HP-48 FRAM Cards

[Ron Ross]

Do the FRAM chips share the same footprint and pinout assignments of the previous RAM chips used by earlier 48GX ram cards? It would be great if that were the case. Simply buy an older card and replace the RAM chip with a FRAM chip. It would also be a nice way to upgrade an older card (thinking of me, as usual!!).
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However James, I believe I had recommended the Hp 48G series to you earlier when you were looking for an Hp 28s replacement. And I had warned you about buying the GX!
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There was a German reseller who upgraded and overclocked Hp 48Gs. I believe Walter bought/owns one. I suspect he was satisfied with it. I kind of feel that if you are doing this for yourself, you might consider just buying an Hp 48G in excellent condition and doing that type of upgrade. I upgraded an Hp 48G in similar manner (did not mess with overclocking though). It was kind of tedious, but I used a SMT 128K chip and a 512K DIP with socket for the expanded memory. I kind of wished I had tried a 512K SMT directly on the board and tried to re-route the multiplexing pins. Why? Because my 512K cludge was always the bulky and poorly fitting ugly work of this project as I soldered my socket onto the socket joints reserved for the 48Gx ram card receptors via a ribbon cable. Why did I do this? So, I wouldn't damage a 512K ram chip and could simply pluck the RAM chip in later. However, I suspect I always had a cold solder joint or short as I would get the 512K ram chip to read correctly and work about 90% of the time ie it would look like it was working, but if I handled the calc I would often lose anything in the upper ports, no errors, just the loaded programs in the upper ports would be gone. My 128K SMT worked fine.
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Regardless, I bought Klotz cards shortly thereafter and was very happy with his product versus my own workmanship. If you think about the hours you will end up investing in your own cards, I suspect you will begin to re-assess the value of these $200 cards.
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Regardless, I was never enamored by any graphing calculator. I like my Hp 48Gs better than any other graphing calculator, but if I actually had to use the graphing capabilities, I would switch over to an Hp 50G pretty damn fast. No, I use it as a number cruncher. And truth be told, it actually isn't as good of a number cruncher as my Hp 42s for EE work (especially after I enter programs, however I got burned in the past by a memory reset on my beloved Hp 42s too). But the Hp 48Gs are easily replaceable, and much more versatile for ANY engineering work. So it is the tool I keep in my desk at work without regard to any work or office hazards.
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I mention the last information to warn you of any significant investment to the Hp 48G series. It will appeal to a very small market. Very small. My own antidotal evidence is that 19 out of 20 Hp 48G users would be even more happy with an Hp 50G for the PRICE and extra features versus having to spend 2X for a calculator with 1/2 the speed and features. And the other 1 in 20? They are happy with their second backup calculator and either already have the cards or don't need them. Just my opinion.