About a dozen years ago I bought a Willem EPROM Programmer PCB50 Clone. It worked very well for me at the time, though having to use a Windows XP PC to run the software for it is a bit of a hassle.
Yesterday I tried to use it for the first time in a couple of years, and ran into problems. (Yes, I still have a desktop that can boot into Windows XP.)
The three status lights are all fine until the programmer software loads up. As soon as the software initializes, the VCC & VPP lights go out, and there is no voltage there. (Needless to say any attempted operation fails at that point.)
The power lights stay out, unless and until I reboot the PC; when the PC POSTs, those lights come back on. Clearly the programmer's software is triggering something bad with the parallel port, but what?
I have tried:
- checking my DIP switches and jumpers about two dozen times;
- using either USB or a DC wall-wart as supplementary power;
- re-capping the Willem board;
- checking the 7805 (it's fine);
- every available setting of BIOS parameters related to the parallel port (defaulting to LPT1, ECP type);
- updating the PCB50 software to the latest;
- updating the parallel port driver, but "best driver already installed".
Anyone have a clue what I'm missing? Is it time to give up on this vintage burner?