grinding down chips was Re: QX10 graphics board

[Chuck Guzis]

On 1/29/2006 at 12:47 AM Philip Pemberton wrote:

>> From what I remember they were a normal DRAM chip with a quartz lid to 
>> the package (it's been suggested you could take a cerdip 4116 or 4164, 
>> knock off the top and replkce it with a window). 

I recall an early scanner that made no bones about doing just this.  From
what I recall, you charged the DRAM with ones or zeroes (don't recall
which), exposed it to light and read it looking for discharged cells.  You
could do gray-scaling with several consecutive reads.

This was back in the days of 4116/4164 and IIRC, it mattered whose DRAMs
you used.  Intels cells decayed pretty quickly, but the NEC parts would
easily hold a bit for a few seconds.

Cheers,
Chuck