[time-nuts] Maintaining boatanchors (was Capacitor Failures)

Bob Camp lists at rtty.us
Sat Oct 23 20:58:49 UTC 2010


Hi

I've been down that road a couple of times. You get to a point where everyone involved does indeed agree that "it's not a secret" anymore. Going the final step and actually getting permission to hand out the code is often impossible. You get into a "nobody has the authority to approve that" hassle.

Bob
 
On Oct 23, 2010, at 4:30 PM, Heathkid wrote:

> Backup images are fine... but has anyone considered or tried to contact the original programmers to get the actual code used?  I'm sure there wouldn't be any reason someone would still consider 30+ year old code a "trade secret" and if one had the original code... could reasonably replicate an old programmed chip with a newer one.  Just a thought.
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark Sims" <holrum at hotmail.com>
> To: <time-nuts at febo.com>
> Sent: Saturday, October 23, 2010 11:19 AM
> Subject: [time-nuts] Maintaining boatanchors (was Capacitor Failures)
> 
> 
> 
> I make backup images of all my EPROMs and even bipolar devices. I even built a device for reverse engineering secured PALs. I have a fully configured Data I/O Unisite for programming. This machine with all the device adapters, etc cost somebody well over $100,000
> 
> The Unisite is probably the most capable, robust, and expensive programmer ever built (and quite a boat anchor, itself). It's a real shame they stopped adding new devices last year. The 2900 and 3900's are smaller but don't do a few parts (mostly odd bipolar proms). External interface is a standard RS232 terminal. They do boot off of floppies (720kbfor the Unisite, 1.44Mb for the others). There are also units with internal hard drives. The floppy images can be burned from a CD (all my computers still have floppy drives, some 5 1/4", one has 8 inch). The last software release spans 9 diskettes.
> 
> I have accumulated a few spare machines when I bought some units just to get some oddball package adapter that I did not have. Email me if interested...
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts at febo.com
> To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
> and follow the instructions there. 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts at febo.com
> To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts
> and follow the instructions there.




More information about the time-nuts mailing list