Ray Carlsen wrote:
I know they are almost a thing of the past but I wonder if there is
any way to extract the code from a protected GAL IC (example: GAL16V8A)
that has had its security bit set.
I repair mostly old Commodore 8 bit computers. There are a lot of
users of an after-market device called a RAMLink originally made by
Creative Micro Designs (CMD is now out of business) back in the 1980's,
and I was asked to repair a few of them. Turns out each one has four or
five GALs and they all are copy protected which makes repair of those
orphan devices impossible unless I can find a way to extract the code
from the chips in a working unit. Any hackers out there?

Ray

There used to be a company in the US advertising in magazines and online
(late 90s) that they could read GALs and PALs - they ran various
algorithms to crack the code (for a fee). Lost sight of them ten or so
years ago and haven't been able to track them down since.

There are articles on reading GALs that cover this problem, the issue
appears to be that some GALs are far more difficult than others to read.

John :-#)#

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