So I have a box of EPROMs....

TheDrewster

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And I want to do something with them. I have several roms anywhere from Pac Man board roms, Centipede board roms, and some other misc junked JAMMA board roms. I want to learn how to burn these and make them useful. I know I need a burner, but I have no clue where to start.

So can someone show me step by step how to take these EPROM chips and turn them into a useful game program? What do I physically need, and what do I need to know?
 
And I want to do something with them. I have several roms anywhere from Pac Man board roms, Centipede board roms, and some other misc junked JAMMA board roms. I want to learn how to burn these and make them useful. I know I need a burner, but I have no clue where to start.

So can someone show me step by step how to take these EPROM chips and turn them into a useful game program? What do I physically need, and what do I need to know?

Step 1: Test them, they may be useful, ie pacman (Sorry I am a rookie too) My mate once tested some Eproms, and I watched, he ran some program in DOS, using an old school burner
2. Peel off the sticker, which blocks the window of the chip from UV Light
3. Erase them, using an EPROM eraser (It's actually a little UV light in a drawer)
4. Burn the data on them as required.

We found they don't always work, and may need to be tossed in the bin

Good luck, hopefully some one with more info will chime in
 
Step 1: Test them, they may be useful, ie pacman (Sorry I am a rookie too) My mate once tested some Eproms, and I watched, he ran some program in DOS, using an old school burner
2. Peel off the sticker, which blocks the window of the chip from UV Light
3. Erase them, using an EPROM eraser (It's actually a little UV light in a drawer)
4. Burn the data on them as required.

We found they don't always work, and may need to be tossed in the bin

Good luck, hopefully some one with more info will chime in

Ok, physical things you need:
UV - Eprom Eraser
Computer
Chip burner ( i have a cheap one and it works great! ... )
... you already have the chips so just follow the instructions above and you are good to go.

The programmer topic has been discussed a lot here. ebay is probably your best bet to get one used. Just make sure it is compatible with the chips you want to burn!
 
I'd definitely read them first too...you never know, might be some oddball ROMset that hasn't been dumped before :) I've got a Crazy Kong board with a version that's not in MAME (it had 1 different ROM.) And once you figure out if they're anything you need or not, you could always burn some different versions of Pac-Man, etc. There's all sorts of Pac-Man hacks out there, some that were done back in the day, and some recently (mostly for MisfitMAME)
 
You should just give them away and not worry about it. I will take them. :)

Seriously, like has been said above, you need an eraser, a burner, and the roms you want to burn. One of these days I can demo the easy way. If I get my data i/o running, I can show you the harder way. If you don't already have the MAME set, get it. Or bring over a drive.
 
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