I have been out of the PROM burning loop for quite a while now. I was having trouble getting AT29C256 EEPROMs to burn on my laptop. No matter what I tried, it would not work. I modified my MemCal with a low profile ZIF socket so that my 29C256 chips could be interchanged if need be. I could easily program it with all FF's, but it would never take a regular .bin file, no matter how many times I tried, no matter how many "adjustments" I made to the laptop.

Well, I decided I wanted to get back into burning to unlock the true potential of the mods I have done to my car over the last year and a half, and upgraded my old version of Pocket Programmer, version 1.12, to Pocket Programmer II, version 1.47, and now it burns the chips flawlessly. It erases in no time, and programs the entire .bin file the first time, no errors! Its great.

Long story short, if your having trouble burning EEPROMs (Flash PROMs), and you are using Pocket Programmer, try the latest version of there software. I didn't do any tweaking to the computer. As soon as I installed the software, the chips worked immediatly

 

Good to see you're still with us. Guess I'd better be checking my software version before dropping in any 29x DIPs...

 

can you send me the newer version of the software? As you can tell by my other post, I'm having lots of trouble burning my at29c256 chips. I'm banging my head against the walls over, and over, and over, and ov.......you get the idea

 

I am having the same problem, but have one question. How do you erase the chip before you rewrite it? I thought it just wrote over the existing .bin

Thanks

Chris

 

Fill the buffer with "FF" and program the device. Wait a few seconds for it to program... Do a "Blank check", then load the buffer with your .bin file and program the device again. Reburns take mere minutes tops with the 29 series chips.

 

Actually, NuffNuff is right. You don't need to erase flash chips to put a new bin on them. I have never bothered to burn a chip to FFs before putting my data on them. Doesn't make sense to me to waste write cycles for no good reason.

 

Perhaps it's just my OS (ME) on a P-III 600 MHz machine then, but I've had maybe 5-6 out of ten tries at doing it without erasing fail on the PP2 and newest release software. Not one failure to write the chip if erased first and never a failed erase "FF" fill. As always, YMMV...

 

Me email address is NastyL98TransAm@yahoo.com

 

Weird. I use an old version 1.34 of the windows software, and have run it on everything from a win95 PI 166, W98 laptop at a few hundred mghz, and a 1.7ghz XP machine. Never had a problem writing over a bin.

 

Yeah, it is weird... I just got my Compaq 486 laptop back last night (OS reloaded because of a virus, which killed the CD ROM drive access) and it runs Win 95... it burns C29's right over the top without erasing first. Oh well... I guess Micron PC just does something different to their P-III desktop machines or something...

If you already have a version of their software, get updates here...
http://xtronics.com/memory/EPROM.htm#Upgrades

 

I ran into a problem of not being able to pull bin's from the chip with the PP software


a software update took care of that issue

Stay on top of updates guys

 

Ed,

I understand your point. the system should work as advertised. However, "waste" may be a bit extreme if it works for him. After all, most 29C* DIPs have a rated W cycle of at least 1M. I can't imagine burning any one device that many times. You PP-II will die before then...

 

About how many burns is W cycle? Just wondering. I've got about 12-15 on my chips.

Chris

 

ALERT! n00b question

When burning the 29C stuff, don't you have to double the .bin file so it reaches the 256 end of the buffer since we all have 128 stuff? If so, how do you do it? I haven't used mine yet because I haven't been able to find the post that explained it again.

 

You only have to double the bin if you're using a 165

 

H-O-W?

I am running Win XP if it matters. I seem to remember that it did.

 

Make sure your bin file is located on C:\

in DOS or DOS window..

copy /b 16K.bin +16K.bin 32K.bin

cheers, BW

 

You have to 'stack' the .bin file. GMECM edit has a stacker built into the software. You put in the size of the file, and the size of the chip. ex) on a 165 ECM you enter the size of the file as 16k and the desired file size of 32k and rename the output file and it will stack it for you. OR you can have the PP2 start the 16k burn at a certain spot on the chip so it only burns the 16k worth of information on the top half of the eprom. Very hard to explain in words from one newbie (myself ) to another and it make sense.....but I tried.

 

If you are using the Windows version of PPII software, you can just initally program your 256's with all FF's first, then take your 16k bins (for 165 ecms) and start the program at address 4000. I am sure there is a post on this exact subject.

I am running Win ME on a 475mhz system, and it works good for me. I was using the "double the 16k bin" method before I got the WinPP2 software. But the windows version (1.74) is sweet, not sure what the latest really is.

Also, when I did start the burn at 4000, seemed like it took a long time (too long) to flash, compared to starting at 0 with a doubled up bin. Then I started having other PC problems, ended up reformatting hard drive and reloading everything. Now she flashes from 4000 in about a minute.

Just my 2 cents.

 

I've also noticed that it can take a while longer to program if you move the mouse cursor while it's programming. As long as nothing is moved, it takes maybe ten seconds or so for a burn to program. Once the mouse moves, it lengthens out to 45 seconds or longer.

 

Few questions, when you program a flash chip with a 165 bin, do you set the device start or buffer start to 4,000? Also when you are taking a bin from a flash chip that is only 16K and trying to read it with tunercat do you have to set the buffer start to 4,000 when you save it to your hard drive so tunercat sees the correct file size? Thank guys. -John

 

When burning a eprom for a 165 ECM you can start at 4000, but it's just as easy to "stack" the bin if your software is equipped with that feature. That way you don't set the PP2 software to start a 4000 then burn something other than a 165 eprom and end up only putting half of the bin on the chip.