2 replies to this topic

[Wickeycolumbus]

i am getting into 2600 programing and i am looking for a good eprom programer. I am looking at a willem. im wondering how you actually program it (get your game onto it) and how long it usually takes.

[BigO]

Depending on the programmer, it might connect to your computer via serial port or parallel port or USB or a combination.

I just picked up a low cost Willem to get re-started with. I haven't programmed a chip yet because I just got an eraser yesterday. But, the programming process should be fairly quick. Of course, it depends on the size of PROM you're programming, but I think I remember it taking about 10-15 minutes when I was doing college projects.

Here's a website that describes a highly efficient programming algorithm that takes 2 minutes instead of 12 to program a 128k chip.
http://www.geocities..._algorithm.html

To put your game binary on a ROM chip, software on your computer works with the burner to transfer the specified file into the chip.

The Willem I got is not the most sophisticated unit around, but others here tell me they've used them effectively. If you want to go high volume or high speed, spend more money.

With luck, someone more experienced will come along and put a finer point on it for you. (By now, you may have already figured it out first hand)

[SimonTrew]

In the old days, they used to go through an RS232 port-- which of course the Atari 8-bits didn't have but if you want to use your Atari to do it, you can make one fairly easily through either the joystick ports or the Pokey port. The joystick ports are only 5V and RS232 is nominally 12V (IIRC) but in practice most devices will work quite happily at 5V. You can up the voltage using some simple electronics (a couple of Zener diodes should do the trick) but you will have to write the software to drive it, I think I wrote it to come in through the standard entry point for I/O (forget the address, $Exxx something, it was some time ago...)