![\"d20130413_0001\"](\"http:\/\/www.soleillapierre.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/d20130413_0001.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
There’s a lot of history behind this purchase.<\/p>\n
Back when I was taking Electronics Engineering Technology in Toronto, twenty years ago, we had to do a sort of “mini-thesis” project in our final year. \u00a0I really wanted to make an EPROM<\/a> programmer<\/a> for my project, because having one would enable me to incorporate stored-program components like microprocessors into my electronics hobby projects, and I couldn’t afford to buy one.<\/p>\n The instructor (hi, Darrell!) said this project wasn’t complex enough and would only be worth a ‘C’ grade at best, so I was forced to choose something else. \u00a0But I’ve been wanting a device programmer ever since.<\/p>\n Lately I’ve been having a hankering to dust off the hobby and do some projects, and being able to use programmable devices is necessary for many of the projects I have in mind. \u00a0I thought about making my own again, but I decided to check and see if prices on commercial models had got a little more reasonable. \u00a0While I place value on doing stuff myself, making my own is now less interesting than the things I can do once I have one, so I’m willing to sacrifice some nerd cred in order to get to the good stuff faster.<\/p>\n Prices haven’t improved (most professional models are still in the thousands of dollars) but there are some cheap alternatives available now. \u00a0I looked at what could be had from local dealers and from eBay, and I was tempted by these things called Willem programmers. \u00a0They typically plug into a PC’s serial or parallel port, though some models now support USB, and they’re super cheap.<\/p>\n Unfortunately upon doing some research, I found that buying a Willem looked risky. \u00a0Willems started out as a hobbyist design, which got picked up and mutated by others. \u00a0There are now dozens of different models, many of which do not come with documentation or with functioning software – the Willem name has become so fragmented that there is even a visual identification guide<\/a> to try to help people figure out which one they’ve got, so they can try to make it go. There are also some unscrupulous dealers doing things like naming their products “True Willem Programmer” to make it sound more credible than it is (“True” is part of the name, not a description).<\/p>\n So I could go cheap and buy a Willem and risk having to spend a lot of time hunting down software, or maybe even reverse-engineering the thing to write my own, or I could drop a little more on a prosumer model. \u00a0I settled on the Wellon VP-290 pictured above after reading some favorable reviews on hobbyist websites, and a brand new one set me back less than $200. \u00a0It has an impressive list<\/a> of supported devices, which more than covers my needs.<\/p>\n I haven’t actually burned any devices with it yet – I haven’t decided on my next project, let alone written the firmware. \u00a0But I did test the programmer by reading out the contents of some old EPROMs I had sitting around, and while the software workflow isn’t slick, it’s good enough. \u00a0I think this will prove to be a fruitful purchase.<\/p>\n So: I’m letting out a long sigh after twenty years of holding out. \u00a0I had a lot of emotional investment in making my own device programmer – that initial rejection of the project idea got my hackles up and I never forgot it. \u00a0But time heals all markets, and I’ve finally put it to rest and enabled myself to move on to bigger and better projects.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The latest addition to my mad science lab: A device programmer. There’s a lot of history behind this purchase. Back when I was taking Electronics Engineering Technology in Toronto, twenty years ago, we had to do a sort of “mini-thesis” project in our final year. \u00a0I really wanted to make an EPROM programmer for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,18,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hardwarehacking","category-projects","category-softwarehacking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.soleillapierre.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.soleillapierre.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.soleillapierre.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.soleillapierre.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.soleillapierre.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2520"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/www.soleillapierre.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2520\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2529,"href":"http:\/\/www.soleillapierre.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2520\/revisions\/2529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.soleillapierre.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.soleillapierre.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.soleillapierre.ca\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}