exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

Hi @stephen_usher,

Just an update on Linux compatibility, it works great! I loaded the app, it immediatly asked to update the firmware, it did and worked fine. Going to start programming my first chips soon :)

FYI I found a more updated guide which I followed here

Picture of running on Linux after firmware update:

:dualthumbup:

@stephen_usher

When programming the GALs for the STFM cpu re-locator board I:

* Selected the GAL from the list (Lattice 16V8D)
* Clicked 'load' and selected the .JED file from your repo
* Clicked 'program' and everything came back successful

Is that all I need to do? I was wondering if I could read-back the data from the GAL into the buffer, but it didn't seem to show the same contents as the JED in the buffer screen. I clicked 'verify' and got some kind of error.

Also will I be able to program my own TOS ROMs with this included adaptor?

Perhaps there is a guide someone could link me to, I've never burned TOS roms before.

For Linux and Mac users, you can use mini pro software https://gitlab.com/DavidGriffith/minipro/.
It’s a pure CLI software but it works well and provides many features.
I’ve burnt quite a few TOS or GAL using it on my Mac when I was too lazy starting a Windows VM.

That's not an EPROM adapter! It'll have totally the wrong pinout! It's for a PIC chip. You'll fry the EPROM!!!!

Every chip family will have a different PLCC-44 to DIP-40 adapter as the pin mappings are completely different and not standardised.

As for the GAL, choose precisely what's on the chip. It'll be an ATMEL chip and not a Lattice. It'll complain about the ID being wrong and it could damage the chip.

Please be careful!

Assumptions make an ASS out of U and ME.

Mine are lattice chips... (The gals) I'm not assuming anything. I'm doing my research and asking for pointers from my esteemed colleagues. I hope that is ok.

Thanks for pointing out the adaptor isn't correct, although where I go from here, who knows! :)

Yep, I fried an EEPROM chip or two before finding this hack from @troed https://blog.troed.se/2020/07/22/plcc- ... ith-tl866/

You will almost certainly find that adapter doesn't work for those ROMs, I got a similar one with my TL866 Pro and it is a microcontroller adapter and is almost certainly missing a couple of essential ground pins.

That is if it is even wired the way mine was.

I'd suggest that you get a 40 pin dip ROM layout and the same for the PLCC and buzz out the 40 pin adapter to PLCC socket and make sure 100% that the DIP pins map correctly to the PLCC pins.

You will then also find out if the GND connections are also missing and if so it can be fixed with a bit of bodge wiring.

IIRC all the adaptors are for microcontrollers.

One final piece of advice is that if you have OTP ROMS, it gets expensive very quickly if you burn the incorrect image and are unable to erase and re-use the ROMs. Throwing bricked ROMs into the bin is something I am all too familiar with due to lack of experience with byte swapping, so if you can get your hands on some EEPROMs or EPROMS you can use for testing and can erase if you stuff it up, then it's the better way to go.