO, Micron-branded with eight Micron 1Mx4 60ns chips visible.
- 4MB (or 8MB) FP with eight TI 1Mx4 60ns chips visible.
- 4MB (or 8MB) FP with eight Toshiba 1Mx4 70ns chips visible. Labeled "8" so I'm assuming it's double-sided.
- 8MB EDO, Siemens-branded, with two Siemens 1Mx16 chips visible, with two more on other side.
- 4MB (or 8MB) EDO with eight TI 1Mx4 60ns chips visible.
- 4MB (or 8MB) FP module with two Hitachi 1Mx16 60ns chips visible.

None of that is particularly amazing, but people messing around with old systems might be able to use some; 486 systems in general can only use FP, Pentium-class ones EDO as well, but they need them in matched pairs. If you have two (or four) of the 16MB EDO SIMMs, that would be a nice 64MB loadout for a Pentium motherboard with 4 SIMM slots and a chipset that (like most for Pentium) can cache max 64MB. Two 8MB FP SIMMs would be useful for a late 486 with 72p SIMM slots; 16MB is near the sweet spot for late 486 systems.

As for the face-down ones, all I can say is they're not double-sided (as then you'd see the chips), so they aren't 2MB, 8MB, 32MB or 128MB. If the 72p SIMMs are 16MB they could be useful (and 64MB would be amazing, but I'd doubt it in this lot). Similarly, if the 30p SIMMs are 4MB, they would be nice, and 16MB would be pretty fancy.

The most interesting for me at least are the two oddball extra high 30p SIMMs, in particular the - apparently homebrew - c't STMulator - SIMM. It's probably just a handmade 1MB SIMM. Sadly, a 30p SIMM is only 8b wide so even in a venerable Atari ST you need to place them in identical pairs so a single SIMM is not much use.

All in all this is the sort of bag of odd memory most longtime retro enthousiasts have lying around somewhere, having cherry-picked out all the fancy modules - at least if they're not organized enough to sort them into separate 72p EDO, 72p FP and 30p FP bags (very much recommended, even for the 'junk' lots like this). This is not interesting for them, but might be for someone new to the hobby, particularly someone aiming to re-create a particular configuration they actually had back in the day, that would have had SIMMs exactly like these, not maxed out with the big modules no-one could afford back then.

Reply 2 of 4, by MikeSG

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Valuable:
4MB FP 30 pin simms
>=16MB FP/EDO 72 pin simms

Odd but still valuable:
4MB FP 72 pin simms are used in many 386dx motherboards from IBM, Acer.
4MB EDO 30 pin simms can be used in 386sx ALI M1217 motherboards.

Not particularly valuable:
8MB FP or EDO 72 pin simms
<1MB FP 30 pin simms.

Reply 3 of 4, by Pascinus

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Thank you so much for your very detailed replies. I got these from a deceased relative and was clueless. Very interesting to know what I'm holding in my hands and what it is to people 😀

Reply 4 of 4, by aVd

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MikeSG wrote on Today, 10:32:

Not particularly valuable:
<1MB FP 30 pin simms.

Hi,
I will disagree with this statement. There are some specific RAM cards models for 286 systems, that use 30-pin SIMM sticks with 9 chips (one is for parity errors) and volume of 256KB or 1MB. And I can't find such sticks on local fleamarkets or online shops for used goods/PC parts.

To me 30-pin SIMMs are more valuable than 72-pin SIMMs, as the former ones are harder to be obtained nowadays.

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