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the one thing that I'm not sure of is how to ensure the PCB is cut to shape;

I used layer 20 "Dimension" in eagle. iTeadStudios CAM-job did the rest.

The eprom programmer I'm going to get is the SIVAVA Willem EPROM Programmer PCB50B, it was mentioned in a post in one of the other sections.

I've got almost the same. Probably a copy from China. Unfortunately it came without software and documentation. After writing an email they sent me software. I think it's the same version, you'll get. It seems it never made it to a release 1.0. It took me some time to figure out how to operate it, but now it's working fine. BUT, I could not get it right with a PCI-parallel adapter card. For programming eproms you need a parallel port. And I think you need it on the standard addresses 0x278/0x378. So I use a very old and slow PC with parallel port on board, just for that. Maybe you find a better solution. I would like to get rid of that old PC.

I got a Top-3000 USB programmer which wors pretty well and is USB-only.

Only bad thing about it is that I cannot get it to run on a Win7 x64 setup, but maybe you can with a small winXP virtual machine. I already had an K6-2 400 mhz machine for floppy disk preservation, so I use that with my programmer.

I use the True-USB PRO GQ-4X Willem Programmer. I have found it to be very reliable.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/121002488901? ... 1423.l2649

http://www.mcumall.com/comersus/store/c ... oduct=4282

Rolo wrote: I used layer 20 "Dimension" in eagle. iTeadStudios CAM-job did the rest.
SIVAVA Willem EPROM Programmer PCB50B.

I think it's the same version, you'll get. It seems it never made it to a release 1.0.
I could not get it right with a PCI-parallel adapter card. For programming eproms you need a parallel port. And I think you need it on the standard addresses 0x278/0x378. So I use a very old and slow PC with parallel port on board, just for that.

I had put the board shape on layer 20 Dimension then used the iTeadStudios CAM to create the Gerber files and checked the files with Viewplot - all looked OK.
Decided to order the eprom programmer from http://www.c-u-s.co.uk/willem-programme ... od_47.html instead of Ebay; this one is probably a Chinese copy too but it's cheap at £25 (including postage). It comes with a parallel port cable but no manual or software - these I have already obtained (s/w ver. 0.98D12C3) and as I'm using an old PC as a tape recorder for the Dragon I'll plug it in there.
The manual describes how to ensure the parallel port is correctly set.

I'll let you know if the programmer works, it should arrive in the next few days if the programmer is really being sent from the UK and not redirected from China.

Enjoy,
dB.

Good evening, Gentlemen!

I managed to extract the rom data from the wav file (amazing as it sounds ).

It seems to work ok on XRoar, and I've attached it to this post so you can try it.

David, as you have the original cartridge, would you be so kind of testing the rom with XRoar? (xroar -cart toolkit.rom)

The final test would be to compare this dump with the dump you'll make with the programmer, but there should't be any difference.

Please tell us as soon as you dump it, and if the dump is right, then we could create a tutorial on it to help people without eprom programmers to dump their valuable cartridges.

Best regards,
Rob

robcfg wrote:Good evening, Gentlemen!
David, as you have the original cartridge, would you be so kind of testing the rom with XRoar? (xroar -cart toolkit.rom)
Best regards,
Rob

Hello there,

Tested Toolkit.rom with XRoar and it works OK - very nice; tried a few of the Toolkit commands and they worked fine.
Nice to see you managed to convert the wav to a rom, I tried to convert it with Dragon Convert (both windows and command line version) but could not get it to work.
A tutorial to dump cartridges would be a great idea. The programmer will, hopefully, be here this week but it'll probably early next week before I've set it up and dumped the cartridge.

Have fun,
dB.

Rink wrote:

davidbowman wrote: put a bit of sellotape over the CART line.

Hahahahahaha. I've never thought of something so simple - that's genius!!!

That method of preventing a cartridge from auto-starting has been widely used by Dragon owners for many years. It was mentioned here in 2010.

zephyr wrote: That method of preventing a cartridge from auto-starting has been widely used by Dragon owners for many years. It was mentioned here in 2010.

I didn't join until late 2011.

It's not something I would have considered seaching for - just came up with my own elaborate schemes when needed. Which to be fair, was rare. I don't have enough cartridges to have any real need to dump them.

Well, got the eprom programmer quicker than expected and had it up-and-running in 5 minutes; I was expecting a long evening of reading the manual and destroying a chip or two.
The rom image of Toolkit has been dumped from the chip and uploaded here..
http://www.mediafire.com/?b6chyu6a3wf917p
I've tested the dumped rom in XRoar and it works fine.

Before jumping feet first into dumping the Toolkit chip I thought I'd try it out with a games cartridge, Ghost Attack, (I've two copies, so at least there's a backup) but to my dismay the games chips are 2532 and the programmer does not support the 25xx series. Should have bought the PRO GQ-4X (about £70, with post) which does support the 2532, but I'm a tight-fisted Aberdonian who doesn't want to spend any more than he needs too

Enjoy,
dB.

David,

I just checked the two files, and they are identical! I was expecting some differences in the last 256 bytes, but I'm glad the experiment went well, hehe

I'll upload the file to the archive downloads section later today.

Regarding the 2532 chips, they are fairly identical to 2732 with the exception of a couple of pins in different positions. It should be fairly easy to build an adapter, take a look here.

Regards,
Rob