[Geoman]

What an interesting read and a fine work done!

As for the "Dallas-sandwich-chips", 2 days ago I have done the deed and excavated the expoxy whith both coin cells in it with a dremel and had the bare PCB. The quarz oscillator got damaged in the process, so I soldered a new one in. Then I attached 2 cables with a coin cell holder. In the end the thing looks very clean, much cleaner than in the image. I dared to do this, because I had 2 times success with my Indigo2s (see picture).

So If my Crimson works fine with this hack, I can offer to repeat the process on your Dallas chip, now that I know whats inside the layer of epoxy.

The NVRAM has two parts: the RTC with embedded batteries and an SRAM on top of it (with the SONY logo).

Where does the SRAM go now?

Yes, as CB_HK excellently described in his thread, the SRAM is on Crimson the SRM2016C12-Chip, which has to be removed via chip-puller, and underneath is another package, which is socketed in Crimson and has also be removed.

It is an "DS1216B". According to Maxim there is a replacement for this chip, the DS1243Y-120+ (but not in the "16kb/2k x 8" configuration):

Replacement alternatives

Original Datasheet

I was way more aggressive than CB_HK and excavated via dremel the underside of the DS1216B. Then I soldered directly on the PCB, where the 2 coin-cell were, the 2 wires for the CR2032 and put everything back in place.