[Techtoolslist] What's happening with old 2716/2732

[Rodger Boots]

My job, at the time, was with Rockwell Collins Radio which was showing off
their WXR700 weather radar (used by Boeing in their large jet planes.  The
company photographer took the promo photos then the unit was set up for the
demonstration.  It was dead as a doornail.  All 10 2716 EPROMS were
erased.  They reloaded the software and everything ended up working.

We didn't have them, but there were manufactures of EPROM erasers that used
flashtubes that they claimed could erase a batch in about 5 seconds.  They
may have been special flashtubes, I don't know for sure.

On Tue, Oct 25, 2022 at 2:06 PM Dave McGuire <
mcguire at mcguirescientificservices.com> wrote:

>
>    Same here.  Xenon flash tubes don't produce much energy at the ~250nm
> wavelength required for EPROM erasure; their emission spectrum typically
> falls off at about 350-400nm.
>
>    They'll crash if photographed while running, sure, but that's due to
> all of those transistors' junctions acting like photodiodes for a few
> milliseconds.  But no erasure will occur.
>
>               -Dave
>
> On 10/25/22 15:01, Andrew Welburn wrote:
> > I have photographed games running on my bench with the flash on and
> exposed windows plenty of times. Older games can freak out and crash/reset
> but there’s never any long term damage. Nintendo weren’t stupid, uncovered
> windows are not a great issue unless you have the exact wavelength of light
> for the needed exposure period at the right strength. The reality is in
> common use you are unlikely to encounter that set of variables lining up to
> cause damage.
> >
> > Andrew Welburn (mobile)
> >
> >> On Oct 25, 2022, at 9:53 AM, John Robertson via Techtoolslist <
> techtoolslist at flippers.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> On 2022/10/24 8:41 p.m., Rodger Boots wrote:
> >>> I'm more surprised more Nintendo games haven't had this problem.  All
> it
> >>> takes is a lack of window covers and an old-fashioned flash camera.
> >>
> >> That's interesting - if a strobe tube (like used in a camera flash can
> actually erase the older EPROMs...I'll have to test that out today. I have
> these pistols and rifles that use focused strobe tubes to illuminate CDS
> cells on their targets for a large scale shooting gallery I own on a local
> midway (Pacific National Exhibition - Vancouver, BC). So it is an easy
> thing to fire up - so to speak!
> >>
> >> John :-#)#
> >>
> >>>
> >>>> On Sat, Oct 22, 2022, 8:56 PM Jose Luiz Martins <
> joseluizmartins at gmail.com>
> >>>> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> Hi folks
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> Got some old 1980's Taito boards to fix and surprise! All 2716 are
> blank!
> >>>> This happened with about 5 boards and more than 40 ICs most of them
> are
> >>>> 2716 but some 2732 too.
> >>>>
> >>>> Do you guys is experiencing something like this?
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> Thanks!
> >>>>
> >>>> JL
> >>
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> --
> Dave McGuire
> McGuire Scientific Services, LLC
> New Kensington, PA
>
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