Thusly encouraged, and still having a few more RAM chips in the box, I decided to tackle yet another memory upgrade while the technique was fresh in mind.

For some reason, this time I had more trouble straightening the pins on one of the two chips, but managed it after 10 extra minutes of fussing. The soldering went well (using the 1/32" tip this time!), and I hooked up the RAS1 line to the SA1100 and powered it on.

Nothing. Nada. Well, okay, blue LED at rear of player was lit, but nothing at all on the serial port.

20 minutes of panic and stuff later, and I finally touched up the solder on the SA1100 pins around the recently freed RAS1 pin. Success! Must have removed too much solder when lifting that pin. 90 minutes in all this time.

Maybe I'll stop now that I'm "ahead" (whatever that means).