What's a good EPROM burner?

[RetroNinja]

Hello,

I'm looking to buy an EPROM burner and I'm open to suggestions. I imagine I'm going for a generic TL866II Plus. Is there something better? Some people sell the burner with 20-40 adapters for various EPROMs. Which adapters are important for the retro world? I understand I'll need an additional adapter like this - https://github.com/mafe72/27c160-tl866-adapter My main use case will be Amiga boot ROMs, SCSI ROMs, Atari ST ROMs on A2000/A1200/A3000/ST520/ST1040 platforms. What else should I keep in mind? I'm leaning into the whole multi-boot ROMs. The ideal of adding DiagROM is a great thing to me. Are there other custom/open source ROMs out there?

Also, if you have one you would like to sell, contact me directly.

Thanks!

 

[RetroNinja]

Blah, reading some more, it seems like the TL866-3G is the 3rd generation platform versus the second gen TL866II+

 

[scrappysphinx]

The TL866II was replaced with a newer version known as the T48 (TL866-3G) so you if you want the older one you're likely only going to find it pre-owned. I bought the T48 with the ADP-D42 adapter and have used it to program many kickstart chips as well as Sega CD bios.

I do also own the older TL866II because i needed that to program some flash based kickstart chips i built cause the TSOP adapter i required didn't work with my T48.

If your main objective is Amiga stuff i'd say go for the T48 as its newer, supports more devices and likely to be supported for a while going forward

The 3rd option is the T56 which i've been told doesn't require any adapters to program Amiga stuff but i haven't used one personally so cannot confirm that.

 

[RetroNinja]

With what you gave me I found this - - a decent overview. It looks like a T48 is in my future. I was surprised they can check RAM chips. That would make my life easier when I order RAM chips and test them a handful at a time in my A2091.

The video makes wonder about people complaining that mail order EPROMs from China don't work, maybe it's the voltage.

Does anyone use any adapters I should consider? I know I'll need the 'Amiga' adapter.

 

[scrappysphinx]

If you're programming 27c400 (standard kickstart chip) then you shouldn't need any adapter. If you want to program 27c800, can hold two kickstarts, or even 27c160 (4 kickstarts) then you'll need the ADP-D42 adapter.

The good thing is the tl866ii and the T48 were pretty widespread so adapters aren't too difficult to acquire if you need one in the future

 

[Picard]

Why do you only consider TL866 variants?
Are they so widespread in US?
Here are more common Wellon programmers.
You can check out these programmers on your local market.
I can personally recommend VP-598. Great hardware. Bought it few years back but I think it is still in production.
It does not need any adapters. 27c400, 27c800, 27c160, anything you have you can just put directly into the programmer.
I have some adapters for PLCC chips (eg 29F040) but they are cheap form factor adapters.
In my opinion instead of constantly wondering "do I have an appropriate adapter for this chip" it is better buy a more versatile programmer like VP-598.

 

[kmeaw]

I am using TL866II+ (with TSOP, SOIC and PLCC adapters) most of the time - I like it for being fast and having good Linux support (minipro). But sometimes I run into problems with detecting an SPI flash I need to reprogram - in those cases I use a cheap CH341-based programmer, which is much slower but does the job. Also those CH341s have a jumper to activate UART mode that you can use for bootloader interactions.

If you are going to work with PLCC chips, also get an extractor tool.