Welcome! This wiki is dedicated to all manner of systems for burning chips: Programmers for PROMs, EPROMs, EEPROMs, EAROMS, FLASH, MCUs, PALs, PLEs, FPLAs, EPLDs, CPLDs, FPGAs, DMs, PMUXes, and doubtless some other alphabet soup that we'll remember later. The wiki is the natural outgrowth of a long-running discussion group (Data I/O EPROM - originally on yahoo groups, now on groups.io) named for the predominant manufacturer of programming systems. Although Data I/O remains the center of most of our attention, the group has expanded to include programmers from any and all other manufacturers (and programmable logic development software), as otherwise the lack of critical mass would see that information disappear forever.
As such, this wiki is intended to be a companion piece to the group, a major feature of which is a very extensive - and constantly growing - repository of documentation, software, etc., related to device programmers. As (virtually?) all of these systems have been EOLed - orphaned - by their manufacturers, it's become increasingly important for users to congregate the resources needed to keep them running.
It is worth noting that “universal device programmers” are largely a dying category. As nonvolatile solid-state storage has evolved since the 70s from fusible-link bipolar PROMs to UV-erasable EPROMs to FLASH, entire families of chips have become obsolete, and along with them the specialized programmers needed to burn them - in turn supplanted by low-cost, PC-driven in-system programming (ISP), e.g. JTAG. So while this is the technology's natural evolution, people wishing (or needing) to keep old systems up and running need old tools, and that's where we come in.
As with the group, a site like this lives or dies with the contributions of its users, so we look forward to whatever it is you have to offer. Never assume that we're smarter or know more than you do about any of this, and always remember that those files on disk or manual you haven't looked at in 30 years may be the only copy left on earth, and someone else needs it.
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This site is an enthusiast project, and is not associated with or controlled by any company or corporate entity. There is nothing for sale here.
It is new as of February 2022, and material is being added as time permits. This is a community effort; if you would like to contribute, please register for an account, or contact Dave McGuire mcguire@mcguirescientificservices.com for assistance.
Please follow our Contribution Guidelines when adding material.