If you have another board that uses a DIP32 format BIOS chip and supports the required VPP (programming voltage), you may be able to hot flash, but that is not the safest approach .

The chip is not SPI, it is parallel, so an SPI only programmer won't work.

IMHO, your options are hot flashing, buying a compatible programmer, getting someone to program the chip for you or buying a compatible pre-programmed chip from someone .

Unfortunately, I don't have another board with that kind of bios. They all seem to be PLCC-32 type, which I'm guessing is serial. Any recommendations? Would this work? They seem to be a bit cheaper than the TLC866II that everyone always talks about. Or would none of these work with my chip?

kegepet wrote on 2020-07-11, 23:25:

Unfortunately, I don't have another board with that kind of bios. They all seem to be PLCC-32 type, which I'm guessing is serial. Any recommendations? Would this work? They seem to be a bit cheaper than the TLC866II that everyone always talks about. Or would none of these work with my chip?

According to http://www.sofi-tech.com/devlist.asp?model=SP8-A , that programmer is for serial EEPROMs only , so no it won't work .

Use it as an excuse to buy a TL866 programmer on ebay. I love mine

I guess I have no choice. What do you think the odds are that the board is recoverable and that I didn't fry anything?

Very high. A short like that would have only damaged the sd card adapter or psu, but both are still working so you should he just fine. No display is exactly what you would get with a corrupted BIOS image

maxtherabbit wrote on 2020-07-12, 00:53:

Use it as an excuse to buy a TL866 programmer on ebay. I love mine

It's definitely worth it . It's near the top of the list of useful items along with a multi-meter, a soldering iron, a POST card , cheap spare parts (both sacrificial and for testing by elimination).

That said, there are people on the Internet who will sell you an EEPROM programmed with the content of your choosing for a modest fee . I bought an EEPROM from such a person for my P3B-F after I managed to break an EEPROM leg while hot flashing (before I got a TL866) . Such people can be found on a certain auction site, among other places .

EDIT: Yet another option would be to to ask if someone on vogons who owns a programmer and who lives near your location would be willing to flash your EEPROM for you . Two way postage on something like an EEPROM should be minimal .

The Atmel AT49F002 flash ROM has boot block, which usually the Award flash utility won't touch unless forced to. You could try hooking up a floppy drive and see if its LED lights up when power on, if so you could set up a floppy disk to auto reprogram the flash.

For example, you could put these in the autoexec.bat of the floppy disk:
@echo off
awdflash.exe newbios.bin /py /sn /cc /cp /cd /r

/py - program, yes
/sn - save bios, no
/cc - clear cmos
/cp - clear escd
/r - reset after completion

Do not turn off the computer while the floppy drive LED is on.

kalohimal wrote on 2020-07-12, 01:37:

The Atmel AT49F002 flash ROM has boot block, which usually the Award flash utility won't touch unless forced to. You could try h […]
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The Atmel AT49F002 flash ROM has boot block, which usually the Award flash utility won't touch unless forced to. You could try hooking up a floppy drive and see if its LED lights up when power on, if so you could set up a floppy disk to auto reprogram the flash.

For example, you could put these in the autoexec.bat of the floppy disk:
@echo off
awdflash.exe newbios.bin /py /sn /cc /cp /cd /r

/py - program, yes
/sn - save bios, no
/cc - clear cmos
/cp - clear escd
/r - reset after completion

Do not turn off the computer while the floppy drive LED is on.

Well, actually I tried that per the manual's suggestion, which goes so far as to recommend this solution specifically in the event of a bios update failure due to, among other things, short circuits. Of course in my case, the short occurred AFTER the bios update failure, so I guess that doesn't apply. In any case the floppy drive was never accessed, but I think that's because, prior to the update attempt, I disabled the floppy while setting everything up, and I believe the bios is locked into these settings. I say that because I noticed that the 4-second delay for power off is in effect, which is not a default setting. I also tried the same method directly from the SD card adapter with the sd card having been formatted with "format /s", the bios update files, and 'autoexec.bat' exactly as you have it--except I didn't have /r. I was using v7.22 of awdflash.exe, which is the version mentioned in the manual, and I don't think that has a /r. I did clear the cmos using the jumper afterwards though.

SD won't work as it needs IDE hdd routines which is in the main section of the BIOS which is now corrupted. A floppy drive is needed. Just reset the CMOS by jumper and try again. This won't work if the boot block is also corrupted though, e.g. you used the /wb command to force awdflash to program the boot block previously.

kalohimal wrote on 2020-07-12, 02:56:

SD won't work as it needs IDE hdd routines which is in the main section of the BIOS which is now corrupted. A floppy drive is needed. Just reset the CMOS by jumper and try again. This won't work if the boot block is also corrupted though, e.g. you used the /wb command to force awdflash to program the boot block previously.

No I didn't use the /wb switch. I didn't even know that existed. I'll try this again tomorrow with a different floppy disk and drive, but I don't have my hopes up, since I tried resetting via jumper several times, and the floppy was not being accessed. If it fails though, I guess I'll just pick up one of these.

TL866 is a very good programmer, I have one myself. But if you don't use it regularly, you could opt for the other alternatives others mentioned though, i.e. buy a preprogrammed BIOS chip or ask a fellow forumer to program it for you. It'll be much cheaper.

Well I ordered one. I guess it's a good thing to have in case something like this happens again.