Programming 29L3211 eeproms

I was thinking about getting some of these chips so I can covert my Jap Super Mario RPG cart (among others) into English. I know I can get them preprogrammed from buyicnow.com but I'm always up for expanding my toolset, so anyone know the best way to program these things? I only have a TL866, and as far as I know there is no way to make these chips compatible with it. I have scoured Google and it seems that the GQ-4X with an adapter may be the cheapest (or only?) method - can anyone do better?

Cheers

 

You may be able to program it on the TL866 with some fiddling of 2 pins.
I have a TL866 I used for backup, but I dont have the SOP44 top board. I have just ordered one, once it arrives I can test my theory.

 

OK, that would be very useful information please keep me up to date with your findings! Good luck

 

You can program a 29L3211 with nothing more than a $6 Arduino Mega and a 3.3V voltage regulator. I've written the necessary code and uploaded it here. So that would be the cheapest option.
But since most people want plug and play, this option might not be the right one for you.

 

Forgive me (I am not very familiar with Arduino), but I am to use your method would I not have to build that whole cart reader? Or am I missing the point entirely? Is there something that will let me plug the chip directly into an Arduino Mega and then I can program it with your code?

Sorry for being a noob!

 

Well this method only makes sense when you're tight on budget or like to experiment and solder or maybe if you always wanted to get started with Arduino, but yes you don't need to build the whole cart reader.

Basicly, you would buy the Arduino Mega and convert it to 3.3V(google "Converting an Arduino to 3.3V") since the 29L3211 does not like 5V connected to its VCC/OE/WE pins.
Then you would connect the 29L3211 to said Arduino according to the pinout.xls on my github(programming is done in 8bit mode, so it needs less wires).
How you connect the flashrom to the Arduino doesn't matter, you can wire it directly, you can use a fancy zif socket or a tsop to dip adapter pcb.
You would also need to connect a SD card to the Arduino, which again is just wires to Arduino pins, no other components. You can use one of those microSD to SD adapters that come with every micro SD card to create a SD slot.

It will be a weekend project for sure but it's not harder than creating a Snes repro. Just depend on whether such projects are fun to you or if you rather spend the money and buy something professional.

 

OK, great info - thanks. I will leave it here with this thread, but if it's ok with you I may PM you for some extra details as I may as well give this a go for such a small investment. I'll report back here for anyone else who's interested with my results if/when I get some.