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jrobbins70

Posted Wed Nov 04, 2020 2:01 pm

I booted my Amiga 1000 with a DKB Insider board (8 meg ram, real time clock) from 1987 and I couldn't believe it, the time was correct and only off by 15 minutes.

How is that possible? I haven't fired up this machine in 17 years.

J

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intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Wed Nov 04, 2020 4:45 pm


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Crispy
Sunhillow

Posted Thu Nov 05, 2020 10:35 am

The DKB Insider uses the Dallas Semiconductor DS1216 RTC chip. I looked it up, and found that it has an embedded lithium battery. Pretty cool that it kept the clock running all this time.

BTW, that chip was obviously in production prior to 1987, which is when DKB released the Insider board, more than four years before Sony released the first commercially available lithium ion battery. That's pretty cutting edge to put a chip into production that uses a battery design that is still mostly theoretical.

DKB products were always first rate, so it's not surprising that they would pick a good RTC chip. I just wish Microbotics would have used it as well.

https://pdfserv.maximintegrated.com/en/ ... S1216H.pdf

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jrobbins70

Posted Thu Nov 05, 2020 1:23 pm

Yes, now that you mention it, I can see the RTC chip on the Insider. It's all integrated.

I was very surprised to fire up the Amiga 1000 and have the time work within 15 minutes of the last time I booted it in likely 2003. The Insider was installed in the 80s too.

If Apple had made the Insider, I'm sure they would have slowed the clock down as the battery degraded :D

J

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Christian

Posted Thu Nov 05, 2020 1:48 pm

The batteries (there are two coin cells in the epoxy package) are dead on mine. I will do the modification to hook up an external battery in the next couple of weeks and report back with pictures.

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halfbrite

Posted Sun Nov 22, 2020 7:29 am

I would like to know if you have the software for this, is it the insider I or II.

I have the program that enables disables the ram. But for some reason the clock software I can find on the internet doesn't work.





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