6502.org

Anyone here using the (newer) TIL866II programmer with the Atmel 22v10 GAL?

The programmers I have (TIL866CS - clone as it turned out), and Genius G540 are unable to program these, despite claims otherwise, however the G540 programs Lattice 22v10's just fine - the down side is that the Lattice parts are only available from the Chinese recyclers, and while so-far I've had very good results (ie. all 10 I bought work) but who knows for the future. The Atmel 22v10's are still in production so I'd like to try these, if possible, however I'm now wary of claims made by the makers of these programmers, so looking for some first-hand experience, if possible.

I know about: http://www.bhabbott.net.nz/atfblast.html and might well make one, but sometimes you just want something that you know works...

Thanks,

-Gordon

I'm not going to be very helpful to you here, because I don't know of any commercial programmers apart from the TL866 that claim to support them.
All I have is a page that gives the programming algorithm(here). The actual data transfer is a synchronous-serial interface, similar to SPI, (but I don't think it strictly is SPI), and there are a few other signals that also affect the operation during programming mode.

It might considered bad form but we had this discussion over at the Retrobrew Computer's website. (https://www.retrobrewcomputers.org/foru ... &#msg_5357).

The conclusion was that you needed to use the TL866-II with at least version 8.07 of the software. The version II is the important part and I have been able to programme some Lattice parts sucessfully.

Simon

Thanks for the reply & link. I've currently no issues programming the Lattice 22v10 with my G540 though - it was more the Atmel ones I was after as they're still in production.

So it's basically fork-out £60 on a TL866-II or build my own.

Cheers,

-Gordon

Not bad form at all! Linking to good information or discussions elsewhere is fine.

I would rather go for Atmel CPLDs. They are available in PLCC package and can be programmed via a USB Adapter from Atmel. They are much more flexibel and can be programmed in circuit. In the meantime I use them a lot for all my 6502 and PDP-11 projects even in TQFP-100 packages

Peter

That's great, but my intention was to (re) create or re-imagine an 8-bit system of the 1980's rather than the next Foenix or Commander X64.... PALs were about then, as were ULAs, so for my system I felt that a GAL was just fine.

Saying that, I now have an ATmega 1284p and am looking at a little $5 ARM based SBC for graphics in my system, so what does that mean... (!!!)

Also, I know sod-all about CPLD/FPGAs, my design tools are limited (can I program them from Linux?) so there would be a bit of a learning curve to get over and I wanted a simple system relatively quickly which is what I have. One GAL replaces a handful of TTL and it works really well.

One day I might look at them, maybe...

Cheers,

-Gordon