Need help setting up Data I/O 29B with UniPak 2B

wolfeel

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I need help setting up Data I/O 29B with UniPak 2B to my computer using XP.

1) I made the connecting cable following this link: http://retroclinic.com/leopardcats/dio/dataioserial.htm

2) I installed the needed stuff from the following link: http://www.mikesarcade.com/arcade/promlink.html

3) Tried to open pl.exe and this came up:

"C:DOCUME~1\Kevin\Deskto\DOWNLO~1\pl.exe
The system cannot open COM2 port requested by the application. Chose 'Close" to terminate the application." - not sure how to turn off smiles. :D is should be : D

4) If I chose "Close" it of course closes the app. If I chose "Ignore" PROMlink 6.10 opens up with the following prompt: "Error reading setup file PL.SET- defaults installed"

Can anyone help?
 
lol, i did have same problem. Forget what the fix was (it was simple). Search threads, it was answered in it (between jan-may this year).

Kevin
 
Ok I just did the same thing as posted above but installed and hooked up the programmer to an old laptop running Windows 98. It seems to be working now. Is there a tutorial on how to use PROMlink? I am kinda figuring it out just by playing with it (kinda like puberty). :)
 
No tutorial but one tip is to use the "Absolute binary" file format.

It's not the most intuitive but gets the job done. Been using data i/o since I was an engineer back when the stuff was new (1983). Had the "carrying case" for it and the logicpak and unipak at one job. It was huge and looked like a small coffin.

But boy is it noisey but reliable.

Bill
 
So is there a process that is quick and easy that I can run to make sure this thing is hooked up correctly? Also, I tried to verify that a ROM was blank and when (I think) started the procedure the cursor disappeared and the program acted like it froze. Is this normal and about how long does it take the program to perform this function?
 
I think I got this thing running! I have been able to burn a few chips. Some chips I can not find them in the selection menu. Is there and update for the chip list?
 
I think I got this thing running! I have been able to burn a few chips. Some chips I can not find them in the selection menu. Is there and update for the chip list?

Congrats! A good test is to take an EPROM off a working board, read it, program that info into a "new" EPROM, plug it into your board and see if it still works.

What chips can you not find?

I refer to the unipak2b.txt file located here:

ftp://ftp.flippers.com/TTL/TestEquipment/DATA-IO/UNIPAK2B/
 
I run mine on a Windows 98 machine. Promlink is still a bit cranky, so I make sure that I reboot my computer when I need to program a chip. It doesn't like multiple starts of the software without a reboot on my machine.

But, the machine (my wife calls it the "cash register") works great for burning lots of PROM's and ROM's. It will do all the classic stuff.
 
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