Old PM2E with new expansion boards

Rob Poland (poland@nambu.uem.mz)
Mon, 21 Oct 1996 11:41:59 +0200 GMT

> From: MegaZone <megazone@livingston.com>
> Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 10:23:21 -0700 (PDT)
> Subject: Re: PM2e expansion card upgrade problem (fwd)
>
> Once upon a time Rob Poland shaped the electrons to say...
> >I tried all three suggestions; the cards came with one ribbon cable
> >each with those I tried all combinations; one card, two cards, I
> >can't get it to work. I tried e-mailing support, but this also
> >doesn't seems to work (no reply from them yet!).
>
> Support requests come in waves, so response time varies. Right now
> we're getting more than average, a couple of weeks ago it was quiet.
> It just seems to work that way.
>
> I would work on this with support, it is going to have to have some
> real troubleshooting done. More than I can do on the list, and I
> don't handle support (and I'm leaving for a week for the Boston
> show, so it isn't a good time to get involved in anything).
>
> - -MZ
> Livingston Enterprises - Chair, Department of Interstitial Affairs

Well 11 days later still no reply from Livingston, they must have a
big "request wave" at there side :-(

So I did the real troubleshooting myself:

The chips on U34 and U38 on the motherboard indicate that we have an
old PM2E main board. "25 MHz" is printed in the chip directly above
the CPU. Livingston has upgraded the new PM2E main board to 33 MHz and
uses new chips on U34/U38.

The chips on U34/U38 on the expansion boards indicate that we have
received the latest revision extension boards.

I try to mix an old revision main board with two new revision
extension boards. This doesn't work. My question now is if there are
expansion boards available for my old motherboard?

I was suggested to upgrade to a new main board (33 MHz, U34=F244,
U38=LS32). Then our extension boards would work OK.

Can somebody inform me what's the best deal; upgrade with old
expansion cards (are they still available?) or buy a new motherboard,
or maybe leave the PM2E and buy a PM25. I just need analogue dial-up
capability.

Regards, Rob Poland