[Coco] First EPROM success!

[Christopher Barnett Fox]

Just a quick Thank You to the list members that helped me with the basics
of EPROM burning. Had my first success this evening, burning an
un-modified ADOS-3 and installing into a Disto Mini Controller.

Summing up, I bought the TL866CS MiniPro USB programmer off eBay for $40
shipped. I found a pack of 10 new ST M27C128-10F1 EPROMs for $17 shipped,
also on eBay. I was initially concerned, as the TL866CS only shows the
M27C512 from ST, and I couldn't seem to get that to work, even setting the
range to program and turning off the ID check. The programmer kept
complaining about the EPROM not being completely empty, but the address it
specified would've been out of range for the 27C128. Fortunately, I found
that an existing profile for the NSC NM27C128 worked OK.
I then ran into trouble with my first attempt, as the ROM was not being
recognized in the CoCo3. However, I remembered a previous post on the list
inquiring about some initial possibly erroneous bytes in the ADOS3.BIN
file. I checked, and sure enough they were present. After trimming the
initial five bytes (00 20 00 20 00) and burning a fresh EPROM, it worked
great!

FWIW, I have the TL866CS running in a WinXP VM in Fusion 7 Pro on a 2013
Mac Pro running OS X 10.10.2. It's working quite well.

Very exciting for me to have this working! I was 6 years old when I got my
first CoCo 1 in the very early 80s. 32K ECB. Moved to a CoCo 2 then a CoCo
3 running OS-9 Lvl 2, and then abandoned the CoCo when I went off to
college in '92. Coming back to it with a heck of a lot more knowledge now
has been a real treat, and finding such a combined wealth of experience
and wisdom from the warm community of members on this list has been
immensely inspiring.

You guys rock.

Christopher