[Coco] Smartwatch results

[George's Coco Address]

Willard,

  Can you share that info or let us know where to find it? I do have a dead 
battery in one of my smart watches and would like to connect an external 
battery to it.

 George
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Willard Goosey" <goosey at virgo.sdc.org>
To: <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Sent: Monday, December 04, 2006 2:16 AM
Subject: [Coco] Smartwatch results


> It turns out that my Smartwatch battery isn't dead, the problem was
> that I'm an idiot. :-(
>
> Here's the situation.  My smartwatch is set up in a bizzare way.
> Instead of going under the Disk BASIC ROM, it lives in the (otherwise)
> empty ROM socket of my RS-232 pak.
>
> As some of you may know, the Deluxe RS-232 pak has a somewhat demented
> ROM socket.  It starts out as a 28-pin DIP socket, all well and good.
> Then it starts getting weird:  Pins 14 & 15 aren't used, the contacts
> aren't there, making it a 26-pin socket.  But what I hadn't realized
> until recently, pins 1 & 28, while having the contacts present, are
> not connected to the board, making it a 24-pin socket.
>
> So, my rs-232 pak with smartwatch was sold to be long ago by a very
> clever fellow, PWZ.  He set this all up.  Interestingly, the only
> thing he had to do to make it all work was tie pin26 to pin 28 on the
> smartwatch, and install the smartwatch such that pins 1 & 28 are
> hanging off the end of the socket.  Shorting pin 26 to 28 brings Vcc
> from the socket up to the Vcc line of the smartwatch module and the
> address lines all line up right.
>
> That this works at all is a credit to the designers of the original
> ROM chip hardware!
>
> Anyway, at some point in the past, I had some trouble with my
> smartwatch, and cut the 26-28 jumper so I could put it in the Disk
> controller's ROM socket.  And when I went to put it back in the rs-232
> pak.... I messed up.  I looked at the smartwatch, and I looked at the
> socket... and tied 27 and 28 together.
>
> Hasn't worked right since.  Gee, I wonder why? :-(
>
> Well, last week I finally tracked down Dr. Goodman's article on
> installing an external battery on the smartwatch module, and took
> everything apart so I could see what I needed to do.  But the battery
> tested out fine!  So what's the problem, then?  Maybe this ancient
> rs-232 pak has a broken trace?  Humm, the top two pins of the ROM
> socket aren't wired to anything....  Oh, OK, that means I'm an idiot.
>
> It all works, now!
>
> As an aside, I'm just as glad.  I wasn't looking forward to adding the
> external battery.  The top ROM socket on the smartwatch pries off
> easily, but there's still not a lot of room to clip two of the chip's
> pins, bend them up, and solder a wire from the battery to them.
>
> Willard
> -- 
> Willard Goosey  goosey at sdc.org
> Socorro, New Mexico, USA
> "I've never been to Contempt!  Isn't that somewhere in New Mexico?"
>   --- Yacko
>
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