[time-nuts] Maintaining boatanchors (was Capacitor Failures)
Heathkid
heathkid at heathkid.com
Sat Oct 23 20:30:17 UTC 2010
Backup images are fine... but has anyone considered or tried to contact the
original programmers to get the actual code used? I'm sure there wouldn't
be any reason someone would still consider 30+ year old code a "trade
secret" and if one had the original code... could reasonably replicate an
old programmed chip with a newer one. Just a thought.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Sims" <holrum at hotmail.com>
To: <time-nuts at febo.com>
Sent: Saturday, October 23, 2010 11:19 AM
Subject: [time-nuts] Maintaining boatanchors (was Capacitor Failures)
I make backup images of all my EPROMs and even bipolar devices. I even built
a device for reverse engineering secured PALs. I have a fully configured
Data I/O Unisite for programming. This machine with all the device adapters,
etc cost somebody well over $100,000
The Unisite is probably the most capable, robust, and expensive programmer
ever built (and quite a boat anchor, itself). It's a real shame they stopped
adding new devices last year. The 2900 and 3900's are smaller but don't do a
few parts (mostly odd bipolar proms). External interface is a standard RS232
terminal. They do boot off of floppies (720kbfor the Unisite, 1.44Mb for the
others). There are also units with internal hard drives. The floppy images
can be burned from a CD (all my computers still have floppy drives, some 5
1/4", one has 8 inch). The last software release spans 9 diskettes.
I have accumulated a few spare machines when I bought some units just to get
some oddball package adapter that I did not have. Email me if interested...
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