Correct, they are the test beds to check bruce had done all the distances and thickness correctly, and once proved the intial created mask was used to manufactor the rest of the normal black versions,
Not sure on why gold, but assume colin is correct to a point, as protypes are just Personnaly I was chuffed to get one from bruce , and it and the sam coupe I purchased from mgt will always be with me C Ps I fired up my sam tonight and till got a smile watching my mates pipe mania booting n working , and then spent 3 hours playing sphere one of the top classic shootems Pps no I never play my own games after release btw -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Colin Piggot Sent: 03 May 2006 23:31 To: sam-users@nvg.ntnu.no Subject: Re: Golden ASIC's > So they are real then? as in they work? I thought they were just a promo > fund rasing stunt. > > best place for it then, in a Sam. They were real - they are the batch of 40 test pieces from VLSI. If i remember correctly the prices going around was £50,000 for the 40 prototype pieces. Typical proceedure was to pay a very high price initially to pay for all the masks etc required for the manufacture of the silicon and get a few test pieces before commencing with a full batch of chips. They get their 'gold' name for being in ceramic packaging with gold plated contacts and lid, with the mass produced batch in the more normal plastic packaging. I've just uploaded a photo at http://www.quazar.clara.net/goldasic.jpg Colin ===== Quazar : Hardware, Software, Spares and Repairs for the Sam Coupe April 1995-2006 - Celebrating 11 Years of developing for the Sam Coupe Website: http://www.samcoupe.com/ -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.385 / Virus Database: 268.5.2/329 - Release Date: 02/05/2006 -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.385 / Virus Database: 268.5.2/329 - Release Date: 02/05/2006
