Does anybody know the hardware differences between the pocket programmer and the pocket programmer 2?
My pp died a little over a year ago from a stupid user, me, reversing the polarity of the power supply. I tried to fix it but didn't have the ability to test everything and besides, I wanted the windows software that comes with the pp2. So I sent it in to get repaired and upgraded. But I still can't erase these new flash eproms AND the windows software I'm using tells me I still have an original pp. What's going on? I'm not going to disclose any more information at this time as I'm pending a responce from Transtronics. I really do like the company don't get me wrong, I just paid a lot of money for somebody to replace a $.02 diode that got fried and for windows software. Wow, windows software costing EXTRA, what's up with that.
If they tell me I need to buy there $60 adaptor I'm going to forget about that purchase of the romulator.
I guess this belongs in 2 places, in this forum because I need hardware and/or software help but it might turn into a Company Review.
So anyways, anybody want to open up their pp2 and take some high quality digital pictures of the top and bottom . While you're at it I wouldn't mind knowing how those eDist from F.A.S.T. work , j/k.

I've been able to get my PP1 to erase the 27SF512 chips, but it involves using the Xtronics DOS-based software and putting a jumper on a 32-pin socket that goes between the PP1 and a 27SF512 chip. If you're interested, let me know and I'll see if I can....wait...here it is in my hand now...

First off, make sure you can get the DOS-based software downloaded and working for you. It might NOT work in WinXP. I know I have to run it out of Win98.

Second, get you a 32-pin socket (preferably collet-pin) and a 32-pin ZIF. Snap the 32-pin ZIF into the 32-pin collet pin socket. Turn it upside down. Now, the handle will be 'down'. Turn it over and look at the pins. Snip off the 8th pin from the bottom left, where the bottom pin is pin-1 and the snipped pin is pin-8. Leave enough 'nub' to solder to.

Now solder a jumper wire from that snipped pin up to the top right pin. The top right pin, relative to the PP1, will be pin-1 of a 32-DIP layout. The snipped pin is PIN-24 of a 32-DIP layout relative to the PP1.

Now, when you want to erase a 27SF512 chip, you take this little gadget you just made, put it in 'upside down' into the PP1 socket so the gadget handle is facing down, insert the 27SF512 chip in (notch up, chip down toward the 'gadget handle', and run the DOS software to do the erase.

Hope this makes sense. The problem is that the PP1 isn't configured to apply 12v to the A9 pin the way it needs to to do the erase. However, the programming works fine with the PP1 or PP2 from the Win software. It's the erase that's problematic. So, we gotta do what we gotta do...

You could use a 28-pin ZIF also, just bottom-justify it in the 32-pin socket. Actually that'd be probably better. I'll change mine now...

That's awesome. Thanks for the heads up. I did notice that it programmed fine so I figured there was a quick way around this.
Why do they want $70 or whatever for such a simple modification. I'm assuming it's supply and demand but the support... not so great.
They told me that the pp1 was never upgraded to a pp2, only the software . I understand now but it was misleading when given the "pp2 windows" software and "upgrade" on the invoice instead of just repair.
Do you have a picture Craig? It might give me a little more convidence .

Sorry about the focus, but you should get the general idea.

I changed it from my original story, such that the handle goes up in the conventional direction and a 28-pin ZIF is used. You probably want to put a second collet pin socket under the 'modded' one so that the solder globules and jumper wire don't interfere with the PP1 ZIF.

awsome!! Now I can actually use them more than once!

Very nice, nice nice nice. I'm glad I belong to such a great online community! Where else would I find this information so quickly.

a little unrelated... but concerning the 27SF512 chips.

i have the PPII, i was able to erase the chips fine, and verfied it by moving the bianary to the buffer and editing it.

problem came up while burning it. i tried SEVERAL ways to burn, one i stacked a 64k bin made up of individual bins in tuner pro. burned this. also burned one that was the same 32k bin i burned onto a 29C256 chip. and stacked it twice to make the 64k. burned that. both chips WORKED but they acted diffrent and logged data diffrently than the 29c256 with supposedly the exact same data. my car idled high, did no return back to desired idle correctly, and logged data funny (filled in knock counts strangly, ect)

anyone have any ideas what i am doing wrong?

i stuck my 27sf512 chip in the moates flash n burn hardware thingy, and i clicked erase and then i ran a blank check and it said its clean. so now i can program to this again? sweet

Yep, that's right. As you can see, I got tired of needing to apply a Southern Engineering solution ;^).