Hi, Ed;
I read your post thinking I could help, but I have no information about soldered/solderless serial numbers. I own a few Spices (I had about twelve units, but I traded and gifted some of them...) and some have different assemblies. Because of reasons I'd never asked about, the serial numbers were erased, and it's a fact that the back half case can be changed with one another, so if units were refurbished, their serial # were also changed.
I remember reading some posts from other guys mentioning that either soldered or solderless units of the same type had a different number of the small, 8-pin DIP IC's (ROM and RAM). I saw an HP37E with three 8-pin DIP IC's, and if I'm not wrong, I read something about an HP37E with a single 8-pin DIP IC.
All of this information does not answer your question, but I thought I should tell you, based on my own observations, that you might find either an Spice with a construction type that does not match the serial # range for that particular case or a Spice with serial # that actually does not fit in that particular model range. Even if you have the serial # range, I'd guess that, in some cases, you'd not find a match.
Best regards.
Luiz (Brazil)
Edited: 2 Nov 2004, 12:24 a.m.