Ask Slashdot: Best EEPROM Programmer For a Hobbyists? 165
BigSes writes "I had been in the amusement repair industry (video gaming, pinball, jukeboxes, etc) for more than a decade, but have recently taken a new career path. I still greatly enjoy tinkering with all the electronics, and collect many arcade games and pinball machines for my home. I always had access to EEPROM / PROM / PIC / GAL programmers on the job, but never owned one personally. I'm finding it difficult to work within my chosen hobby without one, and ordering pre-programmed chips can be cost prohibitive for some projects. I would love it if some of you professionals or other hobbyists out there could recommend a great programmer that supports a large number of chip formats for me to use. I'd like it to be something USB, more modern than Serial or Parallel port (usually what we had in the old days) and preferably sub-$300, new or used. There are tons of Chinese import types on eBay, but I'd hate to spend $80+ if I am unsure of the quality."
It's an obsolete technology (Score:2, Informative)
Very few people need EEPROM programmers these days. You, with your restoration projects, are one of few exceptions.
I very much doubt that there is a modern design that can reliably do what you need. The problem is not in building the thing but in testing it on chips that don't exist today outside of dusty old boards.
Your best bet is to buy an old programmer. I'd think many companies are junking this equipment left and right, so you should be able to find it in surplus stores, flea markets, on the Internet, etc. The key part is that it must be old today - and from the same century as the ICs that you are programming with it.
Second hand Dataman (Score:2, Informative)
We use Dataman programmers at work, http://www.dataman.com/Products.aspx i would try and pic up and old parallel port one (new ones are usb) on ebay or second hand sites.
Get a good adapter set (Score:3, Informative)
Don't give up on serial (Score:5, Informative)
With regret I must say to give up on the parallel port. The older true parallel ports with ECP/EPP were amazing for hobbyist hackers. Throw in a few buffers and bit bang anything you could ever need out of it. Stay away from those "usb to parallel port" adapters as they are not the gloried parallel port from the olden days and are just ports meant for older printers.
What do you want out of the device? (Score:2, Informative)
In order to address the kind of ROM programmer you need, it's helpful to know what you're looking for. Are you looking for a universal programmer, or are you willing to buy a ROM programmer that might only cover a certain class of PROMs? If you can peg down your requirements, that could potentially open a lot of opportunities up to you that you might not normally consider. It might even be possible to leverage the work of other hobbyists and roll your own, perhaps something like this [sourceforge.net]. You might also be able to get a good deal on such a device through surplus.
I have a Xeltek Superpro universal programmer that I bought a few years ago for about $500. (I know, not quite within your $300 upper bound) It was an alright investment, I guess, but I haven't really used it much. At the time I bought it, it appeared that there were only Windows drivers for it, and I didn't really have the time to write my own drivers for it at that point. The few times I did use it, however, it was a decent device. If you could find something like that within your price range, it might be worth your consideration.
Spark Fun (Score:5, Informative)
Spark Fun has some that are reasonably priced
http://www.sparkfun.com/categories/1
Re:Arduino (Score:5, Informative)
Came here to say that. The easiest way to program an EPROM today without a legacy programmer would be to put it into a breadboard and use an Arduino.
I used to have a universal programmer like the one he wants, but it ran off an ISA card in a PC, it stopped working when my last 486 PC gave up the ghost.
By coincidence, it was only last week that I found some old spare EPROMS for a custom-built equipment we used to have where I work. Just for curiosity, I wanted to read their content. I wired an Arduino to read them, just a few minutes work.
Often still serial (Score:5, Informative)
While many think of serial as a throwback to the older ages, many of these programmers are still serial but simply feature an onboard ft232 or similar USB->USART interface. They act no differently then buying a cheap USB->Serial dongle and then working with a serial device.
There are a few native USB options but you'll find these at a higher expense.
As for Chinese quality, you can pretty much guarantee that regardless if you buy a $10 programmer or a $200 programmer it's going to be made in China. My experience with other programmers like those for AVR and PIC is the "Chinese inport types" can often be as good as the original manufacturer's programmer without the ludicrous markup. For the most part a programmer is nothing more than an interface that gets data from the computer, does a few simply electrical things to enable programming mode on a chip, and then spits out data in a format required. Total bill of materials is often sub $20.
Which reminds me, if you DIY inclined with electronics maybe build your own programmer? There's tons of schematics on the net for this and it will be as cheap as the Chinese import option except that you know exactly what you're getting. Failing that SparkFun is a company that caters quite well for hobby engineers and I'd be surprised if you can't find what you need there.
Re:Atmel SDK (Score:4, Informative)
Did you even read his entire post? He WANTS to do 1970's type EEPROMs or, actually, I suspect UV erasable EPROMs. All you people who responded "Use an Arduino!" or "Use a PIC" or whatever the hell you are recommending, completely missed the point - he wants an inexpensive, modern programmer that does OLD EPROMs or EEPROMs. Sheesh.
Re:Don't give up on serial (Score:3, Informative)
Serial ports are sloooow, especially if you have to do the programming repeatedly, such as when you are developing firmware. A USB-to-RS232 adaptor won't speed the downloading of your data, since the RS232 bottleneck is still there. Trust me, I've been there, done that (without the USB adaptor). I got really tired of transferring 64K bytes at 9600 baud every time I needed to do a bug fix.
My company bought a true USB programmer capable of 1 megabit/s downloads, and it was a huge improvement. The device was expensive at the time ($700) but very much worth it. I won't bother telling you the name of that programmer, since you should be able to buy the equivalent for $100 or less these days.