I use a TL866II Plus programmer. Used it to read/write various BIOS chips and it's worked great so far.

Shponglefan wrote on 2025-05-08, 22:51:

I use a TL866II Plus programmer. Used it to read/write various BIOS chips and it's worked great so far.

I second that.

The only concern I have is that at least some of the newer variants are unable to write very old parts with high VPP requirements. I don't believe these were very common anymore by the 1980s, but I may be wrong about that.

I just bought a Willem programmer - haven't used it yet but heard good things about it.

TL866 is now considered EOL. If you have one, great, keep using it - don't expect any software updates though. But if you are looking to buy a new programmer then XGecu T48 is the way to go.

I have T48 (TL866-3G) series with bunch of adapters and I have been using it few years in my electronic projects. I’d say that it is hard to beat as far as the price and capabilites are concerned. With T48 you can easily program chips up to 25V without modifications (unlike with many earlier TL866 series programmers). However, it is not a perfect product, for example a year or so back ago Xcegu broke the programming of at least one type of PIC in their software. They didn’t manage to fix it in couple of releases so I had to get PICKit clone to be able to finish my project. Also, especially for some older EPROMS programming voltages are often wrong in the software and you need to check datasheets and set them manually to be able to program everything. But considering the fact that the device supports tens of thousands of chips and how little it costs, these are all pretty minor gripes. But if I’d be doing some serious production stuff, I’d probably look better (and more expensive) alternatives, but for hobbyists these are pretty much the way to go.

And just as clarification, people here mention TL866 series programmers. T48 and its bigger brother T56 are the current in-production iterations of TL866 series of programmers. Programmers like TL866II plus or whatever are phased out and new ones are either old stock or clones, which may be in the worst case be functionally inferior compared to originals.

The software for the TL866/XGecu is called XGPro and you can run it without a programmer if you just want to test it. It has a big database of chips to select.

Deunan wrote on 2025-05-09, 10:21:

TL866 is now considered EOL. If you have one, great, keep using it - don't expect any software updates though. But if you are looking to buy a new programmer then XGecu T48 is the way to go.

(Thank You all for the help):
1) Is It compatible with Linux/Ubuntu?
2) Is the software at least in english and not in Chinese? (but It would be nice in Italian, since I am).

1) No. I mean there are some 3rd party open source projects that works with TL866 but last time I checked these were very limited in what it can do.
What people usually do is run the Windows software through Wine, seems to work well. There are some blogs and pages that describe what needs to be done in detail. For the price of T48 and what it can do, it's acceptable solution.

2) The software can do Chinese and English, with the latter perhaps a bit broken but usable. I haven's seen the T48 dedicated software but my own TL866 has some Chinese specific things even in English mode, like status bar shaded red for good and green for bad.

Note that due to cloning of the original TL866 by other Chinese manufacturers, the original was eventually somewhat secured and the software will detect cheaper clones. Either refuse to work with them, or even brick them. I assume the same for T48, if any clones exit. That's another reason for Windows-only closed software so be careful when buying. The current price is about 70USD from China on ebay and anything considerably cheaper is kinda suspect. Preferably pick a seller with good feedback on the very item you want to purchase.

One last warning, I belive some but not all of TL866 adapter sockets will work with T48. So if you need anything specific, also be careful when ordering. Make sure T48 is supported, as compared with older TL866 it's still a new product.

I've asked to chatgpt too (but I do not trust it: that's because I asked to You, human folks) and It says TL866II Plus works with linux, but the XGecu T48 supports more integrateds (I mean eproms/eeproms)

I have two different Willem and XGecu T48. Now I would never buy Willem. I still can't find any documentation how to correctly set jumpers for my type of this programmer. With T48 there are no such problems and it can work with more ICs.

montezuma iii wrote on 2025-05-09, 14:17:

I've asked to chatgpt too (but I do not trust it: that's because I asked to You, human folks) and It says TL866II Plus works with linux, but the XGecu T48 supports more integrateds (I mean eproms/eeproms)

As normal, AI is full of shite with its ”advice”.

Minipro supports both or you can use windows software with wine.

Edit: minipro has far less support for different programmable chips.

I need It only for burning retrocomputers bioses/kernels/dosses (in particular for C64, Amiga, old IBM PC compatibles and maybe zx spectrum, (but for this last I don't think there is much to burn) + other sporadics 8 bit computers): is the minipro (I mean the TL866II/TL866II Plus) suitable for It, and Linux/Ubuntu compatible?

Minipro is an open source software for these devices that run on Linux/MacOS:

https://gitlab.com/DavidGriffith/minipro/

I personally don’t use it, but the answer is most likely yes as I would think that the 13k supported devices includes most common type of proms. They are as basic stuff as programmable chips can get.

Download it and check what proms it can program for you and see if it fits for your needs. And as I said, you can use the native software with wine too.

I am also a fan of XGECU programmers, for their price they are very good value
you can always get the stuff from the official XGECU store on aliexpress : https://xgecu.aliexpress.com/store/4805043
I have bought several times from there just to be sure I get the real deal , atm for 55e you can get the T48 shipped - that is a very good price for it

Question: if I've got malware on Windows, could It open the image file (example .bin) and modify and infect It?

I'm going to assume the image file you mean is for the EPROM? The short answer is no, it can't infect it, but it could damage it. Longer answer is a very targeted attack like this is possible. But the attacker would have to know a lot of things, like what the EPROM is for, therefore what is the target CPU and the whole device as well. That's not what typical virus or malware does, this is state security level attack attempt. Unless your job is military or a big corpo and work on secret projects I would say it's not going to happen to you.

If you are worried about the Chinese software (I sometimes am) then get yourself a cheap laptop, can be used but working, and install the programmer software on that. Keep it air gapped and move files over a dedicated pendrive. Don't copy any personal or work files to the pendrive or the laptop. Might seem a bit paranoid but lets just say I've worked on projects that had security similar to this.

I recommend the T48 as well. Cheap, capable, and software is good and useable (at least the Windows version). I programmed BIOSes of various DIP sizes. Never failed. EPROMs must be cleared first though before writing, so you'll need a UV eraser for those. I prefer EEPROMs though.. much faster to iterate with.

montezuma iii wrote on 2025-05-09, 12:40:

(Thank You all for the help): 1) Is It compatible with Linux/Ubuntu? 2) Is the software at least in english and not in Chinese? […]
Show full quote

Deunan wrote on 2025-05-09, 10:21:

TL866 is now considered EOL. If you have one, great, keep using it - don't expect any software updates though. But if you are looking to buy a new programmer then XGecu T48 is the way to go.

(Thank You all for the help):
1) Is It compatible with Linux/Ubuntu?
2) Is the software at least in english and not in Chinese? (but It would be nice in Italian, since I am).

1) there is alot of guilde to help you setup tl866 with wine on linux, and it worked (but you need wine build with multilib support)
(for example: https://systemembedded.eu/viewtopic.php?t=44 the setupapi.dll link is broken but you can navigate the github page to download it)
2) the default interface language is english, but i see that they have italian options too.

The Xgecu T48 would be my choice too. It's the successor of the TL866 mentioned earlier in the thread, which isn't available anymore. Any TL866s found on Ebay etc nowadays are almost guaranteed to be clones that might or might not work. Make sure to get a kit with adapters for different packages. The PLCC32 adapter would be the most important one for retro PC use. A SOIC8/SOP8 clamp or probe is very handy when dealing with modern PCs using 25 series surface mounted EEPROMs.

The larger T56 and T76 models are great aswell, but far more expensive. Would only consider them if I knew beforehand that I needed the extra functionality they offer over the T48. You probably never will.

As for erasing old 27 series EPROMs and similar, you need a 254 nm (or close) UVC light source of some kind. Regular UVA "blacklight" lamps won't work. There are purpose made erasing boxes with timer available, but those tend to be quite expensive given what they are. I'm using a slightly modded UVC pocket hand sanitizer, just increased the auto off timer from the original 2 mins to approx 20 mins. The dirt cheap DIY approach is a 254 nm UVC LED, a current limiting resistor, and a 9V battery.