SIMM chips circa 1980

[Tauran]

hi guys

just wondering if anyone knows what the yield would be like for the very old 1MB simm memory sticks? i'm thinking the gold fingers would be fairly thick considering the age.

I'm looking at about 300 sticks total for roughly $170AUD. anyone know if it's worth it?

thanks in advance.

 

[goldsilverpro]

just wondering if anyone knows what the yield would be like for the very old 1MB simm memory sticks? i'm thinking the gold fingers would be fairly thick considering the age.

An illusion that many people are under is that the older wear surfaces, such as fingers, are plated with thicker gold, on average, than the newer stuff. I deeply got into gold plating technology in the late 60s and there have been little changes to the plating solutions since then. Therefore, it takes the same thickness of gold today, for wear surfaces, as it did 40 years ago. The electronics manufacturers have NEVER wasted gold, even back then.

The main differences today are twofold: (1) Many of the non-wear surfaces that used to be gold plated are no longer gold plated. They have come up with cheaper substitute coatings or, they have re-designed parts so they no longer require gold plating. (2) By using spot plating or zone plating equipment, on parts with wear surfaces that used to be totally gold plated, such as connector pins, only the contact portion of the pins will be thickly plated. Often, the non-wear portion of the pins will only be flash plated.

 

[patnor1011]

Yes Chris. It is not plating thickness which makes them more desirable but rather size of plated area. Older electronics used bigger square plating, new use smaller as pins and connectors become smaller. In some cases also older do not mean better as older equipment may have been more used so more wear&tear and some of gold is gone on the pins or contacts.