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British Columbia Wanted: Dump and Verify two EPROMs

British Columbia

NeXT

Veteran Member
Joined
Oct 22, 2008
Messages
8,095
Location
Kamloops, BC, Canada
I have a pair of 2732/2716 EPROMs that are in rather poor shape. I am currently debugging the embedded CPU board they were on which has seen some moisture and battery damage. Both chips dump with something resembling data on my Willem and I/O data 29B but they are so beat up that every dump is giving a different checksum or holes in the data and rarely does wiggling the chips in the TEXTOOL yield a better result. I can't tell if this is just still dirty pins, bitrot or the chips failing entirely. I currently have too many variables between my two programmers to compare dumps between them so I'm looking for someone to help dump the chips and verify that I'm getting clean reads. The code should be MCS-48 instructions throughout.
 
Im not sure if im the best person, due to being in the states, but I do have a digelec 824 machine thats great for tasks like this. If no one local can help, I'll take a crack at it. I've had issues with my willem and older eproms...

sd16153-digelec-824-portable-programmer.jpg

Having dumped questionable eproms, i suggest cleaning up the leads and tinning them with solder. I usually clean them with a nail fingerboard, then tin them very lightly...
 
I actually have one of those as well with the ROM cartridge but the sockets have hard stuck bits. Never really investigated it.
I can put the chips in an anti-static box and ship it tracked packet so it's not hard so ship but unless anyone else steps forward it doesn't hurt to try.
 
You have the same programmer? If so you have the orginal softlink software by chance? I'm willing to give it a shot for ya, i'll give it a few days to see if anyone local to you can assist, if not im more then willing to help ya out. :) Shipping to USA and back is gonna be a while...

As for the sockets I believe they arent soldered in. So should be easy to replace them. Just grabbed a couple knockoff ones for 6 dollars or so off fleabay.

EDIT: So i opened it up, just to take a peek at the caps, and the sockets are soldered in.
 
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I have a pair of 2732/2716 EPROMs that are in rather poor shape. I am currently debugging the embedded CPU board they were on which has seen some moisture and battery damage. Both chips dump with something resembling data on my Willem and I/O data 29B but they are so beat up that every dump is giving a different checksum or holes in the data and rarely does wiggling the chips in the TEXTOOL yield a better result. I can't tell if this is just still dirty pins, bitrot or the chips failing entirely.

Something that worked for me recently when I was trying to dump the contents of some 2716 pinout compatible mask ROMs which were giving very flakey results was to insert them into good quality machine pin sockets, and then place the sockets into the programmer ZIF socket, instead of placing the ROMs directly into the programmer ZIF socket.

The pins of the ROMs weren't in the best condition and might not have been making great contact in the ZIF socket. Inserting the ROMs into the machine pin sockets seemed to make much better contact with the pins of the ROMs. Forcing a square peg into a round hole sort of situation. I got valid dumps of the ROMs with that method, as verified by checking the checksums of the dumps against what the code contained in the ROMs was computing.
 
Give me a week or so , finally have some vintage machines running in the house instead of deep storage. Cleaned up the digielec programmer, and will make some test runs this week. If all goes well willing to give it a shot for you. I really dont trust my willem programmer. Its always been a bit wonky on older stuff.

Huge thanks again for the digielec software. I will try it out hopefully tuesday when I have a bunch of free time. Hoping thats the software I have been looking for , for over 10 years.
 
Got a chance to play with the software today, and can't get it to communicate to the programmer. Tried 3 different cables and null modem adapters. Then I noticed it was saying DSR is not active. Dang cable is wired to use DSR! Upside, I think I can figure this out, as I have the orginal cable, downside, its in one of 100 rubbermaid bins! So going to be a few days, but I will keep you posted. Even If I dont dump the roms for you, I can at least give you the pinout of the cable thats needed. =)

If anyone here has a better programmer then a Willem, perhaps you can help? If not I'll dump it once I can figure out how to get this dang nabbit programmer to talk to the pc. BTW I have the orginal manual , and a pdf copy I made of it years ago if you need a copy.

Which version pack do you have? Mine is labeled 311, which I assume is for Windows 3.1 but I may be wrong on that assumption.
 
I do have a T56 programmer, but I can't vouch for its reliability as I have not used it enough yet.
 
So I gave up on that digitech for time being, and got another willem , this time a Willem total usb x3 programmer on the way. Upside its not so flakey with voltages, and wanted to flash some stuff that old willem gave me issues with, like older 28F chips and pals, and car ecus. Let me know if you still want me to dump the roms for you.
 
Ill keep digging for that digitech serial cable. It will not behave with a 9 pin, maybe ill switch to a 25 pin serial port. I know the orginal was 25 pin.
 
I can help if needed. I have an eeTools TopMax II and a TopMax I. I am just outside of Toronto. I would have offered before but I figured you would have found someone closer.
 
NeXT, 2716's and 2732's are read by most programmers. My TL866A and my Wellon VP-290 can both read them. I think your problem lies with the leads being eaten up and the programmer's ZIP socket only contacting on the edges of the pins and not the flat sides. If a one time read is all you need, and if you don't need to reuse the old chips, you could attempt to sand or clean up the pins as best you can and use acid flux to bond new pins removed from a round hole machined socket to the chip pins.
 
Yeah I burnished the sides of the legs and increased the Vcc to 5.6v and some bits stopped fluttering. long enough that I could get dumps that would consistently verify as identical. Does that mean they are still good? No idea.
There's a little box sitting in my entry way waiting to be mailed to snuci but the last few months have not left me with any money or a car, so I have not been able to mail the chips out.
 
Thank you to those who inquired and assisted. I've now been confirmed by snuci that either we were able to make the exact same partial dump with a matching checksum or he's verified we have good dumps with matching checksums.
 
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