How do you program flash chips/eproms?

Mario · Post by **Mario** » Sat Sep 06, 2008 3:25 pm

Okay, so here's the story:
Have you ever heard of the game Mario Adventure? It's AWESOME. The greatest game anyone has ever made. If you've never played it before, download it and try it out RIGHT NOW. It's the greatest!
Anyway, it's fun playing it in an emulator, but it'd be even better if I could play it on a real NES, right? Ya see where I'm going with this? There's a great tutorial on the internet about making a reprogrammable NES cartridge. I want to make my own cart with Mario Adventure on it. I know Mario Adventure uses mapper MMC3, and it uses a save feature. A Kirby's Adventure cartridge has both these features! So if I swap out the chips, then I'll have a functioning Mario Adventure cartridge.

Here is the question: How do I build my own programmer and program the chips?

Mario · Post by **Mario** » Sat Sep 06, 2008 9:36 pm

Oh please, no one has had experience programming these chips? I'd really like to make this game.

Bibin · Post by **Bibin** » Sun Sep 07, 2008 12:58 am

Talk to this guy: http://www.tripoint.org/kevtris/

Mario · Post by **Mario** » Sun Sep 07, 2008 10:08 am

Bibin wrote:Talk to this guy: http://www.tripoint.org/kevtris/

I've seen that site before, it's pretty useful, but I didn't find any information on building an eprom programmer.

EDIT: I once read something about using an old computer to program the chips. You would take out the BIOS chips and put in yours and flash the BIOS with your own information... Anyone got any more info on this?

totokan · Post by **totokan** » Sun Sep 07, 2008 8:10 pm

You have a specific eprom in mind? Unless you commit, you can't come up with an idea on how to program it. If you can't commit, google "Universal eprom programmer" I got a lot of hits. Usually they interface via serial or USB ports and use a software program, much like microchips would.

Mario · Post by **Mario** » Sun Sep 07, 2008 9:16 pm

totokan wrote:You have a specific eprom in mind? Unless you commit, you can't come up with an idea on how to program it. If you can't commit, google "Universal eprom programmer" I got a lot of hits. Usually they interface via serial or USB ports and use a software program, much like microchips would.

I wanted to use the AT49F002, the same one used in this tutorial, because there are relatively few traces to redirect, and the chips are the right size/capacity.

Mario · Post by **Mario** » Mon Sep 08, 2008 9:51 pm

Did some more research and I found this. It's called an EPROMr, and it supports writing to chips 2764 to 27040. Does anybody know if this range includes a 256kb and a 128kb chip? And where can I get them?

Turbo Tax 1.0 · Post by **Turbo Tax 1.0** » Tue Sep 09, 2008 2:43 pm

for snes games (27c801 eproms) I use a "top2004" programmer

it works perfectly was about 50$ and I've made tons of carts with it, stay away from the cheap willems programmers on ebay

edit: this is the one I use the shipping is kinda ridiculous you could probably find it cheaper
link