"destructive read"

[Steve Thatcher]

the "destructive read" could have been a design issue where the ROM outputs are enabled while some other output drive is attempting to use the data bus. The ROM output drivers may well fail after repeatedly being abused like this.

>On Monday 01 October 2007 14:31:15 Richard wrote:
>> Over on comp.terminals someone wrote this about the VT100:
>>
>> 	"The power-on operation does a "destructive" read of the
>> 	ROM-based firmware.  After so many power-ups, the ROM becomes
>> 	unreadable. This was a design issue at the time - the technology
>> 	to fix it did not evolve until the VT200 series."
>>
>> Is this true?  I've never heard of a ROM being damaged by reading it a
>> lot.