[SPARCbook] Tadpole SPARC LE and Viper Memory

[Gary Borgen Old]

Thought I'd share some trial and error info I found, while trying to find 
memory for Tadpole Sparc LE and Viper laptops I picked for repair on *-bay.

SPARC LE 650Mhz:
1.  Requires PC100 or PC133 SODIMM (144-pin) ECC non-buffered memory.
2.  Memory may be installed individually (i.e. one stick in the lower slot). 
Mine had one stick of 512MB in the lower slot.  It would post with a non-ecc 
stick in the top slot, but would hang on boot.
3.  I found that a Cisco Catalyst 6500,  MEM-S2-512MB memory fit the bill 
for the missing memory ($22 on *-bay).  Note that it would probably not fit 
in the bottom slot due the thickness of the stick.

The SPARC LE required the replacement of a damaged hard drive motherboard 
connector (from a donor Acer Travelmate 420), before it could detect the 
hard drive reliably.

Viper:
1.  Requires PC2100 (haven't tried PC2700) DDR 266 SODIMM (200-pin) ECC 
non-buffered memory.
2.  Must be installed in matched pairs.  I tried a 1GB Cisco stick in the 
top slot and a 256MB stick in the lower slot - no post.

The Viper had bad solder joints on the memory connectors.  I had to resolder 
about 60 connections before it would boot.