6502.org

I'm almost done with my SBC and now I need to program the EEPROM. I did a search and saw two threads on building your own, which while clever designs introduce more complexity than I want to deal with at the moment. Any suggestions for reasonably priced commercial models?

I only have one computer with a parallel port, so something that uses USB and is Windows 7 compatible would be ideal.

I wonder if we should make a sticky for this topic... Martin please could you link to the previous posts which you found?

Cheers
Ed

Sure thing. What I do is go to Google and do a search for "EEPROM programmer site:forum.6502.org" which returned the following:

Here's an Arduino based one: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2491 which I have the parts laying around to build, but if the computer doesn't work I won't know if it is the programmer or my board. So I'd rather have a proven solution.

Here's Daryl's self hosted 6502 based programmer: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2279&start=30 which links to http://sbc.rictor.org/28256.html While this is neat, it doesn't help because I need a programmed EEPROM to burn the EEPROM.

Here's an old link on the second page of someone asking the same question as me: viewtopic.php?t=634 but there eBay vendor was a dead link, as was the Batronix link.

You want a way to verify that a ROM has the correct contents, and don't mind it being tedious? Wire it up on a breadboard with jumpers for the address leads and LEDs on the data pins. Simple, tedious, but if you only have to verify a few locations to start with...

Thanks Martin. One brand/manufacturer which often crops up is Willem, so a search for
[site:forum.6502.org willem]
might return relevant conversations with other suggestions.

One thing to note, which you might already know, is that any USB-parallel adaptor you can buy will most likely not work for anything other than a printer, so check before you try that.

Cheers
Ed

The forum search near the upper-right corner works too.

That's true! But it's not linkable. But then, I didn't post a link...

I would advise to stay away from the Willem programmer connected to the parallel port. And Ed is right, the USB parallel adapter will not work for these. Not only are parallel ports extinct in modern PC's, the software for the Willem programmer is Windows only for older versions.

Chinese sellers on ebay will offer USB programmers for 40 dolllar or including shipping. They are usable.
I use the True-USB PRO GQ-4X from http://www.mcumall.com, it functions fine.

I had a Willem and was never happy with it. Jumpers, different sockets for different ICs and no GAL support (it never worked) and the software was not really good. That was a parallel port model though. But be careful there are still many Willem around that only use USB as power-supply and still need a parallel port. As there is no computer left with a parallel port and USB-Parallel adapters are expensive, slow and only work with printers I had to buy a new one. As at that time I still needed 16-bit EPROM support, I bought a TOP3100. But after two years it broke (probably my fault) . Now I have a Genius G540 and it does pretty much what I want. However most of these cheap Chinese programmers have problems with legacy devices. E.g. the old 2kbyte and 4kbyte EPROMs cannot be programmed. Also the old (-A, -B and -C) GALs do not work either. And the software not only lacks good english also the logic of Chinese applications requires some imagination. I can successfully program the following EEPROMS: W29C010, W29C020, 29EE020, X2864A, X2864B (different page size) and the following GALs: GAL16V8D, GAL20V8D, GAL22V10D (the suffix D is very important, all others I have do _not_ work). For my 65xxx projects thats enough and for the price (50$ incl shipping) you can't go wrong.

Peter

Inexpensive PCI cards can be used to add a fully-functional parallel port to almost any PC. We keep one or two in stock at all times, as this requirement comes up more often than one might think. The ones made by SIIG seem to work the best.

I still use the programmer I made occasionally (when I have hosed the EEPROM to the point that the in-situ programming is broken). It uses an ATMega8 and a couple of 8 bit counters (74HC590). It programs DIP 28C256s. Client software is simple linux commandline stuff.

Start here: http://aslak3.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/ee ... d-and.html and work backwards, if you are interested.

BDD shows a PCI card solution for the missing parallel port. That requires a desktop with free PCI slots. A good and completely standard solution!

If you have a notebook you might have luck with a PCMCIA Parallel Port card, like made by Delock. Supports all the modes like ECP/EPP. Problems you may have are the non-standard I/O addresses compared to the standard parallel port and the price ...

I have two of those that I can program myself like a standard parallel port, see here. If your software allows to enter the I/O address it may work.

I see many cards like this on ebay. Avoid the ones that do not specify ECP/EPP support.

But as said by me and others: avoid parallel port programmers like the Willem.

Hi BDD,

I would require a PCIe Parallel Port adapter, which is about the price I paid for the G540. I would say going with a solution as Aslak3 is the simplest if EEPROMs are the only thing you want to program. However instead of having a pair of matching programs on the programmer and the host computer, I would make the programmer run some sort of command line interface and the ability to upload files in a common format, like the intel hex record format or even binary files using XMODEM (see Daryl's SBC and 6502 emulator which includes a very nice XMODEM receiver program for AVR MCUs which is extremely small, efficient and I have used it already many times with great success). So you can just use a normal terminal program that supports sending a ASCII file (for Intel Hex Files) or XMODEM.

Using Google to search forums is a habit I picked up because the search feature on forum software can vary in terms of interface and quality. So once I figured out how to use Google to do it I started using it everywhere.

@All, thanks for the feedback.

After reaing all the links I've decided that the path of least resistance will be to build an EEPROM programmer as a sub-task of my project. There's enough information and open source code out there to use my Arduino as a programmer. I don't have a shift register, but I have a spare ATMega328p's that I can program to act like one without much difficulty.

If you buy a USB programmer then make sure it can take an external power supply.