Replace EEPROMs with FLASH Memory from Scratch

In this video I show you from scratch how and why to use parallel FLASH memory as a replacement for EEPROMs.

Project files on GitHub:

Picture of EPROMs by yellowcloud:
Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

[manuelmelguizo]

Dude, you just saved me the 50 bucks a cheap eeprom programmer costs. And I can get the flash from a local store for around 2.50€, no need order from China and wait around. Thank you so much!

[malditoPerro]

Thanks for sharing your project. Really needed something like this to reflash and fix a corrupted SST39SF010A

[ucmRich]

0 . 0 I been hoping to find a video for this :-D i got a million ideas that would be great for this level of vast overall improvements, thanks man ^_^

[NotMarkKnopfler]

Interesting video. I tend to use FRAM in my designs. All the benefits of flash, but can withstand literally billions of random-access writes - no flash pages to worry about. All my designs that need to persist data use them via an I2C interface. Simple. They cost more than regular flash, though.

[chrisskyr]

thanks for this video I am wanting some kind of storage for my projects and I was think to buy eeprom but after this video I searched for flash and I find it cheeper with more capacity Thanks : ) : )

[AndersNielsenAA]

Ha! I independently designed my own with a Nucleo64-board and made a pcb hat for it - no 595’s needed :)

[scome]

Excellent. Where can I find details about prom.exe? I have no clue where to even start sending data without it. :-)

[Pax-Z]

Thank you, I tried to use TommyProm32 drawing, but yours is way more clear and therefore easy to copy. Any chance your pcb is at pcbway in the share factory?

[tristunalekzander]

Great video, after buying the same flash chip as you to experiment with, I have found that one of the things you didn't mention is despite being faster for writing something a single time and _only_ reading from it, when you need to update that data, if even just a single byte, you need to erase _the entire sector, _ which in your case is 4KB, which takes _18 ms, _ 18 times slower than an eeprom write, right? Not to mention the fact that you'd need to copy that 4KB sector to some other area and then rewrite it back into the updated sector if you don't want to lose what was already in that sector, and then erase the copy. And you've got to write to at least like 4 registers every single time you want to write something even if writing to fresh empty registers. To me it seems the only real advantage of it is that you can re-write the entire chip faster than re-writing to an entire eeprom, so you can test your new code faster. I mean, if the goal is to have a _simple_ yet _independent_ computer that can program itself, I don't see any benefit to using flash, it is actually slower than eeprom in many situations and also way more complicated.

[paulvanlit]

Third time is a charm; tried to put a question here 2x but it keeps being deleted ?
I Really like your 'Minimal' and the various concepts that make it. On and of I'm working on a ScottCPU and I have the 29EE010 iso the 39SF010.
I've tried your Sketch/C++ but have yet to succeed in programming it; It might be the timing, or maybe it is another IC than it states, because I can program it with a TL866II+ only when I turn off ChipID recognition.

Question is there to your knowledge a reason why I could not use the 29EE010 (with similar program instructions) in the same way you use the 39SF010 in your 'Minimal' as ROM/Flashdrive?

Thx for any hints, KR Paul

[rjameslower]

But what if I need for 3.3v ? It is better look for another memory? Or level shifter?

[stupossibleify]

Always assumed FLASH memory wasa completely different beast to EPROM, beyond the reach of hobbiests

[BoostedNW]

Where's the C code for the console app?

[faristabakovic]

How to upload code from flash mamory to arduino or esp32? I mean how to use flash memory as bootloader.

[mlann]

The Flash programmer works fine as long as Windows assigned the Nano a low number com port. My Arduino Nano was assigned com31 as I have loads of other FTDI based devices and prom.exe finds the port but can't open it. I had to reassign it to COM port 1 in device manager for it to work. I think C++ needs some workaround for com port numbers >9.

[mtechzervis]

I request sir, how to flash ec, io sio like svod and vertyanov laptop with arduino

[paulkirchhof]

Did you know a way to create a HDMI Signal with the nano and 512 KB RAM and two Shift-registers? Video 1920x1080 with 60Hz have a Pixel-clock of about 8 MHz if you take a 16Bit Shiftregister. You don’t need a HSYNC or VSYNC. The pixel clock need a RAM with only 60 ns access time. This is my idea because VGA Monitors are not up to date. A good way to have a video signal for a modern 27“ monitor.

[StevenSherman-krxm]

Has any one had luck modifying the code to work on the nano every? PIND throws an error.

[rickdearman]

Humm... Looks like it would take a lot of work to get this working on a Linux machine. Or at least a lot of code change. But interesting idea.

[viktorhugo]

Great job Wehre can I buy a Non Fake chip?