Misc Notes on Personality Boards for Intel iUPP PROM Programmers

The top of th ePROM Programmers is held in place with four 1/4 turn "D-zus" fasteners. Usually these have a straight screw driver slot but I have one early programmer that has Philips head fasteners.

The LH PROM socket is socket #1 and the RH socket is socket #2. Inside there are three and sometimes four card slots. The rear most slot is for the control card with the 4040 CPU. The front slot must contain the personality board for socket 1 and the second slot must contain the personality board for socket #2. The third slot is not used and I've never seen a connector in that position. However some PROM Programmers do have card guides there. I suppose they were added so that the user could store an extra card there.

The PWA 1000964 type card <http://www.classiccmp.org/hp/multibus/iUPP103/PWA%20964.jpg> is the most commmon that I've encountered. It appears to be capable of programming 512, 1 k and 2k (x8) EPROMs (2704, 2708, 2716). Most that I find are set up to program 2716s and are commonly marked UPP 816.

  The PWA 1000735 personality card <http://www.classiccmp.org/hp/multibus/iUPP103/PWA%201000735-010.jpg> appears to be similar but the switch settings aren't marked on it. I think it handles the same EPROM sizes but that's just a guess. The 735 appears to have been made just after the 964 (late 1977 vs early 1977). CORRECTION! I just found out that this card is a 8748 Personality card! Since it appears to be configurable it may handle other devices as well. For an 8748 it looks like the top three switches shold be to the left and the bottom one to the right.

  The PWA 100156 Personality card  <http://www.classiccmp.org/hp/multibus/iUPP103/PWA%20100156.jpg> that I have is marked UPP 865 and is marked 3604A Personality Board. The 3604 is an Intel 512 x 8 Bipolar PROM but the switch settings don't appear to match that. This card appears to be capable of programming other size PROMs as well.

  I have a PWA 1000735 that's marked as a 8748 Personality Board.  I also have a PWA 1002488-05 Personality Board that's marked UPP-833 (silkscreen) and has 2732 written on it.


   Cables.

    The only marking on the cable that I have for the PROM programmer to Intel MDS is a cloth tag that says "Qual-tronix" "ASM 4000520-01" "Rev B" " Date 4/78". Of course many of them will have lost their tags in the past 30+ years! See <http://www.classiccmp.org/hp/multibus/iUPP103/iUPP%20Cable.jpg>. It is approximately six foot long and has a DB-25M connector on one end and a DB-25F on the other end. I believe this is NOT a straight thru cable! This cable is built similarly to the other cables for the Intel MDSs; loose wires in a round cable with a heavy plastic sleeve over them and square AMP shells over the back of the connector.

    The cable for the MDS to disk drive that I have is similar but is marked "Qual-tronix" "ASM 4000521-01" "Rev E" " Date 11/76". It has a 50 pin male Ampenol connector (aka "SCSI" connector, but it's NOT SCSI!) on one end and a DE-37M connector on the other end. I KNOW it's not straight thru!