Day one

Day one:  Weather forecast: Weekend Winter Snowstorm

Packages containing the Willem Eprom Programmer and various EPROMS arrived yesterday.   I purchased the programmer with cable from Ebay seller mcutools.   They have already proven to be good communicators with good answers and advice for several pre-sale questions.   The package arrived reasonably packed with programmer, cable, and CDROM containing the software and manual.  He has also provided a support email address in case I get stuck.

The web-based manual appears to provide "just enough" information to get started and the root folder of the CDROM contains several quick reference pictures that clearly answer what are probably common questions.   The only simple thing that was not obvious to me was the correct seating of the chip in the ZIF socket itself.   I own another programmer which has you seat the chip toward the top of the programmer with extra space in the socket at the bottom.   This programmer seats the chip at the bottom of the socket with an extra space at the top. 

So far this morning, I've managed to properly set the switches and confirm that my EPROM eraser is doing the job with 20 minute erase times.





I've installed the software on a pre-prepared Windows XP box at the advice of the seller.   Since this programmer requires an old fashion LPT (printer) port this is something that you need to plan for.  As I'm a computer technician by day, I've got tons of spare parts, systems, etc.  So not really a big deal for me.

At this point I've learned the following commands in the software:

• Setting the switches/jumpers using the picture provided when you choose the right chip.
• Check hardware (under Help) shows you the programmer is being seen by the PC.
• Clear buffer (sets the buffer in the software to zeros)
• Read Chip (reads what is on the chip.  An erased chip shows all FF (or 1's)
• Blank Check (confirms that the chip is blank.)

Next up, I'll attempt programming a 27128 (16k) chip with the NTSC kernel for the Commodore C16 and see if I can replace the original kernel chip with an EPROM.