I recently had a customer request I prepare replacement chips for his Roland R-880 and GC-8. I have the XGecu writer described below, but had to perform some laptop repairs before writing the PCMCIA chip. So I hope this is helpful to some intrepid individual or technician performing their own upgrade!
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A device to flash the memory chips, such as the XGecu T48. These are readily available.
A total of three M27C256B chips. The R-880 uses two chips, and the GC-8 uses another.
Either an older laptop with a compatible PCMCIA port, or an OMNIDrive LF. The latter is expensive, with even used eBay models selling for about $400. An older laptop is less expensive but may require some setup. I chose to purchase an IBM ThinkPad 600X.
A 16 MB 12 V linear flash card.
Obtaining the R-880 and GC-8 Firmware
Although I have the PCMCIA firmware image available on my EPROM page, you’ll still need the firmware for the three ROMs. The firmware is available for purchase from Mono Tanz for a grand total of €5.00 (Mono Tanz is based in Germany). They also include pictures and documentation.
Reading and Writing ROMs
You’ll need a device to write files to EPROM chips. I ended up choosing the XGecu T48, which costs about $80. This appears to me to be the most economical yet reputable device available on Amazon.
The software included with the XGecu, Xgpro, works under Windows 10 (or, in my case, in a Windows 10 virtual machine). You can easily find and select the chip. The GC-8 and the R-880 use a total of three M27C256B chips. You can select the chip in Xgpro from their very large list of available devices.
Writing the PCMCIA Linear Flash
To write the flash card, I used an IBM ThinkPad 600X laptop with two PCMCIA card ports. I purchased a 256 MB memory chip (33L3069) for it, a replacement hard drive (a Dogfish 64 GB internal SSD combined with a hard disk case enclosure and adapter). I was then able to install Windows 2000 on it using an Internet archive CD rip.
Windows 2000 was my choice because it has a very small memory footprint and complete PCMCIA support, while still offering native USB mass storage drivers. It functions beautifully on this limited hardware, while still having more modern niceties than Windows 98 SE.
In order to actually write to the linear flash, you’ll need some software. The best tool to use is, unfortunately, discontinued and archaic. Memory Card Explorer (MCE) will allow you to easily flash BIN files to PCMCIA cards, but it is difficult to find.
This is a MEGA link to Memory Card Explorer from an unknown source. This is not my link, and please use discretion downloading and running software from this source. Although the software has been abandoned for more than twenty years, it’s still protected by copyright, so I’m unable to host it myself. Please do contact me if you find any other reputable sources or if you require any assistance.
