Summary of Testing DRAM Using an Arduino
The author built an Arduino-based DRAM tester to diagnose faulty memory chips in their Apple IIgs. Since the TL866CS programmer couldn't test the specific 1M x 1 DRAM chips, they utilized a Zero Insertion Force socket and proto shield. The project involved wiring the ZIF socket to the Arduino using wire-wrap wire to handle the periodic refresh requirements of DRAM, allowing for efficient chip testing without desoldering.
Parts used in the DRAM Tester:
- Arduino
- Zero Insertion Force (ZIF) sockets
- Proto shields
- Wire-wrap wire
- Soldering iron
A couple of weekends ago I was in the mood to do some retrogaming and didn’t know what I wanted to play so I asked for some suggestions from Twitter. I played some Castle Wolfenstein, Snake Byte, BC’s Quest for Tires, and Miner 2049er on the Apple IIe and then I wanted to try some games on my Apple IIgs. Unfortunately my IIgs has had intermittent issues for a long time, and it was looking like bad RAM might be the culprit.
The IIgs has an Applied Engineering GS~RAM Plus in it with 3 megabytes of RAM. The RAM is divided up into 1 meg banks, and each bank is made of eight 1M x 1 DRAM chips. I figured if I could narrow down which chip was bad I could replace it or the entire bank. There are lots of different makes of DRAM chips which are compatible, Hitachi labels theirs HM511000 & HM511001, OKI has MSM411000RS & MSM411001RS, and NEC has D421000C & D421001C. As it turned out an old ISA RAM card I got from a garage sale a year or two ago was filled with Toshiba TC511001 chips so I had plenty of spares.
My first thought was to test the chips in the TL866CS, but it doesn’t support them. What to do? Well why not build something with an Arduino to test the DRAM? I wasn’t sure how easy that would be since DRAM is trickier than SRAM because it requires a periodic refresh to keep the bits from fading. Looking around to see if anyone had done such a thing before I found this post where Len Page had done something similar using smaller 256k x 1 chips that were in his PDP 11.
I bought a bunch of Zero Insertion Force (ZIF) sockets a while back thinking I might make some cartridge boards for my Atari 800 or Atari 2600 that would let me easily swap out an EPROM, but of course they had been sitting in one of my electronics parts bins since then. I wasn’t sure how hard it would be to wire up a ZIF socket to an Arduino but then I also discovered I had some proto shields sitting around unused.
I sketched out how I would need to wire up the DRAM chip to the arduino pins, and it actually looked pretty simple with mostly straight runs. I soldered the ZIF socket onto the shield and then used wire-wrap wire to link everything together. I was going to use regular wire but trying to strip the insulation off such short pieces of wire was a pain and by using wire-wrap wire the soldering iron would just melt the insulation off as I soldered making it very easy to solder the two ends in place and then trim the wire after.
Read more: Testing DRAM Using an Arduino
- Why did the author build a custom DRAM tester?
The TL866CS programmer does not support the specific 1M x 1 DRAM chips found in the Apple IIgs. - What makes testing DRAM more difficult than SRAM?
DRAM requires a periodic refresh to keep the bits from fading, making it trickier to test. - Which DRAM chip models are compatible with the Apple IIgs RAM bank?
Compatible chips include Hitachi HM511000, OKI MSM411000RS, NEC D421000C, and Toshiba TC511001. - How did the author connect the ZIF socket to the Arduino?
They soldered the ZIF socket onto a proto shield and used wire-wrap wire to link everything together. - Why was wire-wrap wire chosen over regular wire?
Wire-wrap wire allowed the soldering iron to melt the insulation off easily, avoiding the pain of stripping short pieces of insulation. - Where did the author find inspiration for this project?
The author found a post by Len Page who built a similar tester for smaller 256k x 1 chips used in his PDP 11.
