Genuine Kickstart ROMs: How can you tell?

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Methanoid

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Is there any way also to tell the diff between genuine and non-genuine 3.1 - I need to buy one and would like to know how to tell and if there is any practical difference?
Non-genuine are burned on off-the-shelf EPROMs, so there's no official print on them, typically just a sticker of some sort. Genuine ones have the official print right on the chip.
No practical difference (unless maybe a very slow EPROM is used).
 
Is there any way also to tell the diff between genuine and non-genuine 3.1 - I need to buy one and would like to know how to tell and if there is any practical difference?
Non-genuine are burned on off-the-shelf EPROMs, so there's no official print on them, typically just a sticker of some sort. Genuine ones have the official print right on the chip.
No practical difference (unless maybe a very slow EPROM is used).

That's not always true. You can get legitimate ROMs which are stickered. I'm not sure if there is any good advice/guidelines on how to tell if your kickroms are genuine. Clearly if you get some which are printed, you can be fairly certain, but if you've got stickered ones, it's harder to tell.
 
Is there any way also to tell the diff between genuine and non-genuine 3.1 - I need to buy one and would like to know how to tell and if there is any practical difference?
Non-genuine are burned on off-the-shelf EPROMs, so there's no official print on them, typically just a sticker of some sort. Genuine ones have the official print right on the chip.
No practical difference (unless maybe a very slow EPROM is used).

That's not always true. You can get legitimate ROMs which are stickered. I'm not sure if there is any good advice/guidelines on how to tell if your kickroms are genuine. Clearly if you get some which are printed, you can be fairly certain, but if you've got stickered ones, it's harder to tell.

You are right, I have got genuine 3.1 for A1200 and A4000 with programmable IC's licensed and bought from Power Computing LTD.
 
Yep, true, my 3.1 burned set is also legitimate from Vesalia. I interpreted "genuine" as burned vs non-burned as he asked about practical differences, but clearly the topic is wider :thumbsup:
 
My basic rule-of-thumb: "If they're freaking heavy, they're copies." EPROMs tend to be ceramic packages, whereas genuine ROMs are plastic packages. I don't even know if this is guaranteed to be 100% accurate either, but it's a start.

Hmm, we seem to be going quite astray in someone else's for sale thread. This is a useful discussion though, I'll separate it out into its own thread...
 
And I'll say it again, 40.70 DOES work in a 4000D!
And yes, I have a set in my 4000D CR in the Micronik tower, it just needs workbench.library in the libs and it will do fine.
 
And I'll say it again, 40.70 DOES work in a 4000D!
And yes, I have a set in my 4000D CR in the Micronik tower, it just needs workbench.library in the libs and it will do fine.

Indeed they do, :). Doing exactly as you said works fine.
 
my original A4000D 3.0 roms have stickers on them, and they are the original chips that came with it way back when.. I'm running 40.70 softkicked, though ;-)
 
Then seems that were endless N combinations of ROM chips, just in the style of the old Commodore way of doing things :lol:

On my 4000D original 3.0 chips were plastic packages, i.e. no EPROMS, no stickers.

Later (but long ago) I bought a 3.1 set on the evilbay that were allegedly original (the seller said that were used and stripped from a working 4000, didn't this sound familiar to anyone? ) those are EPROMS , ceramic package with stickers with nice copyright claim :lol:, but as always, coming them from evilbay who knows...
 
There are also original rom's based on eproms. Do not forget these rom's were licensed to (for instance) villagetronic which used eproms. When these were harder to obtain they switched to a Kick-It which was a small PCB with two smaller plcc type eprom on them.

Amiga Technologies also used eproms, the roms with the full chip sticker that says "Amiga" on it with a larger code and a small sticker which states the model and rom socket are also 27c400 IC's.
 
As a rule of thumb, hand-written labels are not genuine.

But other EPROM chips with printed labels might or not be genuine. Some have diagonal "Amiga" in faded grey with the version in bold characters, others have the "rainbow" mark in a side (the same rainbow used in A600 Workbench disks) and the version in the label. Lastly, some are plain white stickers with bold lettering and nothing more. <-yes, EPROM chips are a very grey area.

Only plastic ROM with masked version are 100% genuine as they can't be written, nor even read by a EPROM burner.
 
...
Only plastic ROM with masked version are 100% genuine as they can't be written, nor even read by a EPROM burner.

Sorry to be contrary my friend, but I have had no problems backing up my official 3.0 and 3.1 ROM's. The plastic ic's that contain the Amiga ROM code are OTP ROM's (One Time Programmable) - they read just fine =)

In regards to the CDTV's extended ROM's these use a non-JEDC pin-out thus requiring an adapter to work with a regular PROM programmer.

As far as distributers go, I know of only Amigakit and Vesalia that have officially licensed product... the cheap stuff on eBay usually doesn't
 
If the Amiga can read it (to boot etc) so can an eprom programmer. Roms are designed to be read. Microcontrollers that use the code internally can be read protected (so the code can be used internally, but not read out).

Zetr0 - are they OTP eproms or are they maskroms?

OTP eproms and maskroms are not the same thing and I was under the impression they were the latter.

Edit:

They are maskroms, not OTP eproms. Found the part numbers and checked the datasheets.
 
they could be either, I have not confirming data either way to be honest.

I suspect what ever the cheapest method of manufacture knowing commodore - with that in mind most probably mask-rom since they are cheaper to produce.

all-though it wouldn't be out of the realms of possibility for a few last minute production runs to be OTP say by Escom or Gateway...
 
And masked ROMS don't read on most EPROM programmers, for some reason (built-in firmware on the prommer stops this?).

At least on mine USB (with external 12.1V supply) I never be able to read a single masked ROM, even using the correct type of chip & manufacturer).
 
Mask roms have read fine on every programmer I have owned (4 different ones to date).

I have recently dumped unreleased bios mask roms from mega CDs and such too.

They are designed to be read, there is no read protection on them. Must be something with your setup.

Does your programmer have the actual maskrom device (mx23c2100)?

Because EPROMs have features that maskroms do not have. It might complain about a pin being missing if you select a EPROM device and try to read a maskrom (because that pin is nc on the maskrom, but does something on the EPROM). If you do not have the actual maskrom in your programmers software, you can usually get around it by disabling connection test before read (so it ignores the pin it thinks isn't there).



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk. Please excuse any crazy auto corrects or lack of detail (links to info sources)
 
Good to know, mate. Thanks a lot. Indeed my programmer does not have mask ROM chips (why they would have? They are read-only...).
 
Reading roms is a good way to confirm they are not bad/faulty. It's common to dump roms in arcade machines then compare crc to mame sets etc.

By selecting a comparably EPROM and disabling device/pin check it should work fine.

Out of interest, what programmer do you have? If its more fancy than a basic willem, it might have some checking like I mention above (I have a high end programmer now and it will thoroughly test all pins and current before read/writing)

As you dont have maskroms in your software.... For kickstart roms - Selecting 27c4100 (if it's in your software) and ignore pin test and ignore device id check should work. Then just split the file in half, as it will be an overdump.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk. Please excuse any crazy auto corrects or lack of detail (links to info sources)
 
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