Date   : Wed, 18 Jul 2007 04:02:54 +0100 (BST)
From   : debounce@... (Greg Cook)
Subject: How not to do flash ROM (Was Re: modern BBC remake)

On Tue, 17 Jul 2007 21:39:21 +0200, John Kortink <kortink@...>
wrote:

> I'd say the best would be somewhere in between. You'd
> at least ditch some rarely used or practically obsolete
> parts of the system like the tape and serial system,
> speech, ADC, disc interface (replace by GoMMC ;-),

Uh...

> Econet, TV output. And at least put all ROM in a flash
> ROM chip

Be very, very careful with this.  I'm fed up of devices flashing
themselves to death, and all 8 bit Acorn machines can lock up if a
paged ROM fails to return from a service call.  I hope anyone putting a
'new Beeb' together will cater for this failure mode.

And whoever supplies a firmware upgrade *will* CRC check the new image
before starting to reprogram, won't they?

</soapbox>

Greg Cook
debounce@...
http://homepages.tesco.net/~rainstorm/



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