EPROM/FLASH Memory writers?

[Qiwei Xiao]

Greetings from the U.S.

I would like to help with the development but I have a question that
I'd like to ask:

Do I need an EPROM/FLASH memory writers for the work? Is it enough to 
just buy a motherboard with FLASH memory and download the new bios to
the chip?

If I just need a motherboard with FLASH, could somebody give me some
suggestions as what motherboards are good?

If I need an EPROM/FLASH memory burner, or any special circuitry,
could somebody give me a little advice also?

Regards,
Qiwei Xiao
Lucent Technologies

[Matthias Wächter]

On Wed, 28 Oct 1998, Qiwei Xiao wrote:
> Do I need an EPROM/FLASH memory writers for the work? Is it enough to 
> just buy a motherboard with FLASH memory and download the new bios to
> the chip?

Yes, motherboards supporting FLASH memory in general include a utility to
burn new BIOS to the memory, no special circuitry is needed. But if one
destroys his BIOS so he can't boot any more, he will have to use a
circuitry - possibly on another computer - to burn a better BIOS to the
FLASH in order to use it again.

I.e., a developer burning BIOS for developing reasons more than once a
week or so, will probably need another computer and some flash memory
writing hardware/software to restruct the BIOS in emergency.
> If I just need a motherboard with FLASH, could somebody give me some
> suggestions as what motherboards are good?

Well, take one! As long as the FLASH utilities work as expected, you can
take any motherboard you like. I think, the choice of motherboard is only
a matter of chipsets supported by the BIOS you want to flash.
> If I need an EPROM/FLASH memory burner, or any special circuitry,
> could somebody give me a little advice also?

Since newer FLASH chips behave similar to SRAM chips, one can easily
connect them to parallel port with really small amount of circuitry. An
ISA card is even easier to develop, I think there has been a project
concerning FLASH burning in the german computers magazine "c't" this year,
but there will be many other international projects with the same goal.
> Regards,
> Qiwei Xiao
> Lucent Technologies

Ciao,
- Matthias