25 Jun
2006
25 Jun
'06
9:36 p.m.
Jules Richardson wrote:
what's the most sensible format for backing up PAL chips such that they
can be recreated on a different system to that which they were backed
up on?
My standalone EPROM/PAL unit seems to understand the following data
formats:
ASCII
binary
motorola s rec
intel std & 8086
elan fuse map
jedec
mos tech
texas tags
tex hex
... some of which are presumably EPROM-only formats (I don't have a
manual for the programmer)
is there some sort of common format/size for PALs too when reading (akin
to always being able to read a 27128 EPROM as a 16KB device regardless
of who actually manufactured it)? I'm concerned that this programmer
might be too old to have data on some of the PAL chips that I want to
archive - but if I'm only interested in archiving them (and so can set
the type to something of the right 'geometry' from a different
manufacturer) that's not necessarily that big a deal.
Advice appreicated :) I'm used to working with EPROMs, but PALs are a
total unknown to me!
If you had to pick *one*, I'd go for JEDEC. If the device is
"unlocked", then I would see if you could get a logic compiler
to "decompile" the fusemap for you (so you can choose to implement
it in another device if the device becomes unavailable).
If this is "just" a PAL (small), that's probably do-able.
If it's a bigger FPGA, you're probably best sticking with
whatever tools *that* vendor provided (since you will probably
be stuck with that part, as well!)