Getting rid of wrong Windows10 drivers (Clonix/Nov)

[Diego Diaz]

I'm in the Canary Islands (one of the safest places considering current circumstances).

Anyway, shipping cost is included in the previous figures.

Regards.

[Sylvain Cote]

Great news!
I will take two for now and probably several more later.

[Diego Diaz]

Thanks Sylvain, will be in touch.

And I've got good news: the parts arrived this morning and have (somehow) slipped under Customs radar. ;-)

I'm confident in having the first batch ready to ship by Friday.

Please check the Classified section for details on price and shipping.

Also, the tests for repacing the USB-41 interface with a new one based on the FT232 chip are rendering good results (once I realized that these chips require a one-time configuration on set-up, ;-) and I ran both applications: Printer emulation and page transfer yesterday evening without problems on Win10 64bits.

More on this when I confirm tests on other platforms.

Best wishes and stay safe.

Diego.

[HP-Collection]

Programmers have arrived. Maybe we get a nice 3D printed housing from someone?

[Sylvain Cote]

Hello Diego,
Which FT232 chip did you used for the new USB-41 ?
Regards,
Sylvain

[Diego Diaz]

Hi Sylvain,

Since logistics troubles and delays are fairly common lately, I ordered three lots of 5 units from three different sellers.

Much to my surprise the first lot arrived about three weeks later and I began with the tests.

The chip in that units is the FT232BL (QFP). It uses external Xtal oscillator and the latest revision on its datasheet is from 2011, so I was a bit concerned; but they worked like a charm.

Few days later (not more than 10) the two remaining orders arrived. These were both identical, same cable, same wiring and same interface chip: FT232RL (SSOP) with internal oscillator (no Xtal).

The "RL" revision seems to be an active one (latest datasheet version 21-05-2020) and also performs without problems in the several test.

Testing procedure for the 82143A emulation consists in several "PRP" commands of the "PRPLOT" program inside the USB-41 (Clonix-like) memory area. So both 'sides' of the module's interface is tested.

Then, after reconfiguring for page transfer function; a .ROM file (MATH-1A.ROM in fact) was sent to HEPAX RAM page #B and later received back from the HEPAX RAM to a temporary .ROM file (MATES-1A.ROM) then both files are bitwise compared using an hexadecimal file editor (WinHEX.exe).

The prodedure was repeated several dozen times without errors using both types of FT232 chips on WIn 7 & 10 (32 & 64bits) so I'm confident they will perform as expected.

Hope you find this info useful.

Best wishes and keep safe.

Diego.

[teenix]

(08-05-2020 01:01 AM)Diego Diaz Wrote:  Since Windows 8 showed up and currently under Win10, most (if not all) Clonix/NoV users with a K149/150 USB programmer have suffered the dreaded "driver auto upgrade".

Hi Diego,

If I may ask, are these PIC programmers, do you have a picture of them?

cheers

Tony

[Diego Diaz]

Hi Tony,

Both K149 and K150 are PIC programmers.

K149 is out of production since long ago, but you can find pictures of the K150 (in the thousands) just googling for "K150 PIC programmer".

I no longer have them, but still a picture of the K149 can be found in the last page of the ClonixConfig manual.

Hope this helps.

Diego.

[teenix]

Hi Diego,

I was the designer of those kits and accompanying software a long time ago for KitsRus when I was working at a University. I also did the K128 which worked direct from the USB port.

Microchip started manufacturing so many new parts that I couldn't keep up and had to give it away. The PICkits soon followed anyway and had more features.

It's still a small world ;-)

cheers

Tony

[Sylvain Cote]

(09-18-2020 06:11 AM)teenix Wrote:  If I may ask, are these PIC programmers, do you have a picture of them?

(09-18-2020 09:42 AM)Diego Diaz Wrote:  Both K149 and K150 are PIC programmers.
K149 is out of production since long ago, but you can find pictures of the K150 (in the thousands) just googling for "K150 PIC programmer".

Tony,
I bought 15 units of these and they works like a charm.
Sylvain

[Sylvain Cote]

(09-18-2020 05:40 AM)Diego Diaz Wrote:  Hope you find this info useful.

Diego,
Very, I am currently readying the 40 minutes version of your modules presentation for the upcoming virtual HPCC conference.
Thank you!
Sylvain

[teenix]

(09-18-2020 10:28 AM)Sylvain Cote Wrote:  Tony,
I bought 15 units of these and they works like a charm.
Sylvain

Awesome, and it looks like they still might be available, probably cloned, as the 149 has a different PIC chip than I used.

I actually used my K128 to start programming chips for the initial 67 CPU replacement boards, but a Microchip programmer soon became more practical with newer chips.

cheers

Tony

[Diego Diaz]

Hi,

Good luck with your presentation Sylvain. ;-)

Tony,
Certainly, the programmer itself has no functional problems whatsoever. The reason to find a replacement was the lack of driver support in Win 10 (from Win 8 upwards in fact).

On the other hand, the K series programmers *cannot* handle PIC µControllers with more than 64K Flash ROM.

Even the PIC18F2620 I use in the current modules were not natively supported, so I modified the Chipdata file in order to include it.

Newer PICs won't ever be available for this programmer.

Good luck