Partially-bad chips; was: repairing early HP calcs

[Chuck Guzis]

On 12/19/2005 at 9:03 PM Allison wrote:

>Polypaks was the place here.  No bargan as usually a package with one bad 
>gate developed other problems over time.

I really had to wonder about some of the Poly Paks stuff--you could get
IC's with untinned/unplated leads or other very substantial cosmetic
defects.  Still, I certainly bought a pile of RTL from them--all flat-pack.

--Chuck

>That was normal.  It had extra tracks for that reason.  I must have 8 
>of the BMs and two working BPK72 boards.  There was no such thing as 
>a flawless BM apparently.

Still have an unused BPK72A-4 in its original box (S/N 948).  Sales guy
gave it to me--I didn't ask for it, could never rationalize using it
for--what, 128K of rather slow power-hungry memory.  I think Intel grew
desperate at some point to find a market for it.

--Chuck