[rescue] EPROM lifespans and archiving (WAS something else)

[Barry Callahan]

On 07/24/2011 04:56 PM, Richard wrote:
>
> The Sparkfun Inventor's Kit (Arduino package) costs only $100
> <http://www.sparkfun.com/products/10339>
>
> That's 1/4th the price of the Conitec Galep-4.

While true, you'd also have  to program the arduino to read *and write* 
the eeprom, and a means to save the image, hopefully in some standard 
format.

Not all of us have the skills to do that. And of those who do, not all 
of us expect to have the available time or maybe even the desire to 
implement our own EEPROM programmer.

$400 for something that should be turnkey, not just for the  device you 
want to dump/program *right now*, but many thousands of other devices 
you may decide you have a need to back up later, vs. something you'll 
have to put effort into making work for each device, even if you just 
have to cobble together routines that others have written and published....

Honestly, it's a tough call. I do microcontroller development as part of 
my day job and I could easily breadboard a programmer just with 
components I have on hand. But $400 to not have to deal with it (or $600 
for the USB programmer) is right in that range where it seems like "not 
a bad deal" but "not a good deal" at the same time.

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