(E)EPROM Programmer for Mac?

[guddler]

Anyone know of a cheap one with Mac software? I want a second programmer that can live down in the house just for quick tasks. I've already spent around £900 on my main one so it really must be cheap.

Not interested in something that works in Windows with Bootcamp, clearly I know I can do that.

Specifically I'd like to program a 29C020 EEPROM so it needs to be 32 pin.

And I'm also aware that I could knock something up with an arduino but that would be yet another project and I'm trying to not start any more projects until I get some finished first

Finally, given the Mac part, USB is probably a given, but I do of course have a USB to serial adapter.

 

[Zektor]

Place a pillow case over it and set a PC up next to it Seriously though I use one of these cheap things and it seems to work well.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/New-G540-Universal-Programmer-EPROM-FLASH-MCU-GAL-PIC-USB-/250999004825?pt=UK_BOI_Electrical_Components_Supplies_ET&hash=item3a70b4de99

Problem being no Mac software. Can you partition your hard drive and boot windows on your mac? probably easier to buy a cheap windows laptop for programming.

 

[Purity]

http://www.batronix.com/shop/programmer/BX32/eprom-programmer.html

Any good for you? Supports MacOSX and Linux

 

[cmonkey]

I know you've said that Bootcamp isn't an option but how about a virtualized solution like VMware Fusion or Parallels? I use a USB MiniPro TL866A programmer through Fusion on my MacBook Pro and it burns everything that I've thrown at it so far.

 

[cmonkey]

http://www.batronix.com/shop/programmer/BX32/eprom-programmer.html

Any good for you?  Supports MacOSX and Linux

Prog-Express is not a native Mac OS X binary, it runs through an X windows/Mono installation.

 

[guddler]

Mono is fine. I'm looking at Mono myself for some coding at the moment. It's come one hell of a long way since it started. That doesn't involve partitions, Parallels or anything - all of which I have, but are not an option as they just add time and layers of pain in the arse.

Which should answer the other questions above. Yes, I know I can do all of that stuff, and indeed I do for other things but if I purchase anything here then it's a convenience thing and starting up a power hungry VM, waiting for it to start or resume, dragging stuff about into folders that are not on my native install and so on, and so on, until eventually shutting it down again. Rinse and repeat whenever I was to read or write a file. No thanks, that's just plain backwards and I'm doing my best to avoid it whenever possible.

The Batronix's ones are nice indeed and very tempting. But £107 + Postage is kind of pushing the envelope of what's a cheap convenience a bit to be honest.

I'm very surprised nobody has come up with some software for the Willem ones yet.

 

[Jase]

I know you've said that Bootcamp isn't an option but how about a virtualized solution like VMware Fusion or Parallels? I use a USB MiniPro TL866A programmer through Fusion on my MacBook Pro and it burns everything that I've thrown at it so far.

+1 on this, I use Parallels on my MacBook and it's superb. Run Windows programs on your Mac desktop as though they are Mac programs. No loss in performance whatsoever.

EDIT - sorry, just read your reply... (skulks off quietly...)

Jase2014-04-30 12:49:17

 

[guddler]

Yeah, it's not whether I can or can't that's the issue. I've been using VMs since VMWare first came out and indeed own licenses for both VMWare Fusion and Parallels for Mac. But just to highlight the problem. I have an HxC floppy emulator which as it happens does come with Mac software, but for some things the Mac software is buggy as F, or just plain doesn't work. So the work flow is:

• Oh, I need to get a file onto my Amiga, that's an LHA file
• Let's connect the SD Card reader to the Macbook Air
• Insert CD Card
• Start up Parallels (I'm using my bootcamp partition through parallels, to do so natively would be even longer)
• Wait for it to start up since you can't resume a boot camp partition (though it's not instant even if you could).
• Ensure SDCard Reader is attached to VM (should be)
• Fire up HxC software in VM
• Drag file from OSX to VM (meh, OK, if you're lucky you have it somewhere that's shared)
• Do the task (involves reading an image, adding the new file, exporting the image - but let's be fair it would on the Mac too)
• Safely eject SDCard from VM
• Close HxC software
• Shut down Windows ('cause you can't suspend a bootcamp VM) - or suspend if you can
• quit parallels

You then go back to what you were doing. Half an hour later you find you need another file. So rinse and repeat. What a ball-ache !!! In fact, such a pain that I just bought an external floppy drive for the Amiga (yes, a genuine real 90's one), installed DOS floppy drivers on the Amiga and have a USB floppy drive for the Mac - which still seems to work with Floppies provided you give it the drive to do so. Was quite surprised about that.

That's the problem with some of these modern "solutions". The concept is great, but before long you realise that the Utopia of having dozens of virtual floppy disks on an SD Card is actually probably more hard work that just using floppy disks. OK, more reliable, I'll give you that, but a lot more work.

Anyway, I digress, none of this has anything to do with the original subject, just wanted to explain (hopefully without being too negative) why I'm rejecting the whole VM / Bootcamp path...

 

[cmonkey]

I guess you're just gonna have to reverse the Windows software and re-engineer it in Objective-C then....

 

[guddler]

Don't temp me! Projects, projects!! Actually, I've never really got to grips with Objective C and Cocoa. I've done a few small things but I firmly believe it's something you need to immerse yourself in to do properly and as a .NET developer during the day, that's incredibly difficult for my ageing brain!

For the HxC software I mentioned above I did download the source and have a look but like so many open source projects I took one look and thought. WTF???!!!

 

[Judder]

If you fancy a bit of "porting fun", it should be fairly easy to move Linux based "Willem Programmer for Linux" over to OSX.

I've used it under Ubuntu and it does all the basic chips (2716, 2732 etc.) that a Willem will do with the native Windows software very well.

http://geepro.sourceforge.net/

and a quick port-a-guide from Apple

https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/porting/conceptual/portingunix/compiling/compiling.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40002850-TPXREF101

Judder2014-04-30 13:52:35

 

[guddler]

Difficult to tell if that would even be possible. I can't at the moment even determine if the programmers are LPT or USB, or if LPT, whether LPT->USB is supported. There's something about LPT->USB in the source but not clear where that comes in.

Either way, I think drivers would be a major issue and well beyond me.

 

[guddler]

Well, I decided to download the Mac software for the Batronix last night and take a look. I'm very glad I did. What a pile of kak!!! On the 1 occasion I was able to get it to start, parts of the interface did not display / draw at all and a lot of those that did weren't lined up correctly. I didn't get as far as exploring it much as it was just too awful.

I've raised a ticket with them just in case they come back with any suggestions but at the moment I think that one (the only Mac one?) can be scrubbed from the list too...

[EDIT] When I said above that Mono was not a problem, I was assuming that it would be a native XIB based interface linked to a Mono back end. That was obviously wishful thinking but I'd have at least expected it to work.

guddler2014-05-01 12:42:52

 

[ArcadeHacker]

Im a Mac user and fire up parallels to run Windows whenever I need to use my programer.

 

[guddler]

Yeah, I think we established I know how to do that very early on in this thread.