[LinuxBIOS] PLCC removal trick

[Dave Ashley]

I don't know about anyone else but the dental floss idea didn't
work at all for me, the floss interferes with the pins.

I had this idea on how to remove the chip easily, but I
haven't tried it. Just get some strong epoxy and glue
onto the top surface of the flashrom something to
act as a handle. After it's dry, use that to pull the
chip out.

JB Weld might work.

-Dave

[Richard Smith]

On 9/14/05, Dave Ashley  wrote:
> I don't know about anyone else but the dental floss idea didn't
> work at all for me, the floss interferes with the pins.
>
> I had this idea on how to remove the chip easily, but I
> haven't tried it. Just get some strong epoxy and glue
> onto the top surface of the flashrom something to
> act as a handle. After it's dry, use that to pull the
> chip out.
>
> JB Weld might work.

If you are doing that much LB work then you _really_ need and eprom
emulator.  It will pay for itself in the time you save waiting on the
flash to program.

Tech Tools has some good ones for about $300 and the 16bit DOS loader
programs that they provide in addition to the windows clients will run
under DOSEMU fine.  (As long as you use the fast parallel port option)
The windows clients might run under WINE but I've not tried.

Seriously.  Get an emulator.  You will be happy you did.

You will also probally need a DIP to PLCC adapter.  So I guess the
real total is $500 (depending on the adapter you buy) .  Still its
totally worth the money.

[Jeff Carr]

On 09/14/2005 01:38 PM, Richard Smith wrote:
> If you are doing that much LB work then you _really_ need and eprom
> emulator.

I see from this page:
http://www.antratek.nl/EPROM-emulators-e.html
> It will pay for itself in the time you save waiting on the
> flash to program.

More than that I think. How smart are these devices? Can one single step
through instructions or dump out the registers on the CPU.(?)
> Tech Tools has some good ones for about $300 and the 16bit DOS loader
> programs that they provide in addition to the windows clients will run
> under DOSEMU fine.

Interesting. Do you have some URL's? The FAQ doesn't contain anything
like this in it.
> (As long as you use the fast parallel port option)
> The windows clients might run under WINE but I've not tried.

Perhaps you can send some screenshots of the software or email some of
the capabilities of using an emulator. Man, if only someone made one
that hooked up to gdb, then we would be in business.
> Seriously.  Get an emulator.  You will be happy you did.

Perhaps. This is the first I've heard of them so I'd like to see what is
out there in the market.
> You will also probally need a DIP to PLCC adapter.

Right. The adapter size is likely to be a problem. Some boards will not
have the space to fit such an adapter. Guess it's back to the making
adapters game.

Thanks for the pointers,
Jeff

[Jeff Carr]

On 09/14/2005 06:44 PM, Jeff Carr wrote:
> On 09/14/2005 01:38 PM, Richard Smith wrote:
> > Tech Tools has some good ones for about $300 and the 16bit DOS loader
> Perhaps you can send some screenshots of the software or email some of
> the capabilities of using an emulator.

Sorry, I should have googled more first. The manuals are at:
http://www.tech-tools.com/romtools.htm

Jeff

[Guido Fiala]

On Wednesday 14 September 2005 21:56, Dave Ashley wrote:
> I don't know about anyone else but the dental floss idea didn't
> work at all for me, the floss interferes with the pins.
>
> I had this idea on how to remove the chip easily, but I
> haven't tried it. Just get some strong epoxy and glue
> onto the top surface of the flashrom something to
> act as a handle. After it's dry, use that to pull the
> chip out.

Instead of epoxy you might use hot-glue (or whats it called),
or, even better, "Power Strip" - a removable 2-side-glue flexible tape...

[Steve Gehlbach]

Guido Fiala wrote:
> On Wednesday 14 September 2005 21:56, Dave Ashley wrote:
> > I don't know about anyone else but the dental floss idea didn't
> > work at all for me, the floss interferes with the pins.
> >
> > I had this idea on how to remove the chip easily, but I
> > haven't tried it. Just get some strong epoxy and glue
> > onto the top surface of the flashrom something to
> > act as a handle. After it's dry, use that to pull the
> > chip out.
>
> Instead of epoxy you might use hot-glue (or whats it called),
> or, even better, "Power Strip" - a removable 2-side-glue flexible tape...

It's a good idea, but keep in mind that some programmers (such as my 
Needhams) have a cover that closes over the chip to program it, so a 
removal knob might interfere with closing the cover.  Maybe the 
programmer will make contact anyway with the cover open, haven't tried 
it so I don't know.

Steve

[Peter Stuge]

On Wed, Sep 14, 2005 at 12:56:42PM -0700, Dave Ashley wrote:
> I don't know about anyone else but the dental floss idea didn't
> work at all for me, the floss interferes with the pins.

Try putting the floss diagonally under the chip?

//Peter

[LinuxBIOS] LPC ROM emulator [was: PLCC removal trick]

[Peter Stuge]

On Thu, Sep 15, 2005 at 07:02:20AM -0700, Dave Ashley wrote:
> I looked at the FlexROM III, it appears to emulate just flat 8 or
> 16 bit devices. PLCC's are more complicated, they frequently make
> use of an LPC interface that clocks in 4 bits of data at a time (as
> I recall) to get the address into the chip, then clocks out 4 bits
> of data at a time. I think an operation is 16 bits at a time. This
> is all transparent from the system's perspective. However behind
> the scenes it is a complicated dance.

Cycles are 1, 2, 4 or 128 bytes. Required signals are 4 bit A/D bus,
cycle sync, reset and clock. Last two are same as on PCI.

LPC is a pretty neat bus. Making an emulator would be fun..

On Wed, Sep 14, 2005 at 06:44:30PM -0700, Jeff Carr wrote:
> More than that I think. How smart are these devices? Can one single
> step through instructions or dump out the registers on the CPU.(?)

I don't think so, it's only a ROM emulator, not a CPU debugger. As
for single stepping, that won't work either because the ROM has a
(very short) limited response time, it can't just block on reads.
> the capabilities of using an emulator. Man, if only someone made
> one that hooked up to gdb, then we would be in business.

I'm not sure how gdb would work with a ROM emulator, but on the other
hand I haven't done too much advanced stuff with gdb. :(
> > You will also probally need a DIP to PLCC adapter.
>
> Right. The adapter size is likely to be a problem. Some boards will
> not have the space to fit such an adapter. Guess it's back to the
> making adapters game.

Try to find one that builds straight up from the socket. I was using
something pretty good from ICEtech or similar when last working with
BIOS things, it didn't have the DIP size board until about an inch up
from the PLCC socket.

//Peter