Reading ROMs and other chips can become an expensive process. Even when you’ve obtained a reader which has all the device support you need, it will tend to come with a standard ZIF socket and if the device you want to read is a different format, you need an adapter. These adapters can be phenomenally expensive for what they are, for example the official adapter for EPM7064/7096 PLCC84 devices to Dataman 48UXP (and similar) is £425, tax taking it past £500. Five hundred pounds for something that does little more than change a pinout. Obviously these are aimed at companies who seem unconcerned with paying sane prices for accessories, but for hobbyists that’s beyond unreasonable.
So when a fellow dumping union member (Coolfox) approached me with the problem, I decided to make it go away. Fortunately while companies are happy to relieve people of vast sums of money for something that costs a fraction of that to make, they do also provide pinouts, Dataman included. It took some hours across a couple of evenings, but eventually I came up with this:
You can see how much fun I had there. As well as over 40 pin to pin connections, another 20 needed to be ground tied with resistors. While the full 3x 10 pin resistor arrays weren’t strictly required, it seemed easier for people buying parts if I just used a single type. You could fit a standard cheap socket for the PLCC84, or spend a little more for a quick release type, both should fit. I specified holes to be drilled under the socket as chip pullers are often a pain with quad socket devices, so you can push them out from behind.
I had no way to test this myself so I was pleased when I heard today that the assembled adapter worked fine!
As usual, OHS Park were used for the board fabrication, there are cheaper places but honestly not by very much and the purple is cool. If you want to build one, you can order the boards here:
If you really do want to make them yourself or at a different manufacturer, the EAGLE board file is here:
Let me know if this helped you via Twitter or the shmups forum or something, it might inspire me to make more. Donations towards server costs welcome, and I’d appreciate not finding these on ebay for more than basic parts & assembly costs. It would be nice to say I have no reason to add that comment, but… it wouldn’t be the first time. Small update but this will not work on the newer programmers apparently as Dataman added security to stop people using their own adapters. I suggest buying another brand as a response to this.
