backing up PAL chips

Jules Richardson wrote: maybe usually output from assembler, seldom from palasm or others output from intel targeted tools, doubtful both jdec and fusemaps are likely to be of most use. Note that with pals, it was actually not just enough to get the fuse map into the part. once you had that in and perhaps locked, then you would have no way from the fuse map to infer what the part should do to indicate the fuse map was going to have a chance to work. so the palasm had a modeling phase (pardon me if I use the wrong term, it's been a long time since I did any pal work), that allowed you to put in various inputs and see that the part responded correctly. this was not only useful for the engineer to test the device that their equations functioned correctly, but that the process of putting in the fuse map at production time had not damaged the device. You wont be able to do anything but copy the fuse map, which hopefully will allow you to reprogram devices of the same type. While you have possible access to a functional device, or perhaps schematics and the like you might want to be sure you decompile the pals back to equations so that you could use an equivalent in a future design. this is rare to be able to do, but just a thought. jim