[sdiy] My new ESQ-1

[Rainer Buchty]

>Yes, and mine is giving me a "Backup battery low" warning when I first
>fire it up. I know I need to replace it (pretty sure a recommended part
>type is listed on Rainer's site), though I wouldn't think that this is
>causing the problem I'm seeing. Then again, stranger things have
>happened.

With the ESQ1 all sort of weirdnesses can be caused by a low battery 
leading to successive destruction of the OS-RAM contents. During 
power-up, the ESQ1 checks for a magic cookie at a certain memory 
location. If that is found, no "formatting" of the OS-RAM takes place, 
including task-switch and parameter tables. With sufficiently garbled-up 
tables, the machine will become quite unstable and show rather eccentric 
behavior.

So if you have a battery-low warning, firing up a factory reset isn't 
the worst idea to see if it cures a specific "illness"...

Rainer