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Henrik Olsson edited this page Sep 2, 2026 · 3 revisions

Firestarter EPROM Programmer

Install Beta

The beta has newer chip support and the dev test command used to check chips against real hardware. It moves faster than the stable release and can break.

You need an Arduino Uno, Arduino Leonardo, or a 328PB-Uno, an RURP shield, and avrdude installed — see Home for how to get avrdude.

1. Which board do you have?

Firestarter builds one firmware image per board, so it needs to know which one you have. Look at the board itself:

Your board Board flag How to tell
Arduino Uno -b uno Says "UNO" on the board. The large chip is marked ATMEGA328P.
Arduino Leonardo -b leonardo Says "Leonardo" on the board. The MCU is a flat square chip marked ATMEGA32U4, soldered down rather than socketed.
328PB-Uno -b uno328pb An Uno-shaped board whose chip is marked ATMEGA328PB — note the trailing B.

A 328PB-Uno looks exactly like a plain Uno from the outside; the chip marking is the only reliable difference. If you cannot read it, try -b uno328pb first — if the flash is rejected, you have a plain Uno, so use -b uno. Don't force it past a rejection: that check is what stops you flashing the wrong image.

2. Install the beta

Use a fresh virtual environment so this does not mix into an existing Python setup:

python3 -m venv firestarter-beta-venv
source firestarter-beta-venv/bin/activate      # Windows: firestarter-beta-venv\Scripts\activate

pip install --pre firestarter
firestarter --version

--version must print a beta version such as 3.0.0b34. If it prints a plain 2.x.y, you got the stable release instead — re-run with pip install --pre firestarter --force-reinstall.

3. Flash the firmware

Plug the board in over USB and run, with your flag from step 1:

firestarter fw -i -b uno          # or -b leonardo / -b uno328pb

Because you installed the beta, this fetches beta firmware automatically. It downloads the image for your board and flashes it.

4. Check that it worked

firestarter fw     # the firmware version, and which board answered
firestarter hw     # the shield's hardware revision

fw should report the beta version you just flashed. Neither command touches a chip in the socket — they only prove the app and the firmware are talking to each other.

Next: help check a chip

If your board answers both commands, you can start checking chips against real hardware — see Testing Chips.

If something went wrong

Open an issue and include:

  • the output of firestarter --version
  • your board: uno, leonardo, or uno328pb
  • the exact command that failed, and everything it printed
  • your operating system and version
  • the output of avrdude -v

Report it at https://github.com/henols/firestarter_prom/issues — that is the tracker for all three repositories, whichever part the problem is in.

Relocated from firestarter_app/doc/beta-testing-install.md in firestarter_app at d56424e1979edf7245cffb9ec3111c0469f5b23f, then rewritten 2026-08-31 on the wiki; not re-verified against the code.

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