ROM Simm Programmer

[WillJac]

A few years ago (almost 10 now) Downtown Doug Brown created the ROM Simm Programmer to allow programming of rom simms all at once in a socket. This became what today is the ROM-Inator II simms and others that are seen on many sites. Big Mess of Wires also made and sold the programmers for some time with approval from Doug Brown. In 2019, BMOW stopped selling the programmers and this project went dormant.

As of today the ROM Simm programmer has returned. Working with Downtown Doug Brown, the CayMac Vintage team is releasing the 2023 version of the programmer. This version is using the AT90USB128x family of MCU as the 64x family is hard to find, has all new bootloader, firmware & Programming utility software that works on Windows and MacOS.

You can find them and purchase from the Ko-Fi CayMac Vintage page at: https://ko-fi.com/s/6f9e9644e4

We will offer blank ROMs soon in configuration of 4 & 8 MB.

Below are some pictures of the programmer. The software can be found here: https://github.com/CayMac-Team/ROMSimmProgrammer

 

[olePigeon]

Nice work. I have the original DougG3 programmer, but it doesn't work on Apple Silicon Macs. I have to boot my old PC to program stuff. :/

 

[macuserman]

Must be a hot item already sold out!

 

[WillJac]

Download the latest software as this was fixed. Doug runs it on his M2 chip no issue. New firmware and utility software releases.

GitHub - CayMac-Team/ROMSimmProgrammer: Main files related to the Doug Brown - CayMac Vintage Released - ROM SIMM Programmer

Main files related to the Doug Brown - CayMac Vintage Released - ROM SIMM Programmer - GitHub - CayMac-Team/ROMSimmProgrammer: Main files related to the Doug Brown - CayMac Vintage Released - ROM S...

github.com

 

[WillJac]

Must be a hot item already sold out!

About 2 weeks I will have more items. The first run of 10 sold quick. 20 more will be available soon. I don’t like to do pre-orders.

 

[CC_333]

Nice work. I have the original DougG3 programmer, but it doesn't work on Apple Silicon Macs. I have to boot my old PC to program stuff. :/

I have one too, but I haven't used it in at least 8 years. I'm not even sure it still works.

Fun fact: I contributed an icon and PPC-compatible build of the original programmer software back in 2014 or so.

c

 

[dougg3]

Nice work. I have the original DougG3 programmer, but it doesn't work on Apple Silicon Macs. I have to boot my old PC to program stuff. :/

I didn't know about the problem with newer macOS until Will told me a couple of weeks ago...like Will said, if you download the latest software this should be fixed now. Please let me know if you run into any other issues! I'm still maintaining the software and firmware. If you haven't yet, you should update the firmware on it too. I massively sped up the programming speed with a new version in 2020. By the way, the new version of the software is also signed by Apple so it doesn't require any "right click and choose Open" workarounds when you open it for the first time anymore.

Fun fact: I contributed an icon and PPC-compatible build of the original programmer software back in 2014 or so.

This is very true. Thank you for your contributions to the project! Another fun fact, olePigeon is the one who contributed the jolly roger image on the ones that I sold.

 

[olePigeon]

@dougg3 The original Red ROM™ is one of my favorite things ever with the jolly roger & glowing red eyes. Can't thank you enough for making it.

 

[Kevinlenane]

Is there a video somewhere with some instruction on how to use the new Cay programmer? I could use a firm example...

 

[WillJac]

Is there a video somewhere with some instruction on how to use the new Cay programmer? I could use a firm example...

A step by step guide in how to use the programmer is in development by Mac84 and a video is also being made on how to use the programmer. It does not cover how to make your own rom image. This is on the BMOW site. https://www.bigmessowires.com/mac-rom-inator-ii-programming/ you will need to follow some links there on how to customize more and get the downloads needed.

The utility program to use with the programmer is a straight forward read image from a simm to a file and to write image to a simm. Above that, you can also read and write individual files to individual chips, to an electrical test to detect any shorts on the board or simm and identify the chips. The important one is to make sure you use the correct selection from the drop-down on the top right.

A video will be released shortly.

 

[Kevinlenane]

The issue im having is that the BMOW documentation references a custom compression format so when I follow the command line prompts it doesn't recognize what I'm commanding. I can see the compression source code in C but I have no idea how I'd load that and run it in Terminal on a modern Mac.

 

[Kevinlenane]

Specially this piece - you can't just run that compression command out of the box in Terminal....

Compress the Disk Image

Next, you’ll compress the disk image file so that it fits in the space available in ROM. The compression format is FC8, a custom format that I designed specifically for this purpose. The FC8 compressor is a command line program, so you’ll need to run it from a command prompt (Windows) or terminal (Mac). The ROM-inator II disk driver uses FC8’s block compression format, with 65536 byte blocks. To compress the disk image, type this at the command line:

fc8.exe -b:65536 mydisk.dsk mydisk.fc8

This will compress the disk image file mydisk.dsk, and create the compressed file mydisk.fc8. If the fc8 program or the disk images aren’t in the current directory, you’ll need to specify the path to those files on the command line.

 

[WillJac]

Specially this piece - you can't just run that compression command out of the box in Terminal....

Compress the Disk Image

Next, you’ll compress the disk image file so that it fits in the space available in ROM. The compression format is FC8, a custom format that I designed specifically for this purpose. The FC8 compressor is a command line program, so you’ll need to run it from a command prompt (Windows) or terminal (Mac). The ROM-inator II disk driver uses FC8’s block compression format, with 65536 byte blocks. To compress the disk image, type this at the command line:

fc8.exe -b:65536 mydisk.dsk mydisk.fc8

This will compress the disk image file mydisk.dsk, and create the compressed file mydisk.fc8. If the fc8 program or the disk images aren’t in the current directory, you’ll need to specify the path to those files on the command line.

You need to download the fc8 compression utility. There is a mac version.

 

[Kevinlenane]

Yes - I just can't seem to find anything but source code

 

[WillJac]

Yes - I just can't seem to find anything but source code

This link on Mac gives you a dmg file. I assume you are on mac. Be sure this in the directory you are working from.

https://www.bigmessowires.com/romdrv/fc8-compression.dmg

 

[ymk]

@WillJac I have the AVR-based programmer pictured in your first post.

On my Win7 machine, I've installed the INF file and the programmer appears as "Mac ROM SIMM Programmer" with a COM port assigned.

I've tried both v2.0 and v1.2 of the SIMM Programmer software and they both display "Please connect the SIMM Programmer...".

 

[dougg3]

@ymk I developed all of the software and firmware for the programmer. I originally did all the development on Windows 7, but I haven’t tested on it in a long, long time.

Have you tried any versions older than 1.2, say 1.0.3? The only thing that comes to mind is a potential incompatibility with Windows 7 and newer releases.

 

[ymk]

Thanks for the quick reply. 1.0.3 does detect the board.

Should I attempt an update to firmware v1.5.1?

 

[dougg3]

Very interesting...sounds like I may have broken something in Windows 7 recently. My guess is 1.1.2 also won't work. I think I switched to a different version of the QextSerialPort library. That's probably what broke it. I'll do some research and see if I can figure out why it broke.

It should be perfectly safe to upgrade to firmware 1.5.1 through software version 1.0.3. A lot of the stuff that was added won't be useful until you can get software version 2.0 working though.

Edit: I can confirm that 2.0 doesn't detect my programmer in Windows 7 either.

 

[dougg3]

@ymk Does 1.0.3 actually work if you click any buttons? I'm finding that in my VM, it just sits there with the progress bar going forever saying "Communicating with programmer" when I click one of the buttons like Identify Chips or Electrical Test.

I think I figured out how to fix the detection in Windows 7 on newer versions, but now I'm stuck trying to figure out why commands don't work properly.