Some moths ago we discussed about replacements for the dying DS1287A RTC chips used in some machines, like the VAXStation 4000. At that time I found (and shared) a chinese dealer who had some chips in stock. I ordered a pair of those, and: - One of them was dead on arrival. - The other one was working, but it died a month ago (so I guess the chinese stock is made with old chips whose battery cells are dying). Fortunately, there are good news. There is a snap-in replacement made by MAXIM. The chip is the DS12887A, and can be bought from regular electronics sources. I got mine from Farnell, at 11,13 a piece, and it aparently works flawlesly. This is the datasheet: http://www.farnell.com/datasheets/22860.pdf The Farnell part # is 1606597. (I also have tried to fix one of my dead 1287's, but I'm not very good with the solder iron...) Jordi Guillaumes i Pons jg at jordi.guillaumes.name HECnet: BITXOV::JGUILLAUMES