pcmhacking.net

Hi all,

I took a chance, and purchased a MiniPro TL866CS programmer on Ebay. $52 to my door.
The MiniPro is a USB programmer, about the size of a cigarette packet. It has a 40 pin 3M ZIF socket on top.

The website is in chinese, but the install disk was in chinglish, enough to easily understand.
The drivers and programmer package installed on my Windows 7 32 Bit laptop no problems (also supports 64 bit according to the blurb).
The programming software is in english, and is pretty straight forward to understand, though the help files are in chinese.
The program software does the usual EPROM programmery things.
The software updates online, by directing you to a chinese site. In chinese. The version number link is obvious though.
Once updated, the program upgrades the flash on the programmer hardware.
Seems to support a lot of EPROMS, MCU's and NVRAM, though does not list the DALLAS DS1245Y NVRAM. Does list the DS1230Y.
This could be a deal breaker for some. EDIT :- DOES list the DALLAS DS1245Y NVRAM.
I have blanked, written, verified and read $12P to several SST27SF256 EEPROM's with no problems.
I have not tried ofsetting the program, as I would have needed a bigger EEPROM.

Overall, I am very happy with with this programmer. Cheap and cheerfull.

Rock Lobster

Thanks for the mini ( ) review.

It might be possible to select a 1mbit static RAM to program a DS1245Y.

The supported devices list does show the DS1245Y But the programming software device selection does not You may be right about selecting a similar device.

Also, four of these programmers can be run at once from the programming software. Handy for someone I guess.

OK, I am now officially an idiot. Rock Lobster, who couldn't be more wrong, if he had an electric wronging machine.

Thanks for letting us know about this, sounds like a good buy. I dont suppose you have a win 8 machine handy to test if it works there?

No, I don't have a Windows 8 machine. Been avoiding that O/S like the plague.
Still, I guess if I get a new laptop one day, it'll come with it.

Rock Lob

interesting, thanks for the review, though can't see the point nowdays really the gq4x is under $100 and is a very good machine and works on all o/s's

This is pretty much half the cost of a gq4x, so if it works as advertised its certainly another option to consider when in the market for a programmer.