Partially-bad chips; was: repairing early HP calcs

[Jules Richardson]

Chuck Guzis wrote:
> Back in the days when DRAM was precious, Intel had some "8Kx1" DRAMs that
> were really "half good" 16K parts.  You used the "-x" digit to determine
> which half to use. 

I keep hearing rumours that this is done with modern hard disks too, and that 
if one side of a platter tests bad then that platter will still get used in a 
drive with that surface mapped out (e.g. company releases a 2-platter 40GB 
drive, and a 30GB drive which is identical but with one failed surface)

Never confirmed that one, but I can see how it might make financial sense.

cheers

Jules