Anyone know anything about EPROM Burners? Looking to buy one.

[greedostick]

Hey all,

Me and a friend are toy'ing with the idea of getting a EPROM burner. I have a Willow JAMMA board that has lines in the background lke a dirty NES cart, and he has a Gun Force 2 board with a similar issue. Not to mention receiving other Neo Geo carts and JAMMA bords with issues on arrival. So we decided it may be a good idea to go in together and get a burner. Basically we just want to be able to repair Neo Geo MVS carts, JAMMA boards, and maybe make some conversions of NES, SNES, and Genesis games. For example, make english versions of translated games like Mother, and Star Ocean. It would be nice to switch out roms in Eng boards like Strider with Jp roms to be able to play the un-edited versions of the games.

So we pretty much know nothing about these burners. Don't know what to look for, what kind of options we need to look for when buying one. It would be nice if someone could give us a nudge and recommend a decent burner that can do what we want. Also, maybe mention some problems we need to be prepared for when doing something like this. Also, where we can find NES, SNES, Genesis, and Neo Geo EPROMS would be nice.

Finally, where would I get the data to burn to the roms I want? For example, if I wanted to repair my Willow board, would I get a clean dump of the ROM online and burn that file to the EPROM? Or am I going to need a working copy of my board to rip the EPROM I want?

Thanks!

[FABombjoy]

I've had a Pocket Programmer 2 for years and it's been great. Burns A LOT of stuff right out of the box, setup is simple. I also have the EP-16 adapter so I can burn 16-bit EPROMs. The latest version of the Pocket Programmer is USB and should work with just about any computer (I have the parallel version so it's a bit more picky).

I can't tell you how to make bootleg carts, but when you say "Neo Geo" if you want to replace the BIOS, regardless of what burner you choose you'll need one that supports 16-bit.

If you want to repair arcade roms, just find the MAME set and look for the file that you need. The rom files are typically named the same as they're marked on the physical board.

Cheaper options would be the Willem programmers but I believe the setup can be a bit more cumbersome. Or you can look for used professional programmers on eBay.

Regardless of what burner you choose, you need to figure out your exact part requirements to be sure that you select a device capable of burning them.

[greedostick]

I've had a Pocket Programmer 2 for years and it's been great. Burns A LOT of stuff right out of the box, setup is simple. I also have the EP-16 adapter so I can burn 16-bit EPROMs. The latest version of the Pocket Programmer is USB and should work with just about any computer (I have the parallel version so it's a bit more picky).

I can't tell you how to make bootleg carts, but when you say "Neo Geo" if you want to replace the BIOS, regardless of what burner you choose you'll need one that supports 16-bit.

If you want to repair arcade roms, just find the MAME set and look for the file that you need. The rom files are typically named the same as they're marked on the physical board.

Cheaper options would be the Willem programmers but I believe the setup can be a bit more cumbersome. Or you can look for used professional programmers on eBay.

Regardless of what burner you choose, you need to figure out your exact part requirements to be sure that you select a device capable of burning them.

That thing has a serial port on it. No USB. Do you know where I can buy one of these programmers at?

[gokugohandave]

wasnt too hard: http://secure.transtronics.com/osc/product_info.php/cPath/55/products_id/621

The one HE has is parallel, as he has an older version, hes saying that the newer ones now have USB.

[Tempest]

I've had a Pocket Programmer 2 for years and it's been great. Burns A LOT of stuff right out of the box, setup is simple.
That's what I use (the old parallel port version). I actually have a spare one for sale, but I don't have a power supply for it. I think it's generic though.

Tempest