25 Jun
2006
25 Jun
'06
11:01 p.m.
Philip Pemberton wrote:
Ahh, but I mean purely for reading, not programming. This programmer seems to
have a pretty comprehensive number of supported chips, but as it's done by
cartridges and the programmer's old I'm unlikely to be able to find any other
cartridges for it.
I'm mainly interested in backing up PALs to share the data online for others,
so it's less of a concern if my programmer can't actually program them again -
reading them is the important bit!
Well it does a good job of 80's-era EPROMs, at least, so I suspect it's good
for any PALs from that era too. It just won't do 3-rail EPROMs or any form of
EPROM over 1Mbit (which can be problematic for early 90's hardware)
cheers
Jules
Jules Richardson wrote:
bugger - I was afraid someone would say that.
For some reason that's the one format that seems to not work; I can read the
device OK, but as soon as I try and spit jedec format data down the serial
line to the remote machine it gives me 'illegal operation' on the programmer's
LCD display. Other formats *seem* to work, in that I get binary data at the
remote end that is variant in nature.
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?
JEDEC fuse map , if possible, logic equations. Strictly speaking
though, a JEDEC-format fuse map file is enough to copy a PAL. Equations
just make it easier to move to a different chip.
Yeah, it's an Elan universe 1000 - previous owner never found a manual
anywhere for it, and nor have I :-(
It's possible the jedec prob. above is just user error (or, alternately, that
the programmer is failing to read the chip despite what it says, and when I
dump data down the serial line it's just giving me what happens to be in the
programmer's RAM at the time)
... some of which are presumably EPROM-only
formats (I don't have a
manual for the programmer)
Which programmer are you using? One of the Elan multipurpose programmers? 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)?
Not to my knowledge. You have to get the programming algorithm right
otherwise you'll either blow the chip (literally) or get a garbage
readback. 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.
I'd be more worried if it was too new. A lot of manufacturers remove old
programming algorithms from their programmer firmware to make space for
new ones...