Is my TI-58C hosed?

[Dave Britten]

I'm leaning more toward a failure in the RAM chip itself, at this point. It seems like if it were an addressing problem, it would still read/write in a deceptively normal fashion, but would actually be stuffing data in the wrong part of the chip. (i.e. Storing something in reg 00 would appear to work, but the stored value would also appear at a different address.)

There's still a tiny bit of battery residue near a couple solder points not far from the RAM chip, so I'm wondering if stray current taxed the chip and killed part of it. Every now and then when I would turn it on, it would behave extremely erratically, showing C, or flashing other nonsense patterns. I'd have to power cycle it a few times to restore its wits.

Seems like the easiest fix at this point would be to swap the main board with one from a 58C with a damaged keyboard or screen. That would require a nice evening with the ol' desoldering braid, though.