Reprogramming an ST72F324J4T6 in circuit?

[ledtester]

I've got a late 90s/early 2000s consumer device which uses an ST72F324J4T6 mcu, and I'm wondering what options there are to reprogram it in-circuit.

My research indicates the ST7-series is obsolete by now, and the programmers for it (like the ST7-STICK) are either unavailable for very expensive.

I did find this open source project: http://www.spen-soft.co.uk/

but the firmware is written "in ST7 assembly" for an ST72F264 - talk about a chicken and egg problem!

Some questions:

- from the pic of the PCB, does it look like the ST72F can be reprogrammed in-circuit? After all, there is "ICCDATA" and "ICCCLK" silkscreened on the board. OTOH, I don't even know if the mcu is locked or not.

- I'm thinking of translating the spen-soft project firmware to a more modern mcu platform. Any recommendations for an mcu choice which might make the job easier - i.e. something which is architecturally similar? Maybe an STM8 Discovery board?

- Any other ideas for talking to the ST72F in-circuit?