Using Willem (PCB 5) Burner for 2716 (or smaller) Chips?

[dorium]

Hello there,

 

first things first: although I collect a lot of vintage gaming consoles and am succesful repairing them to a certain extent, I have no "real" electronic skills, so be patient with me

 

I got hold of a quite new Willem Burner (PCB 5), which should (looking at the specs) able to burn 2716 EPROMs, although I'm not really able to get the right settings to get it to work for them. The Internet tells me the Willems are mostly crap, although a lot of people aren't that unhappy with them. But they should at least be able to READ the 2716, although they seem to be quite unreliable writing them. There is an explanation for succesfully burning Atari ROMs with a Willem, but it is for a different revision / model, so it does not apply for my device.

 

I (suppose I) was succesful reading out a 27c256 ROM chip I had lying around (the only one of which I knew it had correct data on it), but I don't get any readings from some 2716 chips I want to read/rewrite/replace. They are used in a Williams Firepower II pinball machine board which has faulty ROMs, but I don't suppose they can all be completely messed up just dumping zeros, can they?

 

The pinball ROMs were my first try, but I'll desolder a ROM-Chip of some old, but fully working Atari games, maybe I'll have more luck with them, although they have smaller chips. Replacing some defective ROMs in my Atari carts will be my next project, then.

 

--> Does anyone know how I need to set the jumpers on that machine in order to read / write those ROMs? The ones I used don't seem to be the really correct ones

 

Next question: Which chips can I use to replace the old 2716s (and others, especially for my Atari Games)? I read that the 'easiest' (but certainly not the most elegant) way would involve using a bigger (and easier to program using the willem) chip like a 27c128 and putting the unused address pins on ground/using a switch to select the needed address pins like in some sort of multicard? IF this is a useable way, am I imagining it in the right way? e.g. for a simple Atari cartridge having a 4KB ROM-dump, with no need for bankswitching hardware or whatever to be rebuilt:

1. Write the original 4KB ROM-Dump on a blank 27c128

- do I need to fill the complete ROM, chose a certain start adress or just burn the 4KB and leave the rest of the space untouched?

 

2. Determine which adress pins I don't need, connect them to ground

- how do I find out which are unused?

 

3. Build an adapter using the pinout of the old chip (eg. a 2716) and the 27c128 I'll be using.

 

If this I a correct way, could I also use this method for my pinball ROMs? I'm aware that this is not the best way, but I want to start as simple and easy as possible.

 

Thanks in advance!

[Bruce Tomlin]

Just because some people don't think they're so bad doesn't mean Willems aren't crap, it just means they haven't used anything better.

 

Why don't you try a 2732? The pinout should be the same except for that extra address line.

 

And as for the "or smaller" part, even the more expensive burners don't support 2708 and earlier because they needed negative power supply voltages.

[TheShanMan]

I haven't specifically seen complaints about the GQ-4X, which I own. I've had no problems burning 2716's which I do periodically for a number of arcade games I own. That said, it is possible Bruce is correct about not having used anything better. I do also have an old tank Data I/O Unisite burner which I would say that I subconsciously have more faith in, but it's also MUCH more of a pain to use so I rarely do. Mostly just to confirm if it's a bad chip as opposed to the GQ-4X whenever I have trouble burning (it's never been the GQ-4X's fault though).

 

I'll second the 2732 suggestion, but add that you'll want to write the rom image twice since it's twice as big. You don't know if it will want to read from the first 4k or the 2nd 4k with that extra address line in an "unknown" state.

[dorium]

Thanks for the replies! I'll try what you told me. (Of course, there are burners that are a lot better, but I suppose the Willem will serve my needs, as there are people who were successful using the design.)

This makes the "writing and restoring" part a lot clearer to me, but what about the readings I get from the pinballmachine's 2716? I suppose, the ROMs are all broken/lost their data either way, but still I would like to try to find out what exactly is wrong... If only I had a 2716 that works so I can confirm that I configured the Willem the right way.