NEW RAM CARDS for the Portfolio - available NOW! ------------------------------------------------ Good news for all Port users ! About half a year ago some german Portfolio users, (with Upgrade Guide's author Stefan Kaechele in particular) decided to build a low cost RAM card after it had become impossible to get some new "original" cards (at least here in Germany). The idea appeared during the work on the Portfolio Upgrade Guide, when a new kind of low-power chip was tested for the internal memory upgrade. With Andreas Goebel, a young electronic engineer (who had never seen a Portfolio before ;-)), the right man to develop the cards was found real soon and appeared to be very interested in this new challenge. According to the Port's hardware specifications he designed two types of RAM cards. One card comes with a small lithium battery to maintain data for at least a year when the card is removed from the Portfolio. This card appears to be the right choice for people who use several cards and tend to change them quite often. The other card uses a special type of (built-in) capacitor which is powered, or rather re-loaded, by the Portfolio, even if the "low-battery" message has already appeared. (This message just indicates that there is not enough power left to run the display. The internal RAMs and a memory card are still powered for some time.) Whenever this card is taken off the Portfolio, data is main- tained for at least 48 hours. This card is ideal for users who do not use other RAM cards and leave it in the Port most of the time. With both cards you can choose just the capacity of memory storage you actually need. Both cards have been designed to take up either one, two or three 128K chips. They can be used just like a standard A: drive, but with one important difference: the chips are NOT connected with a logic chip but need to be selected by small dip switches. In other words, on a 3x128K card you get 384K to store your data, but you can only access one chip at a time. What appears to be a major drawback at the first sight does make sense when you take a look at the prices of custom RAM cards. One thing that makes them expensive is all the additional stuff that needs to be on the cards to make them appear to DOS just a like "normal" disk drive. But the idea was to provide one of the cheapest "port"able machines with a real low-cost RAM card, so that at least this feature of a standard card had to be sacrificed. (Remember the Port's CLIPBOARD to transfer data between the applications and between the different drives....) Important: It is NECESSARY to "switch off" the cards with ---------- their dip switches whenever they are not in use to avoid the capacitor or the battery to be drained rapidly ! Instead of this slight inconveniences the cards react just like the custom cards. They are fast, reliable, don't have to be cleaned by a driver program and, of course, they are of the same size as the "originals". Each card fits completely into the Portfolio's card slot. On the lower left corner (the one that sticks out of the Port) are the small switches (and on the capacitor card a tiny cabinet to take up the "Gold-Cap"). The prices: ----------- Capacitor cards - 1 x 128K : 80 $ 2 x 128K : 95 $ 3 x 128K : 115 $ Battery cards - 1 x 128K : 90 $ 2 x 128K : 110 $ 3 x 128K : 130 $ (Sorry, no PO, COD's or credit card orders !) All cards are manufactured in Germany. Depending on the amount of orders and the availability of the components you should allow 2 to 4 weeks for delivery. (If you want to make sure to get your card as soon as possible, send me e-mail when you have posted your order. I'll pass the information to Andreas Goebel to make sure that he keeps everything in stock when your letter arrives. Consider that as an "extra service" of a real Portfolio addicted guy ;-)) My CIS-ID is : 100113,2626 ) Add 10 $ per package for shipping within Europe, customers from all other countries please add 20 $ per package. Send your order to: Andreas Goebel Glockengarten 43 D-44803 Bochum (phone: ++49-(0)234-355369)