ABI Digital IC Tester ICT-24
Test Equipment
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Jul 302017
Porchy
ABI Boardmaster 4000
Test Equipment
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Jul 302017
Jul 272017
Recently I’ve been working on some Windows based software to use the Data I/O 29 series programmers.
Its coming along well and I have a few people willing to test things out for me which has been great as its a pretty tedious task of trying things out and reporting back, rinse and repeat.
I captured a small video showing some progress.
The programmer itself isn’t all that hard to interface with as most of it is just issuing commands which are all outlined in the manual but there are a couple of things to deal with when it comes to uploading a file to the programmer.
I’ve also been collecting ID codes for programmers and modules so I can auto detect programmer and more importantly the module that is fitted. This allows me to auto populate a device list.
Ive tested this using a cheap USB to serial adapter and its been working fine.
Data I/O 29A & Unipak2 repair log
Equipment Repair Logs, Repair Logs
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Jun 072017
I bought this setup from a good friend quite a few months ago now. I knew it needed some attention when I bought it.
On power up I got this most of the time
https://youtu.be/tzGoiafa2Wk
No response from any inputs from the keypad.
The keyboard generates an interrupt for the 6802 CPU. Using the scope I could see the /IRQ signal was being asserted.
I checked all of the ROM’s and found no issue and also checked to surrounding logic and found no issue.
Looking around the main PCB I found a couple of problem areas.
As you can see, both of these chips had some corrosion. I replaced them but they made no difference to the problem I had so after a while I came to the conclusion the CPU must be bad.
Searching eBay turned up nothing UK based so I fired off an email to my friend, Purity to see if he had a spare I could buy. He had one and said I could have it.
And now I get this
https://youtu.be/BgGFMV-0hL4
Problem solved.
Next issue was with the Unipak 2 itself.
I could successfully select and read chips but the data being read back was a little wrong.
Reading a few carefully selected addresses of an EPROM I found that bits 2, 3, 4 & 5 were stuck high.
Looking at the schematics I quickly came to a potential problem area.
You can see from the schematic above that the LM339 comparator is responsible for those exact bits.
I removed the chip and tested it out of circuit. The chip failed and I ordered some new ones.
With a new one fitted everything was back to working status.
I’m really happy to finally have this in my collection and working.
Massive thank you to Purity for his generosity. He has been very kind to me recently and also a great help. I hope one day to be able to return the favor.
Hi-Lo ALL-LAB base unit PAL dumps added
PAL Updates
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May 132017
I recently bought myself a Hi-Lo ALL-11 programmer. This unit uses the original ALL-LAB base unit to connect to the outside world and also as a power supply.
Inside there are four PALCE16V8 chip. Three of them are already dumped and are out in the wild HERE
The one at U9 is registered and there cannot be recreated using our usual methods. I suspect this is also why it hasn’t been dumped before.
As the device is a PALCE there is a good chance I could reset the security fuse using my Runfei programmer. This was successful and I was able to read out the fusemap without any issues.
The registered part looks like a 4 bit binary counter and the equations show that too so I am going to mark this as ‘Assumed Working’ for now. I haven’t tested as I really wanted to get the programmer back together for some playing around with.
All the ALL-LAB PAL’s are now dumped and a copy has also been sent to the site above for inclusion.