Thursday, July 6, 2000

TRG on the Palm 8M Bug -- 12:20 am CST, Update by A.T. Hun

TRG, a manufacturer of PalmOS PDAs, posted a very nice FAQ on the 8M DRAM bug that some PalmOS-powered PDAs (Palm, Handspring, TRG, etc.) are experiencing. Here they explain the nature of the problem:

Q: What causes the DRAM problem?
A: The exiting of self-refresh mode on a certain vendor's DRAM was not implemented correctly. This can cause a portion of memory to become corrupted.
Details: The Palm OS goes to sleep and wakes up once every minute to perform some housekeeping functions. This, in turn, causes the DRAM to enter and exit self-refresh mode once per minute. Since self-refresh mode is flawed in certain vendor's DRAMs, there is a chance for data corruption to occur every time self-refresh mode is exited on units which use that vendor's DRAMs.

I have to give TRG a lot of credit for posting such a clear and detailed FAQ. If only all hardware companies would be so forthcoming about problems. I would assume (which is always a dangerous proposition) that this would be the same problem that Palms and Visors are facing. If the fix is as simple as the FAQ makes it out to be, I probably won't bother to return my Visor for replacement.

News for 07/06/2000

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