I have a Xerox DC432ST with no scan function, and later bought a DC440ST with scan, because I wanted the fast A3 greyscale scan (actually it is not true greyscale because it saves as bitmap, but that is another matter).
Most of the time I find the 432 relatively reliable and dependable, but the 440 is very erratic and sometimes does not work properly (for example, it keeps rebooting before the newstart is finished, or other problems). However on particular days I cannot get the 432 to work, and the 440 then does the job perfectly. I also have a variety of paper size problems with both printers.
One time I read in a source involved with restauring old computers that the EPROMS and EEPROMS on old equipment become erratic after a while and the machine can not read the data reliably and therefore make mistakes. In this case one should refresh the EPROM or EEPROM data by reading it and then re-writing it. As long as one can get an accurate read (which obviously might require many attempts at certain problematic addresses), refreshing the EPROM in this way will make it much more reliable. The same source recommended making backups of all firmware chips for future use, and even refreshing the firmware chips after a number of years BEFORE they become unreliable, as preventative measures.
Does someone here have experience of refreshing firmware chips on Xerox machines?
Also a related issue is the hard disks - for long I have been telling myself I should try and make backups of all the hard disks so that they can be replaced if they fail, but I think it is not so easy because they have a special format. However there is a (rather old) DOS driver that is supposed to be able to read the raw data on ANY hard disk regardless of hoe it is formatted - has anyone tried this? The driver is called RAWDISK.SYS and is available here:
Most of the time I find the 432 relatively reliable and dependable, but the 440 is very erratic and sometimes does not work properly (for example, it keeps rebooting before the newstart is finished, or other problems). However on particular days I cannot get the 432 to work, and the 440 then does the job perfectly. I also have a variety of paper size problems with both printers.
One time I read in a source involved with restauring old computers that the EPROMS and EEPROMS on old equipment become erratic after a while and the machine can not read the data reliably and therefore make mistakes. In this case one should refresh the EPROM or EEPROM data by reading it and then re-writing it. As long as one can get an accurate read (which obviously might require many attempts at certain problematic addresses), refreshing the EPROM in this way will make it much more reliable. The same source recommended making backups of all firmware chips for future use, and even refreshing the firmware chips after a number of years BEFORE they become unreliable, as preventative measures.
Does someone here have experience of refreshing firmware chips on Xerox machines?
Also a related issue is the hard disks - for long I have been telling myself I should try and make backups of all the hard disks so that they can be replaced if they fail, but I think it is not so easy because they have a special format. However there is a (rather old) DOS driver that is supposed to be able to read the raw data on ANY hard disk regardless of hoe it is formatted - has anyone tried this? The driver is called RAWDISK.SYS and is available here:
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