Programming volatile memory boards in older Icom Rigs and radio upgrades

[AF6LJ]

Looks like you have plenty to keep you busy with Buddy

[Radio Tech]

Always Sue


So last night I was looking at the idea of building an adaptor  that would fit my current old school programmer.
I was looking at how other types of chips are programmed with it.
This got over my head quickly.  And this is because I think that the ram unit acts like the complete chip.
SO I think the adaptor would need is own circuitry to do this.

[AF6LJ]

Always Sue


So last night I was looking at the idea of building an adaptor  that would fit my current old school programmer.
I was looking at how other types of chips are programmed with it.
This got over my head quickly.  And this is because I think that the ram unit acts like the complete chip.
SO I think the adaptor would need is own circuitry to do this.

That board is just like a PROM... sort of...
You have data and address lines all 5V.
You have a programming line and you have data lines along with 5V and ground.
As long as you can set up the programmer to use 5V as the programming voltage you should be good.
The other issue...
The Chip Select line, is the last address line and as long as it is active when you are reading / writing to the board should not present a problem. 
That's my thinking anyway and as usual anybody who sees something I have neglected please chime in...

[Radio Tech]

I had the feeling it was. This can get complicated for the young players for sure.
Thanks for that



I was digging around this morning and found the old programmer.  I think this was the second one I built.
But missing the CD4040, But brings back a few memories.

Ok, so to get back n topic when my Arduino arrives I need to build another board to hold the ram board.  Perhaps on a bread board?

[Ian.M]

Why?  You just need to jumper from the Arduino female headers to the board's pin connectors.  A jig to hold the memory board is only going to get mislaid between now and when you need it again in maybe ten years time.

However a breadboard could be useful for adding 330R resistors in the data lines during development so mistakes in the AD10 (/CS), /WR and data direction sequencing don't do any damage.   You only need it on the J2 (small connector) side of the board.

[Radio Tech]

That is true. But the resistors is a thought. Probably the breadboard would be the best idea. 
Remember, I am a noob when it comes to all this stuff and I really appreciate the information.

[AF6LJ]

I am not sure the resistors are necessary, we are all talking 5V logic here.
The only issue is don't connect / disconnect with power applied.

[Ian.M]

Maybe, maybe not.  It would be a shame to blow the 'unobtanium' RAM chip due to a code error causing a bus conflict during development.  Of course, once the code is tested, and the read and write functions finalised, they wont be needed any more so future users will only need a Arduino and aq pack of jumpers.  Looking at the very wimpy drive capability of a uPD444, they'd probably better be 1K rather than 330R.

[CJay]

Well the 'unobtanium' chip actually isn't at all, it's a 1kx4 SRAM and I'm pretty sure it's just an NEC version of the 2114 SRAM, they're very easy to get hold of, they were used in an awful lot of old computers and are all over eBay for a couple of £ each.

Have a pile of parts arriving today so I should be able to mock up a RAM board and test my Arduino sketch to see if it works, I hope it's going to be able to copy from a 'master' RAM board and program a dead board.

Once that works I will add a few facilities that should make life 'interesting'.

[Radio Tech]

Good stuff cJay. Looking forward to what you find..

I ordered my Arduino Friday. It came today. Wow that was quick. Must had been an Amazon seller.

Who wants to bet it will not all fit back in the case?

Now I can sit down and start learning some of this.

[AF6LJ]

Very Cool...

[Radio Tech]

Thanks Sue. Should be fun.
Off for the next week and a half, Will have some time to play around with the Arduino a bit.  Pretty sure I will not learn how to program a eprom let alone the ram unit with it anytime soon.  Lots of learning.

 In the mean time I will be restoring a Hammarlund HQ-180 a viewer sent me. Not a bad receiver and looks pretty good.

[AF6LJ]

Looks good Buddy, have fun.

[Radio Tech]

Well the week end has been a failure. I build a new N2cbu programmer. Read reading the ram board I get  all F's in the window. If I load the IC745fin.bin and try and write I get a verify error. Using a NEC4040 chip on the programmer. I verified the thing was built correctly.
Tried on 2 old machines. A 386 running Windows 98 and a 286 running 3.1.

I changed the port in bios several times and no go.

[Towger]

Running a DOS program in windows is always going cause timing problems. 

[Radio Tech]

Running a DOS program in windows is always going cause timing problems.

Same results on the 3.1 machine. In full dos mode

[AF6LJ]

Someone check me on this..
The old DOS Mode command is used to set the speed of ports, I cannot remember if it works on the parallel port.

[Ian.M]

No.  MODE doesn't do anything useful to the parallel port hardware. 

N2CPU's ICOM-RAM application will be bit-banging the parallel port registers and, as there isn't a maximum limit for any of the RAM access timings, Windows 3.1 or 9x won't interfere with it.  Back in 2001, I was running a parallel port PIC and I2C EEPROM programmer based on David Tait's PP design, with my own DOS software written in Borland Turbo C (for MSDOS), and a quick look at the source code doesn't show anything special to add support for running under the Windows 98 SE I was using at that time, so I am *absolutely* certain there were no significant issues doing direct parallel port access from a DOS application under Windows before NT/2000/XP etc.  However, you did have to make sure that none of the Windows printer drivers were attached to the port in question.

The most likely cause of the above failure is the port hardware doesn't support the bidirectional mode N2CBU's software expects to use, or possibly the port address is incorrect or not valid for MSDOS mode.

Without N2CBU's sourcecode, its fairly hopeless, which is why I proposed writing new software to use an Arduino.

[Radio Tech]

I am about to retire the idea of getting the N2CBU programmer running. I played with it all day yesterday.
After emailing Phil he said the olny change he made was to go into bios and change the port from ECP to standard.  In fact I tried all settings. In the program you can click on "port" and change it there also. Tried all combinations with it.  In the mean time I have been watching and reading up on Arduino.  No real tutorials out there on programming this type of eprom.  A lot to take in so looks like this project is to take a little time till I can under stand how all this works.  All this is new to me.

Thanks for every ones input. It is much appreciated.

[AF6LJ]

No.  MODE doesn't do anything useful to the parallel port hardware. 

N2CPU's ICOM-RAM application will be bit-banging the parallel port registers and, as there isn't a maximum limit for any of the RAM access timings, Windows 3.1 or 9x won't interfere with it.  Back in 2001, I was running a parallel port PIC and I2C EEPROM programmer based on David Tait's PP design, with my own DOS software written in Borland Turbo C (for MSDOS), and a quick look at the source code doesn't show anything special to add support for running under the Windows 98 SE I was using at that time, so I am *absolutely* certain there were no significant issues doing direct parallel port access from a DOS application under Windows before NT/2000/XP etc.  However, you did have to make sure that none of the Windows printer drivers were attached to the port in question.

The most likely cause of the above failure is the port hardware doesn't support the bidirectional mode N2CBU's software expects to use, or possibly the port address is incorrect or not valid for MSDOS mode.

Without N2CBU's sourcecode, its fairly hopeless, which is why I proposed writing new software to use an Arduino.

I couldn't remember for sure, it had been twenty years or so since the last time I played with DOS.

[Ian.M]

16 years here, but at least I had the archived PP/PPE programmer project to refer to that had been copied across from one PC to the next till it reached my current one.

[HighPrecision]

I've used a simple adaptor for device programmer set for DS1220 NVRAM, binary file must be loaded from 0x400 (offset) or simply duplicated.

The four resistor are simply pull-down for unused data bits [7..4]

[HighPrecision]

I've used a simple adaptor for device programmer set for DS1220 NVRAM, binary file must be loaded from 0x400 (offset) or simply duplicated.

This adapter is not directly compatible with N2CBU binary files, it is neccessary to split files with 'binsplit' tool (http://www.s-record.com/), one part contain the full lookup-table of the ICOM radio, other part only 0x0 data to be discarded.

Attached is a set of modified files (from N2CBU and RW3AX), ready to loaded in programmer without offset (start at 0).

73's

[Radio Tech]

Thanks for the work.
I really not sure what I am doing but when I try loaded the IC745FIN_n2cbu-D.BIN into the programmer it returned an error.
I was just going to look at the file to see differences. See below.

Perhaps this is for the Arduino programmer?

[HighPrecision]

I really not sure what I am doing but when I try loaded the IC745FIN_n2cbu-D.BIN into the programmer it returned an error.
I was just going to look at the file to see differences. See below.

My adapter is for standard device programmer (eproms, etc.), I have used the GALEP3 with no problems, probably a chinese TL866 is also ok, on the programmer software select a Dallas DS1220 NVRAM (Non Volatile RAM) chip to be programmed.

N2CBU software is obviously non compatible with my modified files, but it works only on old DOS PC, the adapter showed in my previous message permit to recover ICOM RAM boards using actual PC (Windows) and a more or less recent standard device programmer.

Perhaps this is for the Arduino programmer?

Depends on how it is programmed, Arduino is a platform that can be adapted to many applications, not just a programmer.

73's