• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

Old school Eprom & Prom programmer.

Relec made those NS 512 and NS 1024 programmers in the 80s' since the company still exists https://relec.gr/company/ and does state they built these Eeprom programers.
maybe shoot them an email (costs nothing ) in hopes they kept historical information about their company (you know like an internal museum like so many co do nowadays) and maybe they have a scanned copy of the manual?
email I found was sales@relec.gr

good luck
 
I'm afraid the OP has already been in touch with the company via phone, and while they did look for the software they don't have it, and Muttley doesn't seem to think they want to help any further. (Read further back in the thread).
 
OK, so Muttley, while we await the arrival of the Z80 cavalry, you have already observed RS232 coming out of the RS232 port when you have made the machine send its code content out through the port - can you look again with your scope to see if the unit sends anything out through the port immediately after it is powered up? I am thinking maybe it sends something like 'Ready', or some other prompt out through the port when it starts up.

If it does then maybe it is waiting for a command at that point, sometimes then if you just hit 'return' and nothing else in your terminal a unit will suggest something, like "'H' for Help". Has to be worth a try if you can get connected to it with Teraterm in both directions.

Of course for that to work you still need to work out which connection on the serial connection is the RS232 input to the unit.
 
It is a Z80 and not a micro controller.

All we need is to get the serial line running, then read an EPROM and SOUT to a PC running teraterm. You will then see the format the programmer is expecting.

Then SIN and use Teraterm to send a text file and that should be all you need.

Hopefully its in Intel Hex as thats easier to see :)
 
Can you make any sense of the content of the EPROM, Gary? I (used to) know Z80 quite well but I can't see much in the way of Z80 code in the .bin file which Muttley posted earlier - it looks like what it probably is - the parameter definitions for all of the parts supported by the programmer. That's why I was wondering if the machine's OS was somewhere else, not in this EPROM.

(I agree that it should both export and import hex in some ASCII format, whether that would be Intel Hex, Motorola 'S' or some other ASCII hex format) - just curious to know what else can be done via serial commands.
 
I had a quick look at the EPROM this morning and it didn't make any real sense at all...

There seems to be two (2) blocks of tables (?) the repeating vertical lines of 0xFF bytes make it look suspect. There does appear to be a block of 'real' code in there - but not where you would expect it to be. However, this could be a crude attempt at code protection by manipulating the address lines - or by starting up at an address other than 0.

I'll have another look later...

Dave
 
I did wonder whether the data lines have been scrambled because of the complete lack of plain text anywhere in the EPROM, or identifiable IC part numbers such as '2732'.

Even the block which looks like it could be code doesn't really look like Z80 code.

It should be possible to rule that in or out by measuring from the D0-D7 pins on the EPROM to see if they go to the expected corresponding pins on the CPU, same for the address pins. However, let's just see if the thing can communicate both ways serially first...
 
I think its worth forgetting using any 'features' and have it just to read/write/copy EPROM's.

Its not really worth it when its easier to manage files on a PC
 
Well, I think I have some good, promising news!

Yesterday I send one more email to RELEC company and send them a link from this thread to understand the work we do here to get any informations.

And just get an answer!

Here it is: (translated from Greek)

Good morning

I'll do what I can to help
instructions probably don't exist, I'll look on old computers and backups to see if the program exists,
If I don't find anything, maybe I can give some answers, from what I remember in the forum.

Yours sincerely
Click to expand...



Happy days! :)
 
Last edited:
If this software still exists on a machine somewhere at Relec, Muttley may need a similar old machine to run it on himself.

I am in the same position, I have a high-end Hi-Lo systems All-07A but its support software is DOS so I have to keep a very old PC in running order just so that I can continue to use the old programmer (it properly supports a lot of devices which most modern units don't, including a wide range of Bipolar PROMs.)

Since this unit uses serial connection and not parallel, it might be possible to run its software under DOSBOX using a USB-serial converter cable for the connection to the unit. But this is rather premature, we need to hope that the company will be kind enough to find the software first. ;)
 
Just now, next to me in the passenger seat! ;)

DC210775-D7A5-4393-80EB-2C7C7A6C40DF.jpeg

I cross my fingers for the software next time!

We meet with Mr Rizos co founder of RELEC company in person to give me this manual. No time to talk but I have to say that is a very kind person!
 
I will try in the next days to translate the manual from Greek to English. I don’t know if there is a tool on the net that do that automatically.

From little I read it is a great manual with very interesting infos. He has the way you have to do to make a communication rs-232 cable.

About format communication it has two ways that you can pick. "Memory dump" or "Intel Hex". But talking about CP/M operating system. I didn’t read nothing about MS-Dos till now.
 
If it originally had support software which ran under CP/M then I would think it is very unlikely that any specific support software which existed can still be found now and even if you had such a disc in your hand and a CP/M system nearby, the chances are that the disc type and format would be incompatible with the one used by your CP/M system.

It sounds to me as though the unit is probably software-agnostic - as we hoped, you can drive it with anything which is capable of emulating a terminal, which actually makes it quite future proof. If it accepts Intel Hex as a format then you are good to go, there are converters for every OS which will convert plain binary files to other formats like Intel Hex.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top