Quote:
|
the SDRAM parameters are strictly set for ONE type of SDRAM chip
|
Most of what you say is true, but do you have specific information of this?
It takes a somewhat more 'experienced' geek to know of previous examples of successful hacks of dedicated devices, even with SMD's from 15 years ago (hobbyist use of SMDs is much more common in the past 5 or 10 years).
Some of the Hewlett Packard engineering calculators from the 90's were well-loved enough for inspired hardware hackers to figure out how to add memory to the ones that were somewhat crippled, even at the risk of $200 or more in today's currency.
Two things are really required:
- The original memory involved has to have known characteristics, most likely a standard part. HP notoriously had made their HP 41 series with serial memory, with each word prefixed with bits about the nature (data/instruction/nop) of the word. Nearly all the parts were proprietary.
- You must know how the control signals to the chip are driven. Again this can be from standard parts, including ARM, but it is a real hacker task to get this right.
If you have an EB100 (16 MB), you might try finding a file that large to see if it can be read. I'm not sure there is a 'virtual memory' arrangement on these, and that's where memory shortage would show up as a 'thrashing' slowdown. It may be that the only reason for more memory would be if that might satisfy future firmware requirements, but again, getting that information is a real hacker task.
Richard