[sdiy] Prophet-5 help?

[Brian Willoughby]

A) Did the original 2716 EPROMs have v.8.2 firmware? … or a different version?

Do you have an EPROM reader/burner so that you can read the data off the old 2716 chips?

You can’t go back to 2716 chips, but you can literally copy the data from two 2716 chips and put them on a single 2732, and then you will be running original firmware.

My point here is that if you weren’t running v.8.2 before, then that might not be the right version for your exact hardware revision. There were four different Rev 3 releases. I’m not familiar with whether they each required different firmware, but it’s not like the machine can tell you that it has incompatible firmware installed - other than when it doesn’t work right.


B) Are you sure that your v.8.2 firmware images are correct? By “correct” I mean that all the data is there and it hasn’t been corrupted somehow.

I can’t remember which synth it was - maybe the Oberheim Matrix-12 - but I got one set of EPROM data that was flat-out wrong. The data was shifted in memory, with an empty header. It was sort of obvious, because the data was too large to fit exactly in the EPROM it was intended for. Luckily, I had three different sources for firmware, so I was able to confirm that one copy had the right data in the wrong place. This particular set of firmware files would never run if installed.

This is one reason I suggest reading a pair of your original 2716 chips and writing the collected data to a 2732. Repeat the process for the correct number of chips. That way, you will know that you’re running the right firmware even though the EPROM socket is literally wired for a different size. It helps to have a disassembler for the processor in the Prophet and some knowledge of how to confirm that the data is even potentially correct, but I realize that’s a tall order.


C) After juggling things with supply and memory, you might need to initialize things before they will work. I remember learning about a set of Prophet firmware chips that are designed to initialize, calibrate, and write default presets into the P-5 battery-backed RAM. This is especially necessary for the older ones like my Rev 2 that don’t even have a cassette interface. You may not have the same issue since you have cassette, but perhaps there is still something that needs to be initialized in the battery-backed preset RAM before saving patches will work.


D) When you drop into Cassette Load mode, does it actually restore fully functional presets?


E) I haven’t pulled out the schematics to look into the details of your U320 and U323 references. It’s late at night here in Seattle...

Brian


On Sep 18, 2019, at 4:18 PM, Eric Frampton <eric at ericframpton.com> wrote:
> I’m (still) working on this rev 3.0 Prophet-5 (ugh) and have managed to back myself into a corner.
> 
> I put the Retrolinear replacement PSU in there with their Memory Watchdog controller chiclet; those parts are working fine.
> I’ve done the 2716 EPROM mod and installed some v.8.2 ROMs.
> 
> The unit seems to be working correctly except for one major issue: Since doing the 2716 mod and installing the new firmware, now whenever I got to record a patch, the unit doesn’t exit Record mode (also, the LED never extinguishes) and the patch isn’t written. Unfortunately, because the other mods are done, I can’t backtrack to the 2708’s.
> 
> If I hit Record+Load, the unit *does* seem to drop into Cassette Load mode, so I think the front panel logic is OK.
> 
> I can see expected changes at both U320 and U323 when I move the back panel Rec Enable switch
> I can see active data and address lines on all RAM and EPROMs
> I’ve tried pulling individual RAM IC’s
> I’ve tried pulling NVRAM IC’s and swapping them with spares
> 
> I’m not seeing any change on pin 5 (A15) of the CPU, which is one input of the gate whose output is U320:11.
> 
> Thoughts?
> 
> e