VOGONS

30 pin to 72 pin SIMM converter - do they have a MB upper limit?

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First post, by retro games 100

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I put four 1MB 30-pin SIMMS in to a device called a SimmVerter, and plugged this in to one 72-pin SIMM slot on a mobo, and it worked. I then removed the four 1MB SIMMs, and then put in four 16MB SIMMs. Unfortunately, the mobo didn't POST.

I checked the mobo manual (Asus PVI-486SP3), and it allows 64MB in one of its SIMM banks, so as far as the mobo is concerned, there is no MB limit problem with 64MB. I wonder if there's an upper limit on the MB useage of the SimmVerter? Perhaps one or more of the 16MB SIMMs are damaged - what I'll do is test them on an AWE32. I was hoping to avoid this, because it's difficult to load up this card with the 16MB SIMMs, as they are fractionally too wide for the SIMM slots, and make installing them difficult.

Reply 1 of 9, by h-a-l-9000

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The SimmVerter has no jumpers?

1+1=10

Reply 2 of 9, by retro games 100

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h-a-l-9000 wrote:

The SimmVerter has no jumpers?

No, not this one. It's manufactured by Cameleon technology. Actually, I didn't think about jumpers! I have bought another very similar device, and it's called SimmStack. Although it hasn't arrived yet, by looking at the photo, it appears to have a bank of 4 dip-switches on it. Hopefully, that will allow me successfully configure the device to hold four 16MB SIMMs...

Reply 3 of 9, by retro games 100

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The SimmStack device has arrived. It even came with a manual. In it, it says that the maximum allowed SIMM size is only 4 MB, giving a max total of 16 MB. This SimmStack device looks more advanced that the SimmVerter that I mentioned in my original post .

My guess is that the SimmVerter won't accept anything larger, especially not 16 MB SIMMs. I'm going to have to find another way of testing my 30-pin 16 MB SIMMs. I might have an old mobo somewhere that accepts them...

Reply 5 of 9, by retro games 100

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I found this on google. It's a photo of the SimmVerter. ATM, my camera is malfunctioning. Sorry! The SimmStack looks similar, but a bit more advanced, with 4 dip-switches and some chips on it. The manual explains that you can configure the device to accept 60NS SIMMs, which is good.

Reply 6 of 9, by retro games 100

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Here yer go! 😀

PICT2165.JPG

Reply 8 of 9, by Jorpho

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Wow, I never even knew these things existed.

Were they very common back in the day?

Reply 9 of 9, by Tetrium

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Jorpho wrote:

Wow, I never even knew these things existed.

Were they very common back in the day?

I think they were somewhat common back in the day (relatively speaking though, computers as a whole were no where near as common back then as they are now). Memory cost a LOT in those days and these adapters weren't particularly complicated designs.
I found one in one of the old systems I gutted years ago, though never tested as I had only 1MB 30p modules at the time, plenty of 72p simms to go around and was using only Pentium systems (which require simms to be installed in pairs, which is impossible if you have only 1 of these adapters anyway).

The funny thing with old hardware seems to be that no matter how much you know already, theres always somekind of surprise waiting to be found 😜

It would've been awesome if there were simm collectors in which you could put 4 crappy 30p ones and stick the adapter in a 30p slot 😜

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My retro rigs (old topic)
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