Assembling a Retro Chip Tester Pro

9 months ago

The author wanted a chip tester for their lab and considered the BackBit Chip Tester Pro V2 but found it expensive.
They discovered the Retro Chip Tester Professional and decided to purchase it, facing shipping challenges to Portugal.
The kit arrived as bare PCBs, requiring the author to source and assemble components themselves.
The assembly process was smooth, aided by excellent documentation, though a wrong display was initially purchased.
After assembly, the tester was successfully flashed with firmware and tested with a 4164 DRAM chip.
The Retro Chip Tester can also read and program ROMs, demonstrated by dumping a C64 BASIC ROM.
The tester supports various adapters for different tasks, like dumping C64 cartridges or testing SIMM modules.
The Retro Chip Tester is well-documented with a 170-page manual and has an active community on Reddit.
It differs from the BackBit Chip Tester in testing techniques, focusing on vector-based testing rather than chip-specific logic.
The author received a bonus 1970s logic tester replica with their purchase, adding to the kit's value.

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