Discussion:
NEC PC 8300 Controller for HPLC
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d***@gmail.com
2014-06-17 17:48:20 UTC
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How does one program a NEC PC-8300 to be used as a controller for a Becman HPLC?

- Doug
Computer Nerd Kev
2014-06-17 22:37:05 UTC
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Post by d***@gmail.com
How does one program a NEC PC-8300 to be used as a controller for a Becman HPLC?
Wow!

Umm... what the heck, I'll assume you're serious.

Of course you'll need to know the details of the interface and
comunications protocol used, you might be able to find some of this
in the documentation. Otherwise you would really need to get into the
electronics of the High Performance Liquid Chromatograph (for everyone
like me who didn't know what a HPLC was) and look at what chips were used.
You'd probably have to dump the EPROM, or if the ROM is inside the chip, look
into how this is accessed.

Then you'll need to decompile the software and work out what it does. How easy
that is depends on the situation.

The other (potentially easier) option, if you can get access to a working
computer with the original interface hardware/software is to look at the
communications along the interface cable (with a logic analyser) and reverse
engineer these. Still difficult though.

There are links to similar reverse engineering attempts using techniques
like these at this website:
http://www.hackaday.com/

Oh, and you'll have to make sure that the PC-8300 has enough I/O for the job
in the first place.

Well good luck, and do tell me whether this is really serious.
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