--- On Tue, 4/7/09, Rocket J Squirrel <camping.elliott@GMAIL.COM> wrote:

> I am, however, a pretty good electrical engineer and I
> gotta comment that
> the circuitry in the ECU is hardly a "computer"
> -- it's a bunch of
> op-amps and other analog circuitry. I've only owned one
> Vanagon so I don't
> have a mass of experience (unlike many other on these
> lists) but the idea
> of a power cycle resetting the ECU seems fishy.

It does have a 8088 (or Z-80) microprocessor and an EEPROM (or ROM)
in it. It's an 8 bit microprocessor. The analog circuit and devices
are for signal conditioning and possibly for A-D conversion before
the processor can deal with the signals. The program in the EEPROM
should have some intelligence or algorithms in making decisions in
how much fuel to inject into the intake, when to shut off, when
to enrich and when to lean the fuel, based on the input from AFM,
thermo sensors, engine RPM, etc. It also should have some unexpected
fault recovery (fast recovery) routines that will keep it from
running out of control. It is a computer technically.

David