EPROM Programming

Programming (or "burning") your own ROMs for upgrade purposes requires specific software, hardware and of course ROM files to be succesful.

This guide was tested and written for Ubuntu 22.04.1 LTS and Debian systems in mind.

Hardware & software

Many EPROM programmers are available and when the CoCo was still available for purchase several magazines published articles to even build your own.

This guide uses the USB XGecu programmer (model TL 866II PLUS), commonly available for an affordable price.

Installing the minipro command line utility

We'll be using the minipro command line utility to control this EPROM programmer. Follow the instructions to install it in Ubuntu.

Once installed, you can verify it has the latest firmware :

minipro -t

You may get a warning about outdated firmware like Warning : firmware is out of date. It's recommended to upgrade the firmware then. Check the relevant section below.

You will then need to decide which chip you'r egoing to be flashing and find it in the list of supported ICs.

In this example

Firmware upgrade for the TL866 plus

You will need to download the original Windows installer (.RAR file similar to xgproV9999_setup.rar) from the XGecu website (or from this mirror), extract it, and the extract the required file before flashing it. Version 11.90 worked in this example :

mkdir XGECUsoftware && cd XGECUsoftware
get https://github.com/Kreeblah/XGecu_Software/blob/master/Xgpro/11/xgproV1190_setup.rar
unrar e xgproV1190_setup.rar
unrar e XgproV1190_Setup.exe updateII.dat

Once you have the updateII.dat file, use it to flash your EPROM programmer :

magicfab@PC-ProDesk:~/Documents/Projets/XGECUsoftware$ minipro -F updateII.dat 
Found TL866II+ 04.2.125 (0x27d)
Warning: Firmware is out of date.
 Expected  04.2.128 (0x280)
 Found     04.2.125 (0x27d)
updateII.dat contains firmware version 4.2.131 (newer) 
 
Do you want to continue with firmware update? y/n:y
Switching to bootloader... OK
Erasing... OK
Reflashing... 100%
Resetting device... OK
Reflash... OK

References

• USB XGecu programmer (model TL 866II PLUS) product page
• XGecu_Software - A mirror of current and archival versions of software for XGecu's (formerly Autoelectric's) chip programmers
• TL866 Minipro EEPROM Programmer Ubuntu Linux
• Using minipro in OpenSUSE