EEPROM burners in the early 1980s?
How common and costly were EEPROM burners in the early 1980s? I’m watching Adrain’s Digital Basement where he covers the Apple II clones. Was it pretty cheap to buy large enough blank EEPROMs and then copy them yourself or were the burners expensive back then?
On 9/4/23 12:17, John Heritage via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
How common and costly were EEPROM burners in the early 1980s?
I’m watching Adrain’s Digital Basement where he covers the Apple II clones. Was it pretty cheap to buy large enough blank EEPROMs and then copy them yourself or were the burners expensive back then? I assume you mean EPROMs. EEPROMs are not the same thing.
Back then, cheapies that plug into an ISA bus slot and run under MS-DOS could be had for $150 or so, while professional instruments cost thousands even well up into tens of thousands of dollars. The disadvantages of each of those classes of tools were the same back then as they are now: The cheapies can fry chips, and stop working with the next release of DOS or (nowadays) Windows, while the professional instruments cost as much as a car...but they always work and don't depend on a PC OS. Blank EPROMs cost anywhere from $10 to $50 back then, depending on capacity, but astute folks could (and often did) spot them on random boards being sold cheap at hamfests, harvest the chips, and erase them. -Dave -- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA
Very interesting and thank you. I guess 6 eproms were a bit costly (adjusted for inflation) so harvesting was a way to go to reuse them from other sources. $150 at least puts it in the hands of hobbyists though a PC before 1985 was still quite expensive.. ok so you'd probably come across these people at enthusiast gatherings or that sort of thing. Or a well off friend. Thanks. Just curious. And yes I meant Eprom - thanks there too. On Mon, Sep 4, 2023, 12:26 PM Dave McGuire via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
On 9/4/23 12:17, John Heritage via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
How common and costly were EEPROM burners in the early 1980s?
I’m watching Adrain’s Digital Basement where he covers the Apple II clones. Was it pretty cheap to buy large enough blank EEPROMs and then copy them yourself or were the burners expensive back then? I assume you mean EPROMs. EEPROMs are not the same thing.
Back then, cheapies that plug into an ISA bus slot and run under MS-DOS could be had for $150 or so, while professional instruments cost thousands even well up into tens of thousands of dollars.
The disadvantages of each of those classes of tools were the same back then as they are now: The cheapies can fry chips, and stop working with the next release of DOS or (nowadays) Windows, while the professional instruments cost as much as a car...but they always work and don't depend on a PC OS.
Blank EPROMs cost anywhere from $10 to $50 back then, depending on capacity, but astute folks could (and often did) spot them on random boards being sold cheap at hamfests, harvest the chips, and erase them.
-Dave
-- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA
Well, also keep in mind that people in those days were spending like 20% of their income on rent or a mortgage payment, rather than 80%. Don't forget that when adjusting for inflation. A lot of people also lifted EPROMs from work, recycled them from old projects, etc. Whatever it took to get the job done. In those days I had a friend who worked at a place that had a Data I/O 29A device programmer; he'd let me come in after hours to program EPROMs. -Dave On 9/4/23 13:08, John Heritage via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
Very interesting and thank you. I guess 6 eproms were a bit costly (adjusted for inflation) so harvesting was a way to go to reuse them from other sources.
$150 at least puts it in the hands of hobbyists though a PC before 1985 was still quite expensive.. ok so you'd probably come across these people at enthusiast gatherings or that sort of thing. Or a well off friend.
Thanks. Just curious. And yes I meant Eprom - thanks there too.
On Mon, Sep 4, 2023, 12:26 PM Dave McGuire via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
On 9/4/23 12:17, John Heritage via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
How common and costly were EEPROM burners in the early 1980s?
I’m watching Adrain’s Digital Basement where he covers the Apple II clones. Was it pretty cheap to buy large enough blank EEPROMs and then copy them yourself or were the burners expensive back then? I assume you mean EPROMs. EEPROMs are not the same thing.
Back then, cheapies that plug into an ISA bus slot and run under MS-DOS could be had for $150 or so, while professional instruments cost thousands even well up into tens of thousands of dollars.
The disadvantages of each of those classes of tools were the same back then as they are now: The cheapies can fry chips, and stop working with the next release of DOS or (nowadays) Windows, while the professional instruments cost as much as a car...but they always work and don't depend on a PC OS.
Blank EPROMs cost anywhere from $10 to $50 back then, depending on capacity, but astute folks could (and often did) spot them on random boards being sold cheap at hamfests, harvest the chips, and erase them.
-Dave
-- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA
-- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA
Good points (disposable income was 'stronger' back then for sure, sourcing) - Thanks again Dave! On Mon, Sep 4, 2023 at 2:13 PM Dave McGuire via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Well, also keep in mind that people in those days were spending like 20% of their income on rent or a mortgage payment, rather than 80%. Don't forget that when adjusting for inflation.
A lot of people also lifted EPROMs from work, recycled them from old projects, etc. Whatever it took to get the job done.
In those days I had a friend who worked at a place that had a Data I/O 29A device programmer; he'd let me come in after hours to program EPROMs.
-Dave
On 9/4/23 13:08, John Heritage via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
Very interesting and thank you. I guess 6 eproms were a bit costly (adjusted for inflation) so harvesting was a way to go to reuse them from other sources.
$150 at least puts it in the hands of hobbyists though a PC before 1985 was still quite expensive.. ok so you'd probably come across these people at enthusiast gatherings or that sort of thing. Or a well off friend.
Thanks. Just curious. And yes I meant Eprom - thanks there too.
On Mon, Sep 4, 2023, 12:26 PM Dave McGuire via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
On 9/4/23 12:17, John Heritage via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
How common and costly were EEPROM burners in the early 1980s?
I’m watching Adrain’s Digital Basement where he covers the Apple II clones. Was it pretty cheap to buy large enough blank EEPROMs and then copy them yourself or were the burners expensive back then? I assume you mean EPROMs. EEPROMs are not the same thing.
Back then, cheapies that plug into an ISA bus slot and run under MS-DOS could be had for $150 or so, while professional instruments cost thousands even well up into tens of thousands of dollars.
The disadvantages of each of those classes of tools were the same back then as they are now: The cheapies can fry chips, and stop working with the next release of DOS or (nowadays) Windows, while the professional instruments cost as much as a car...but they always work and don't depend on a PC OS.
Blank EPROMs cost anywhere from $10 to $50 back then, depending on capacity, but astute folks could (and often did) spot them on random boards being sold cheap at hamfests, harvest the chips, and erase them.
-Dave
-- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA
-- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA
On 9/4/23 12:17, John Heritage via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
I’m watching Adrain’s Digital Basement where he covers the Apple II clones. Was it pretty cheap to buy large enough blank EEPROMs and then copy them yourself or were the burners expensive back then?
I knew of EPROMs and how to program them from the early 80s. Worked with an Apple EPROM burner (could burn the little 256x8 PROMs). I then got a job by building an EPROM burner for my Atari 800xl via the joystick ports (lots of shifting of data). Like Jeff said get the bits in place and one shot then next. Wasn't really hard to do but keeping up with the new methods of talking to the EPROMs was a pin. Also didn't deal with the triple voltage EPROMs but almost got burner when a vendor tried to dump a bunch of TI2716s (triple voltage) EPROMs instead of the TI2516 (single voltage) EPROMs. I do recall the the 2723s were inexpensive but 2764 and above got really expensive. My friend got a DATIO burner and also had a ChipIO burner (which I still have). But I could never get to borrow the DataIO as it was always in use. So I ordered an EPROM burner kit from the back of the computer shopper. Still have that one and it still works. That was $100 well spent. I can also burn EEPROM also. :-) BTW, the 27512 was most prized for development. You just needed the correct adapter and you could bank switch the new code into the board under development. This meant you burned a portion of the EPROM, set the correct bank, tested your code and burned the next bank if code needed to be changed. When you filled the EPROM you cleaned it and went on the the next. No fussing with the entire burn and clean cycle each time. BTW, I also have the Z80 Starter kit with my Applied Microsystems Z80B CPU Emulator. Much better than burning EPROMS just change the bytes in RAM and debug with break points. :-) Maybe I'll bring it in to the CDL on the next Repair weekend Sunday. -- Linux Home Automation Neil Cherry kd2zrq@linuxha.com http://www.linuxha.com/ Main site http://linuxha.blogspot.com/ My HA Blog Author of: Linux Smart Homes For Dummies KD2ZRQ
participants (3)
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Dave McGuire -
John Heritage -
Neil Cherry