This video made me appreciate the Retro Chip Tester Pro much more than I did. No false negatives AND false positives, more thorough testing, support for a crapload of ICs, support for other voltages than just +5V, and no manual routing of said voltages. Before this review I took those for granted. For this reason I think this was a great review!
False negative are almost unavoidable, just because you can't test _everything_. I mean, even the other testers don't check like the propagation time, or drive strength to check if it's in spec, so you could have a chip passing there but failing in the actual console/computer. False positives OTOH, that's should just not happen.
I'm OK with false positives with super-complex chips that it doesn't claim to test thoroughly (Z80 for example--it would be impossible to do a full test for it). Smaller ones, I agree it should be spot on.
@@NoelsRetroLab at the end of your video you say you would use this device when troubleshooting Commodore computers. I find that surprising: you yourself have experienced false positives and negatives with it. That logically means that you cannot rely on it, and you will re-test each IC by other means. So you know, better than most, that using this tester is either a total waste of time at best, and a risk of misdiagnosing a Commodore at worst. I think you will not use it, because you cannot trust it. Just watch your video, because it's extremely informative 😀
Also, chips that Retro Chip Tester Pro doesn't support are in backbit tested for some basic errors and will most likely have false positive if fault isn't something what would make it obvious without tester, while chips that Retro Tester supports and Backbit doesn't are mostly chips which need to be tested. In circuit test is joke, nothing more - wouldn't be easier to just desolder one chip (which will still need to be desoldered if it's failed) than to remove (and potentially desolder) one chip, replace other and connect bunch of wires!?
I absolutely love my BackBit Chip Tester. I have been involved since the early days and I am impressed in Evie's dedication to improving the product. I have found a few issues but she instantly replied with fixes. The product is for ever expanding. Support is more important than anything else.
@@scartinojoseph1407 Just search for the name in your favorite search engine (can't post actual links in YT comments). It'll come up right away. And the new v2 version does the 5V routing automatically, no need for those patch cables.
One awesome thing is if you've got chips to donate, she implement tests for them. I've recently sent an Atari VCS processor, TIA and the 8 bit computers chips, GTIA, ANTIC, POKEY and the XL MMU, of the which the 6507 and the MMU are in the firmware now. She'll add the others soon, I'm sure.
Mine just came in today and the first thing I tested was a SID chip I had. Passed! Thanks for reviewing this. I was in need of a chip tester and this review did it for me!
noel you should update to the latest firmware and do a "RE" review of the device to see if some of the failures you found have been fixed. Evie is really great and fast at fixing result faults. and this device test way more chips out of different machines now. it also does the 4116 ram chips if you have the adapter for it.
Great review! With the false negatives you got at the beginning it would be easy for you to give a very negative review, but you were very fair, I thought. At least until the firmware has matured somewhat, I wouldn’t consider the Backbit though. It’s great that it can test MOS chips, but as you showed, it throws up false positives and negatives rather too often. The entire point of a chip tester is to be able to say if a chip is faulty or not. If you can’t trust the results, then it isn’t really helping you trace an error that much. I would rather have a tester that couldn’t test a chip than one that could test it, but afterwards you still aren’t sure if it works or not.
I just purchased the current version of the BackBit chip tester and with the exception of some Atari TIA chips it seemed to be on the mark in proper testing for me. In the case of the TIA chips, it was able to correctly tell me that a TIA had a fault on the audio. It actually has audio working in both channels, but some tones and sounds don't seem to actually work when they should so that was pretty cool. There is also an adapter you can purchase separately now for testing 4116 chips but I haven't purchased that one to give any thoughts on it. I do like that Evie is quite active on her forums as Noel mentioned, she is quick to make changes and updates to the firmware if she has the info needed.
Very thorough as always, thanks for another great video! I think it's about time I invested in one of these, it certainly saves a lot of messing around 😬
After watching your video one more time and comparing the two testers. I went ahead and purchased the BackBit Chip Tester Pro. For two or three reasons. First, is that it comes assembled and ready to use out of the box. Although I was looking forward to putting the Retro Chip tester together. The second reason was that the BackBit Chip tester will test the 6502 model CPUs, where as the Retro Chip tester will not. Third, I would love to be able to use the Backbit Chip tester to test chips in circuit, without having to remove them. That would be amazing. Thank you for this review !!!
Just FYI, the 74LS38 is open-collector. Without an external pull-up it can never output a logic '1'. Perhaps you should try some other (known good) open collector parts to see if they pass?
There’s another chip tester, the MOD-HIC from Modular Circuit Technology (if you can find it.) I’ve had mine for several decades, and works off of a 9v battery. It also has a DC barrel jack, but it doesn’t label if it’s center-positive or center-negative. While it only has a 20-pin ZIF socket, it tests pretty much all 74-series TTL (except the 74154, which has 24 pins), and some of the higher-numbered chips. It also covers most 40/45-series CMOS, and some DRAM. It can identify most TTL/CMOS, and you can select a specific chip from its menu if it mis-identifies a chip. Physically, it’s about the size of that one you reviewed in this video, but is thicker (because of the 9v battery compartment.) Unfortunately, there’s no way to update the firmware. 😥
I love my backbit, fixed a few c64's using it, along with a diag cart. I only deal with commodore machines, so it's fine. You have peaked my interest in the other device however, and if you can build it yourself, seems like fun!
Great video! Very informative and it's exactly what I needed to make my decision if I should purchase it or not. It's a cool little device and love how quick she responded to you to get it working correctly on some issues you found.
Thanks! I have the previous version of this tool, and never realized it could check the ZX81 ULA! As I am debugging a ZX81 right now I was quickly able to discover the ULA was indeed broken (sad face) which saves me a lot of time!
Thanks for this great video ! I am making my own 8-bit computer recently and I encountered issues with a faulty Z80 CPU... I wish I had such tester, I would have saved a lot of time😄
Great that it includes the Floppy drive controller WD17XX, well a few of them anyways. The web site says they will include similar chips [if someone can supply the chip and info.]. Problem with some is there are no schematics like the Cherry Semiconductor company that was bought out by Onsemi in the 1990's. There is a 977509-001 Dip28 that is eerily similar to the WD177X but I have no way to be sure other than to check the VCC and GRD. The data lines I could scope out to see if similar as well even though the original chip is not controlling the floppy drive head anymore. If similar then buy all the WD17XX varieties available and try them out with a socket. Too bad I have other projects that kept me from doing this. If one works out I will let the Backbit Store know. Would love that to be included on their list. This is free service that I supply [not really]. Would appreciate any feedback on this idea.
Hi Noel, watched that vid of the BackBit tester and was wondered if it vould test a MC6802P and 6821P? The RetroChip tester from Stephan does not support those processors. Would be handy if those are supported.
I love the box of shame and FAKE, lol. The BackBit seems like a decent deal for what it does, and the support and communications appears to be outstanding. Great and thorough review!
I have the BackBit chip tester and I like it. Especially for RAM or reading out EPROMs etc. I doubt that it is very accurate, though and I would like to have a test description somewhere, so I can estimate the quality of the test. A false failed is hmmm... I mean, we are dealing with chips that are getting rare and dumping one, that is still good is bad.
I greatly dislike when a product abuses USB like this. Type A is not the correct choice for a terminal, it's a host side port. They should've gone with B or C
I don't have that strong dislike, but I was surprised by it too. Especially since that makes it less compatible with other cables. I wonder what the reasoning is for that.
The limitation of 5VDC only IC power kills the deal right at the start. Ideal solution I'd like to see: Retro Chip Tester Pro capabilities - motherboard with SMT transistors and voltage conversion circuitry pre-soldered - control comes from use of one of the dirt cheap, miniature Arduino clones, whichever one has adequate accessible I/O pins and storage, plugged into the motherboard; also makes "firmware" update easy - 5VDC power comes from a PC via USB and all control input and test results are controlled via an app, much like a TL866 Programmer.
...and for 50US$ right? I think it would be quite expensive to create such a device. Think about the other testers that cost over 1000US$ and still do not have all of these features.
@@didymoschalkenteros6695 Give me a break. $1,000?! You haven't seen the review of the other retro chip tester he recently reviewed, the Retro Chip Tester Pro, confusingly named very similarly to this vastly inferior one? It costs 87 Euros for the PCB and parts and those parts costs are for unit quantities and would be much lower if in manufacturing quantities: The Ultimate Retro Chip Tester? th-cam.com/video/_99HNsxgLRw/w-d-xo.html Also, the TL866 Programmer I mentioned costs $60 on Amazon, not very close to $1000.
False fails on a US$149 tester is not particularly impressive. Sound like this needs more debugging/ proper testing before it should command a $149 price tag. Manual power wiring is a bit of a deal breaker too, at this price.
Agreed, but on the other hand, the support is also worth a ton. She seems to fix issues you have almost immediately, which isn't the case on other products necessarily.
It has good potential, hopefully continued firmware updates can fix most of the issues. It's easy to trash something like this (which you didn't at all to clarify), but keep in mind all the great work people do to create products like this for old computers. New products, replacements, tools, whatever it is, I'm just very happy that we have more and more to chose from. That's just great for all of us in the end. It would be sad if people don't release their hard, usually hobby based and mostly unpaid work, for the fear of people expecting everything to be prosumer grade stuff when that's not really a fair comparison.
On the in circuit testing I can see many issues in getting everything connected correctly. There are so many wires to connect that a problem with any one of them could cause the test to fail.
Brill ! i really enjoyed the video and I really like the small form factor of that design , and I really liked the designer made changes to the firmware on the fly , it shows there passionate about there product , I think it's time to add it to the collection of things to use, fingers crossed they deliver to the uk , I hadn't checked that far.. to add I have awaiting for the big green beauty to come back into stock in the uk. Its Finally back! 🤜🤛
The GAL20V8 is used in an inexpensive PLA replacement board. Coincidence that it's tested by the BackBit? I think not. In-circuit: I did not see you push the selector knob once you selected In-Circuit. Doesn't that act as the "enter" key for a selection?
False negatives as in when it didn't detect a problem but the Z80s weren't working properly? That's to be expected of something that's not testing all the features. There's a LOT of functionality in one of those CPUs, so I'm not surprised.
It would be hard to fit all chips in testers in that price range. I could see however that the Back Bit's potential could be great since it's all flashed via an SD card.
Homebuild it costs between ~90 and 110 depending if you already have the programmer (+ extra time cost). The $550 number I also saw on the website of an American reseller, which is just a crazy upcharge especially considering he also sells a kit version for 480. I get that he needs to make money when building them, but a 350+ upcharge for essentially ordering parts and bundeling them is just plain crazy to me. The "building fee", for lack of a better term, is strangely reasonable however.
Having to place in the jumper wires for the various power requirements seems a little hokey. The system seems to know what and where power is needed, it should just make those connections for you. One less important thing that can go wrong.
If the backbit one had the option to use an external ATX PSU(either connected directly upon it, or at least jumpered manually like the other voltages) it would be nice. Ask for(another...) one firmware update! 😁
@@Okurka. Obviously you can use a cascade, a DC to DC converter or something else, but some old chips might have some high current requirements, like an ancient TI-99(or whatever name that dinosaur was called), which needed a ROM replacement and it had exactly the same problem. On the other hand, the ATX PSU is ridiculously common nowadays and it needs only one big socket on the board of the device.
@@Okurka. Ridiculous is having the component you want to test all of the time upon the tester and not removing it in order to put it back on the computer you took it from. And it' s also ridiculous to have a huge generator a 1000 kilometers away from your laboratory, in order to power your computer. Why do we need such huge generators for such a tiny space?
Awesome video again! Somewhat related: does anyone know of any affortable 30/72/168 pin simm/dimm testers? I have tried googling for one and the cheapest I foudn was $3000+ ..slightly more than I was hoping for lol
I think you are a bit gracious with your conclusion about the BackBit Chip Tester Pro. You did throw bad chips on it which it tested good, and you throw good chips on it which it tested bad. A chip tester you can not trust is worth nothing. In the worst case, it makes you buy and replace chips that are totally fine or lead you into a complete wrong direction as it tells you a bad chip is good.
You are partially right. You will need a test board as well. I have a c64 with everything socketed and a vic 20 (which also allows me to test 1541 chips). But still, the chip tester makes trouble shooting a lot faster.
@@christianlarsen1070 he's not partially right, he's 100% right. If it gives false negatives and false positives, it is 100% untrustworthy. If you need a C64 board to retest each IC, then the Back Bit is, ipso facto, useless.
@@christianlarsen1070 The "in circuit" tests is worthless. It will never work reliably. It can work in a very few situations. Backbit uses a chip in the C64 to deactivate reachable ICs (pulls CS to low) and then hopes that the bus will be separated enough to check the mounted ICs. A lot can still go wrong and it only works only with this one computer. The clips are also extremely expensive (60-80 EUR for a clip). It is not worth it. I bet the other tester could do it just as well, but does not advertise with it.
@@didymoschalkenteros6695 let me guess you never tried it - unlike me. It definitely isn’t close to 100% reliable, but it does help you narrow down the options. Also, it isn’t true that it only works with the privateeye PLA replacement in. It does however increase accuracy
@@GianmarioScotti It’s your choice whether you want to buy it or not. I can only report my own experience which is that it isn’t useless despite the lack of accuracy in some cases. I don’t think there is a 100% reliable way to test a chip, so I generally use the backbit to narrow in on the suspects. In some cases, that’s sufficient. In other cases, I need to bring out one of my testboards
Heh ... without the proper analog voltage, it'll be able to tell if it's completely dead or not ... but it can't do any qualification as to the audio/video signal quality. The analog biases will be completely off.
We had that lawsuite back in the 1980's the result verdict was "you can not blame a man for trying." the lawyer pointed out. that "the human race dont have too become , die out. due too wrong judgementdt". end of story. some jurisprediction there.
Are MT chips really that bad? I mean, when Amstrad designed the ZX Spectrum +3 and +2A computers, they used MT4067 DRAM chips (64Kx4) and I´ve never heard of any of those failing.
@@BertGrink from a 1980's perspective it was fine. From a 2021 perspective not so much. I've seen tons of computers across many channels that had ram issues and more often than not it's MT RAM. It's possible the ZX Spectrum's wierd -5v chips were more reliable, but the kind you find in a C64 or an Apple 2 almost always fail. In fact when I got my C64 I noticed that it had MT RAM. Guess what was wrong with it.....THE RAM!!! I only needed to replace the chip for bit value 128, but I replaced all of them with new old stock. I've even heard of MT RAM failing when it was new old stock.
Nice video and interesting device - but it looks like you were beta testing for them. I mean... the 7400 series ICs are well known and should be no-brainers to test. But still, very nice product and video!
Man, doing the wiring manually makes you look even more like a crack, while others are watching you doing the magic! xD But it's a bit too expensive I think .. wished it was like 79€ - given they fixed all the bugs.Also I wonder how far it can test the older SID without 12V .. I guess storage isn't the limit, because testing procedures could be saved on SD card.
Good review! Why the tester doesn't know where to put ground and power by itself? Setting the wires manually for every chip type is not a good solution. Btw, I modded the 4116 chip tester that you showed in one of your reviews. Now it is safer and more user-friendly. The videos with the link to the repository with all the files (new firmware, Gerbers, case, etc.) could be found here: th-cam.com/video/ttnk__r6ZxU/w-d-xo.html th-cam.com/video/xCpwUrdpjSY/w-d-xo.html th-cam.com/video/3SO_ANR2R4o/w-d-xo.html
It's really a shame that you can't trust the test results. What is the use of this tester then. Then I prefer to test in a C64 and check signals with the oscilloscope! A real shame! But really great video! Thank you! Best regards, Doc64!
Well, the Chip Tester reported some good chips as faulty, and some faulty chips as good. So basically, you could replace it by throwing a coin. To put a long story short: If you can't trust a device, don't buy it!
What an excellent review. I bought one of these about a month ago because i have so many DRAM and Commodore chips and it would be nice to test them. I mostly dig it and love the form factor. That said I have found, like you, a few instances where it isn't quite accurate. I think the CBM chips are a pretty tough crowd because they can vary from chip to chip. Especially this is true of the SID chips. All of the ones I had that I tested all failed. None passed good. At the least they all failed the POT XY which was false because they all worked with my 1351 mouse. Many of the chips that tested bad later tested good after I power cycled the device. That said, the creator is very responsive with issues and I have no doubt that in another 6 months this product will be solid as a rock. It is still pretty new and lets face it, indie developers like this can't test it with 100's of users until they release it. I am hoping that she adds some Amiga chips to the mix as many of those should be testable here. I thoroughly enjoy your videos, keep up the good work.
@@EviesRevue Keep up the good work your products are amazing. The chips that I was questioning are now reliable thanks to the updates you have made. I have also used the ROM dump feature and has come in very handy.
This video made me appreciate the Retro Chip Tester Pro much more than I did. No false negatives AND false positives, more thorough testing, support for a crapload of ICs, support for other voltages than just +5V, and no manual routing of said voltages. Before this review I took those for granted. For this reason I think this was a great review!
Yeah, false positive OR false negative are pretty much "mortal sins" when it comes to a chip tester, it simply should NOT ever happen.
False negative are almost unavoidable, just because you can't test _everything_. I mean, even the other testers don't check like the propagation time, or drive strength to check if it's in spec, so you could have a chip passing there but failing in the actual console/computer.
False positives OTOH, that's should just not happen.
I'm OK with false positives with super-complex chips that it doesn't claim to test thoroughly (Z80 for example--it would be impossible to do a full test for it). Smaller ones, I agree it should be spot on.
@@NoelsRetroLab at the end of your video you say you would use this device when troubleshooting Commodore computers. I find that surprising: you yourself have experienced false positives and negatives with it. That logically means that you cannot rely on it, and you will re-test each IC by other means. So you know, better than most, that using this tester is either a total waste of time at best, and a risk of misdiagnosing a Commodore at worst. I think you will not use it, because you cannot trust it. Just watch your video, because it's extremely informative 😀
Also, chips that Retro Chip Tester Pro doesn't support are in backbit tested for some basic errors and will most likely have false positive if fault isn't something what would make it obvious without tester, while chips that Retro Tester supports and Backbit doesn't are mostly chips which need to be tested.
In circuit test is joke, nothing more - wouldn't be easier to just desolder one chip (which will still need to be desoldered if it's failed) than to remove (and potentially desolder) one chip, replace other and connect bunch of wires!?
I absolutely love my BackBit Chip Tester. I have been involved since the early days and I am impressed in Evie's dedication to improving the product. I have found a few issues but she instantly replied with fixes. The product is for ever expanding. Support is more important than anything else.
Where to purchase the chip tester pro?
@@scartinojoseph1407 Just search for the name in your favorite search engine (can't post actual links in YT comments). It'll come up right away. And the new v2 version does the 5V routing automatically, no need for those patch cables.
One awesome thing is if you've got chips to donate, she implement tests for them. I've recently sent an Atari VCS processor, TIA and the 8 bit computers chips, GTIA, ANTIC, POKEY and the XL MMU, of the which the 6507 and the MMU are in the firmware now. She'll add the others soon, I'm sure.
Mine just came in today and the first thing I tested was a SID chip I had. Passed! Thanks for reviewing this. I was in need of a chip tester and this review did it for me!
noel you should update to the latest firmware and do a "RE" review of the device to see if some of the failures you found have been fixed. Evie is really great and fast at fixing result faults. and this device test way more chips out of different machines now. it also does the 4116 ram chips if you have the adapter for it.
Great review! With the false negatives you got at the beginning it would be easy for you to give a very negative review, but you were very fair, I thought. At least until the firmware has matured somewhat, I wouldn’t consider the Backbit though. It’s great that it can test MOS chips, but as you showed, it throws up false positives and negatives rather too often. The entire point of a chip tester is to be able to say if a chip is faulty or not. If you can’t trust the results, then it isn’t really helping you trace an error that much. I would rather have a tester that couldn’t test a chip than one that could test it, but afterwards you still aren’t sure if it works or not.
I just purchased the current version of the BackBit chip tester and with the exception of some Atari TIA chips it seemed to be on the mark in proper testing for me. In the case of the TIA chips, it was able to correctly tell me that a TIA had a fault on the audio. It actually has audio working in both channels, but some tones and sounds don't seem to actually work when they should so that was pretty cool. There is also an adapter you can purchase separately now for testing 4116 chips but I haven't purchased that one to give any thoughts on it. I do like that Evie is quite active on her forums as Noel mentioned, she is quick to make changes and updates to the firmware if she has the info needed.
Very thorough as always, thanks for another great video! I think it's about time I invested in one of these, it certainly saves a lot of messing around 😬
Glad it was helpful, Rees! You need to campaign to have more Atari chips included 😃
Chip testers are now like video streaming services. You'll need 4-5 of them to cover everything!
These are specialized devices, so yes, unfortunately.
Or you can get Mame. You cant do that for streaming services which by the way you probably won't need if you have use for several chip testers.
Great video as usual Noel! Those black and green clips for the ICs, can you tell me how they're called and where you got them?
After watching your video one more time and comparing the two testers. I went ahead and purchased the BackBit Chip Tester Pro. For two or three reasons. First, is that it comes assembled and ready to use out of the box. Although I was looking forward to putting the Retro Chip tester together. The second reason was that the BackBit Chip tester will test the 6502 model CPUs, where as the Retro Chip tester will not. Third, I would love to be able to use the Backbit Chip tester to test chips in circuit, without having to remove them. That would be amazing.
Thank you for this review !!!
Just FYI, the 74LS38 is open-collector. Without an external pull-up it can never output a logic '1'. Perhaps you should try some other (known good) open collector parts to see if they pass?
Good call!
There’s another chip tester, the MOD-HIC from Modular Circuit Technology (if you can find it.) I’ve had mine for several decades, and works off of a 9v battery. It also has a DC barrel jack, but it doesn’t label if it’s center-positive or center-negative. While it only has a 20-pin ZIF socket, it tests pretty much all 74-series TTL (except the 74154, which has 24 pins), and some of the higher-numbered chips. It also covers most 40/45-series CMOS, and some DRAM. It can identify most TTL/CMOS, and you can select a specific chip from its menu if it mis-identifies a chip. Physically, it’s about the size of that one you reviewed in this video, but is thicker (because of the 9v battery compartment.) Unfortunately, there’s no way to update the firmware. 😥
I love my backbit, fixed a few c64's using it, along with a diag cart. I only deal with commodore machines, so it's fine. You have peaked my interest in the other device however, and if you can build it yourself, seems like fun!
The other one is definitely a lot of fun and it's a good complement to the BackBit. Go for it!
Great video! Very informative and it's exactly what I needed to make my decision if I should purchase it or not. It's a cool little device and love how quick she responded to you to get it working correctly on some issues you found.
Glad it was helpful!
Thanks! I have the previous version of this tool, and never realized it could check the ZX81 ULA! As I am debugging a ZX81 right now I was quickly able to discover the ULA was indeed broken (sad face) which saves me a lot of time!
Thanks for this great video !
I am making my own 8-bit computer recently and I encountered issues with a faulty Z80 CPU... I wish I had such tester, I would have saved a lot of time😄
You're welcome!
I have no need for a chip tester - I have no chips to test. Yet, I am compelled to watch.
and now i need one...
Great that it includes the Floppy drive controller WD17XX, well a few of them anyways. The web site says they will include similar chips [if someone can supply the chip and info.]. Problem with some is there are no schematics like the Cherry Semiconductor company that was bought out by Onsemi in the 1990's. There is a 977509-001 Dip28 that is eerily similar to the WD177X but I have no way to be sure other than to check the VCC and GRD. The data lines I could scope out to see if similar as well even though the original chip is not controlling the floppy drive head anymore. If similar then buy all the WD17XX varieties available and try them out with a socket. Too bad I have other projects that kept me from doing this. If one works out I will let the Backbit Store know. Would love that to be included on their list. This is free service that I supply [not really]. Would appreciate any feedback on this idea.
How good is it at identifying chips e.g. where the numbers have been sanded off?
Hi Noel, watched that vid of the BackBit tester and was wondered if it vould test a MC6802P and 6821P? The RetroChip tester from Stephan does not support those processors. Would be handy if those are supported.
I love the box of shame and FAKE, lol. The BackBit seems like a decent deal for what it does, and the support and communications appears to be outstanding. Great and thorough review!
I have the BackBit chip tester and I like it. Especially for RAM or reading out EPROMs etc. I doubt that it is very accurate, though and I would like to have a test description somewhere, so I can estimate the quality of the test. A false failed is hmmm... I mean, we are dealing with chips that are getting rare and dumping one, that is still good is bad.
Another great video Noel, is there a commercial chip checker and programmer you sometimes use or recommend? Looking forward to the next video!
I greatly dislike when a product abuses USB like this. Type A is not the correct choice for a terminal, it's a host side port. They should've gone with B or C
I don't have that strong dislike, but I was surprised by it too. Especially since that makes it less compatible with other cables. I wonder what the reasoning is for that.
I came to the comments section to write this but you beat me to it! Instant dislike of any “product” that does this
@@NoelsRetroLab it works but it's def. bad practice
The non-pro uses mini usb. I am surprised that Evie changed it
I mean... _maybe_ if it's an OTG port or something... but otherwise, WTH?
The limitation of 5VDC only IC power kills the deal right at the start.
Ideal solution I'd like to see: Retro Chip Tester Pro capabilities - motherboard with SMT transistors and voltage conversion circuitry pre-soldered - control comes from use of one of the dirt cheap, miniature Arduino clones, whichever one has adequate accessible I/O pins and storage, plugged into the motherboard; also makes "firmware" update easy - 5VDC power comes from a PC via USB and all control input and test results are controlled via an app, much like a TL866 Programmer.
...and for 50US$ right? I think it would be quite expensive to create such a device. Think about the other testers that cost over 1000US$ and still do not have all of these features.
@@didymoschalkenteros6695 Give me a break. $1,000?! You haven't seen the review of the other retro chip tester he recently reviewed, the Retro Chip Tester Pro, confusingly named very similarly to this vastly inferior one? It costs 87 Euros for the PCB and parts and those parts costs are for unit quantities and would be much lower if in manufacturing quantities:
The Ultimate Retro Chip Tester?
th-cam.com/video/_99HNsxgLRw/w-d-xo.html
Also, the TL866 Programmer I mentioned costs $60 on Amazon, not very close to $1000.
@@winstonsmith478 Where have you seen that price? I contacted the developer and he sells the PCB with ATmega for approx. 42 US$
Mine arrrived a few days ago but have not used it yet. I have bunches of chips to test from C64 boards. Thanks for reviewing it.
Enjoy it! It's a fun little device.
False fails on a US$149 tester is not particularly impressive. Sound like this needs more debugging/ proper testing before it should command a $149 price tag. Manual power wiring is a bit of a deal breaker too, at this price.
Agreed, but on the other hand, the support is also worth a ton. She seems to fix issues you have almost immediately, which isn't the case on other products necessarily.
@@VincentGroenewold Other products get tested before being released to the public at retail price.
6515 and u444 sram? is good for trhem? and how i must wait to?
It has good potential, hopefully continued firmware updates can fix most of the issues. It's easy to trash something like this (which you didn't at all to clarify), but keep in mind all the great work people do to create products like this for old computers. New products, replacements, tools, whatever it is, I'm just very happy that we have more and more to chose from. That's just great for all of us in the end. It would be sad if people don't release their hard, usually hobby based and mostly unpaid work, for the fear of people expecting everything to be prosumer grade stuff when that's not really a fair comparison.
On the in circuit testing I can see many issues in getting everything connected correctly. There are so many wires to connect that a problem with any one of them could cause the test to fail.
i just got the latest version of this machine and the jumper stuff is not needed now, it is quite a bit of kit !
You jumpered an extra 5 volt for the one chip and all the rest failed ! Did they also need 2 plus 5V for the rest of them ?
Brill ! i really enjoyed the video and I really like the small form factor of that design , and I really liked the designer made changes to the firmware on the fly , it shows there passionate about there product , I think it's time to add it to the collection of things to use, fingers crossed they deliver to the uk , I hadn't checked that far.. to add I have awaiting for the big green
beauty to come back into stock in the uk. Its Finally back! 🤜🤛
Can't you buy the big green beauty directly from the developer?
The GAL20V8 is used in an inexpensive PLA replacement board. Coincidence that it's tested by the BackBit? I think not.
In-circuit: I did not see you push the selector knob once you selected In-Circuit. Doesn't that act as the "enter" key for a selection?
Nice to see the famous blue commodore back into action.
Looks wonderful!
What about iAPX-86 UCAS , Anyone know if you can buy it , Also 286 and MOS testers coming out.
Very useful for detecting fakes and remarks. Do you have anything that will spot fake power mosfets?
You probably need a Tester for the Retro Chip Tester :D
I have the BACKBIT chip tester which is great for Commodore chips - Do I need the PRO now?
Any chance to take a look at the Tauntek IC Tester too?
Evie from Backbit has really supported the Commodore world - Did she have comments about some of the chip test?
A very nice review Noel, thank you very much! And I love the "box of shame" :-D Greetings, Michael
Take it apart and see whats inside, please.
Great video thanks, already wanted to type a question about the voltages for the Sid and vic :) but then you answered them.
Also have no need to test chips, but I really want to now! Bit worrying that this seems to give various false negatives.
False negatives as in when it didn't detect a problem but the Z80s weren't working properly? That's to be expected of something that's not testing all the features. There's a LOT of functionality in one of those CPUs, so I'm not surprised.
@@NoelsRetroLab That's a false positive.
@@NoelsRetroLab the part where it marked them as failed and you were surprised by that. then when they went in the other tester, they passed!
@@IcyTorment thought it was if it tells you it doesn't work , but it does work. A false positive being it tells you it works , but it doesnt.
@@IcyTorment Nope, positive is when the chip gets marked as working.
So there are firmware updates, but I'm guessing you can't actually change or add test scripts.
I don't remember seeing anything about that in the documentation, so I think you're correct.
It would be hard to fit all chips in testers in that price range. I could see however that the Back Bit's potential could be great since it's all flashed via an SD card.
Coming Soon: 4116 DRAM Adapter: Applies -5V and 12V voltage for testing 4116 DRAM chips (page 12)
Yes, I will be testing soon.
The retrochip tester pro costs 550 usd in ebay where you got it for 110 euro ?
At the time it was how much it cost from the designer's web site directly.
This is a reseller in the US who sells the RCT fully assembled etc. So it is more expensive of course.
Homebuild it costs between ~90 and 110 depending if you already have the programmer (+ extra time cost). The $550 number I also saw on the website of an American reseller, which is just a crazy upcharge especially considering he also sells a kit version for 480. I get that he needs to make money when building them, but a 350+ upcharge for essentially ordering parts and bundeling them is just plain crazy to me. The "building fee", for lack of a better term, is strangely reasonable however.
...a tube tester for ICs....how cool is that?👍
It'd be cool to see other FM sound chips in there. The AY-3-8910, in particular. Also, still no way to test the 64-pin 68000 CPU. 😭
Just an update. 4116 ram tester adapter coming soon.
I believe this uses an STM32.
When testing in circuit, you shouldn’t connect the power leads to the board. At least, you don’t do that with the non-pro version.
Yep, for safety. I would suspect the Pro is more resilient, but still I would not recommend it.
Having to place in the jumper wires for the various power requirements seems a little hokey. The system seems to know what and where power is needed, it should just make those connections for you. One less important thing that can go wrong.
Dam, its on backorder and will br for a while.
Your review is similar to reviews of other products she's made. She updates firmware very quickly.
Good response to probs but I think more product testing needed.
She releases buggy products.
@@Okurka. She is not a real technician. She uses finished components (e.g. a Teensy) and combines these only.
@@Okurka. more like customers are beta testers. I'd be ok with that since she's so fast at updating.
@@awilliams1701 Beta testers shouldn't pay full retail price.
If the backbit one had the option to use an external ATX PSU(either connected directly upon it, or at least jumpered manually like the other voltages) it would be nice. Ask for(another...) one firmware update! 😁
No ATX needed; you can easily generate low current 12V from a 5V source.
@@Okurka. Obviously you can use a cascade, a DC to DC converter or something else, but some old chips might have some high current requirements, like an ancient TI-99(or whatever name that dinosaur was called), which needed a ROM replacement and it had exactly the same problem. On the other hand, the ATX PSU is ridiculously common nowadays and it needs only one big socket on the board of the device.
@@AnotherUser1000 Using a PSU that's 5x the size of the device you power is ridiculous.
@@Okurka. Ridiculous is having the component you want to test all of the time upon the tester and not removing it in order to put it back on the computer you took it from. And it' s also ridiculous to have a huge generator a 1000 kilometers away from your laboratory, in order to power your computer. Why do we need such huge generators for such a tiny space?
@@Okurka. exactly. This is trivial to achieve with dedicated ICs.
Awesome video again! Somewhat related: does anyone know of any affortable 30/72/168 pin simm/dimm testers? I have tried googling for one and the cheapest I foudn was $3000+ ..slightly more than I was hoping for lol
Thanks! Does the Retro Chip Tester with an adapter work on those SIMMs, or are they too big for it?
It's not surprising since the number of pins would require a MCU capable of that many I/O pins to 'talk' to the DUT's. Not gonna be cheap.
If you're talking about memory sticks, I think by far the simplest is sticking it into a PC and running memtest or other similar software.
@@VioletGiraffe Yeah since you already spent a ton of the pc anyway. No need to spend more.👍
Hah.. yeah, even at eBay prices, a 486 / Pentium / PIII motherboard is going to be cheaper than a tester. ;-)
I think you are a bit gracious with your conclusion about the BackBit Chip Tester Pro. You did throw bad chips on it which it tested good, and you throw good chips on it which it tested bad. A chip tester you can not trust is worth nothing. In the worst case, it makes you buy and replace chips that are totally fine or lead you into a complete wrong direction as it tells you a bad chip is good.
You are partially right. You will need a test board as well. I have a c64 with everything socketed and a vic 20 (which also allows me to test 1541 chips). But still, the chip tester makes trouble shooting a lot faster.
@@christianlarsen1070 he's not partially right, he's 100% right. If it gives false negatives and false positives, it is 100% untrustworthy. If you need a C64 board to retest each IC, then the Back Bit is, ipso facto, useless.
@@christianlarsen1070 The "in circuit" tests is worthless. It will never work reliably. It can work in a very few situations. Backbit uses a chip in the C64 to deactivate reachable ICs (pulls CS to low) and then hopes that the bus will be separated enough to check the mounted ICs. A lot can still go wrong and it only works only with this one computer. The clips are also extremely expensive (60-80 EUR for a clip). It is not worth it. I bet the other tester could do it just as well, but does not advertise with it.
@@didymoschalkenteros6695 let me guess you never tried it - unlike me. It definitely isn’t close to 100% reliable, but it does help you narrow down the options. Also, it isn’t true that it only works with the privateeye PLA replacement in. It does however increase accuracy
@@GianmarioScotti It’s your choice whether you want to buy it or not. I can only report my own experience which is that it isn’t useless despite the lack of accuracy in some cases. I don’t think there is a 100% reliable way to test a chip, so I generally use the backbit to narrow in on the suspects. In some cases, that’s sufficient. In other cases, I need to bring out one of my testboards
Heh ... without the proper analog voltage, it'll be able to tell if it's completely dead or not ... but it can't do any qualification as to the audio/video signal quality. The analog biases will be completely off.
Right. That makes a lot of sense. Same thing with a lot of other complex chips, even with the right voltages: It just checks if it's totally dead.
I love the look of it, and the SD firmware update is a win. :)
Right. It has a several things that are great about it.
Cool video, keep it up, thanks :)
Thank you too!
Hi. Help me. I want to buy it
Initially about as reliable as a pcr test!
So you're one of those tin foil hat conspiracy theorists? 😂
ahahahahaha, i see what you did there, ahahahahaha, very well done
We had that lawsuite back in the 1980's the result verdict was "you can not blame a man for trying." the lawyer pointed out. that "the human race dont have too become , die out. due too wrong judgementdt". end of story. some jurisprediction there.
To me, this chip tester looks like a ic recorder :)
I use original PCB s with Zero force sockets
lol MT ram of course it failed.
... to nobody's surprise 🤣
@@NoelsRetroLab "It's dead Jim!" would be Bones diagnosis for the MT chips.
Are MT chips really that bad? I mean, when Amstrad designed the ZX Spectrum +3 and +2A computers, they used MT4067 DRAM chips (64Kx4) and I´ve never heard of any of those failing.
@@BertGrink from a 1980's perspective it was fine. From a 2021 perspective not so much. I've seen tons of computers across many channels that had ram issues and more often than not it's MT RAM. It's possible the ZX Spectrum's wierd -5v chips were more reliable, but the kind you find in a C64 or an Apple 2 almost always fail. In fact when I got my C64 I noticed that it had MT RAM. Guess what was wrong with it.....THE RAM!!! I only needed to replace the chip for bit value 128, but I replaced all of them with new old stock. I've even heard of MT RAM failing when it was new old stock.
@@BertGrink but the ones in question are and have always been terrible.
Nice video and interesting device - but it looks like you were beta testing for them. I mean... the 7400 series ICs are well known and should be no-brainers to test. But still, very nice product and video!
First thing I've noticed is, the case is partly 3D printed. Looks like the owner is not thinking of having many orders.
Good point. Then again, maybe they're ordered out to some 3D-printing service, but yes, I doubt they're expecting more than order per day or so.
@@NoelsRetroLab What I don't like is the quality of the print. It's like speed vs quality and the first won.
It's definitely more noob friendly that's for sure!! However big plus for me being pre made much simpler experience
$149 and you have to operate it like an old phone exchange?
No, thanks.
Power over USB-A is a bit unusual...
Man, doing the wiring manually makes you look even more like a crack, while others are watching you doing the magic! xD
But it's a bit too expensive I think .. wished it was like 79€ - given they fixed all the bugs.Also I wonder how far it can test the older SID without 12V ..
I guess storage isn't the limit, because testing procedures could be saved on SD card.
woodchuck!
Sadly these are now on indefinite backorder until sometime in 2023 at least :-/
the minipro does this and more for $60
Regardless the people making something should not have to to deal with people pulling lines high and low because they didn't pay attention
Interesting comparing this with the original 1986 Precision Motion Chiptester: th-cam.com/video/OEMz3_durBI/w-d-xo.html
Very interesting video ... but .... AAAAHH! 🕷A spider!
Good review! Why the tester doesn't know where to put ground and power by itself? Setting the wires manually for every chip type is not a good solution. Btw, I modded the 4116 chip tester that you showed in one of your reviews. Now it is safer and more user-friendly. The videos with the link to the repository with all the files (new firmware, Gerbers, case, etc.) could be found here:
th-cam.com/video/ttnk__r6ZxU/w-d-xo.html
th-cam.com/video/xCpwUrdpjSY/w-d-xo.html
th-cam.com/video/3SO_ANR2R4o/w-d-xo.html
The manual routing of the voltages is a deal breaker. No, thank you. Way too much room for destructive error.
That's what I thought, but it's really hard to screw it up because it checks before you put the chip in place.
That’s not an issue in practice. I have the non-peo version and it always tells be if I jumpered something wrongly
The Chip Tester verifies the position of the voltage jumpers, it won't let you proceed if the jumpers are not in the correct position.
It's really a shame that you can't trust the test results. What is the use of this tester then. Then I prefer to test in a C64 and check signals with the oscilloscope! A real shame! But really great video! Thank you!
Best regards, Doc64!
116 VIEWS AND U GOT 139 LIKE , HOW?
Probably because patrons have early access to the video before it is listed publicly; I _surmise_ that those early views aren´t counted.
Yeah, exactly. I release videos a week early for Patreon and TH-cam supporters but view count is reset when I set it public.
Also on any YT video, it's possible to click like before a view is registered.
Looks just like a kit
What's the point having a chip tester that doesn't test the chip thoroughly? For it to be any good, all pins and functions must be tested.
For early out detection. The key is knowing when to really trust the result and when it was just a partial check.
Iam VietNam
$ 149 dollar for a tester that works like 50% of the time.
No thanks.
Well, the Chip Tester reported some good chips as faulty, and some faulty chips as good. So basically, you could replace it by throwing a coin.
To put a long story short: If you can't trust a device, don't buy it!
What an excellent review. I bought one of these about a month ago because i have so many DRAM and Commodore chips and it would be nice to test them. I mostly dig it and love the form factor. That said I have found, like you, a few instances where it isn't quite accurate.
I think the CBM chips are a pretty tough crowd because they can vary from chip to chip. Especially this is true of the SID chips. All of the ones I had that I tested all failed. None passed good. At the least they all failed the POT XY which was false because they all worked with my 1351 mouse. Many of the chips that tested bad later tested good after I power cycled the device. That said, the creator is very responsive with issues and I have no doubt that in another 6 months this product will be solid as a rock. It is still pretty new and lets face it, indie developers like this can't test it with 100's of users until they release it. I am hoping that she adds some Amiga chips to the mix as many of those should be testable here. I thoroughly enjoy your videos, keep up the good work.
Yes, I agree. As more people use it, it will get more consistent.
@@EviesRevue Keep up the good work your products are amazing. The chips that I was questioning are now reliable thanks to the updates you have made. I have also used the ROM dump feature and has come in very handy.
@@RacerX- Thank you. I think Murphy's law applies here. If Noel works on something, he's bound to find all the things that don't work first!