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I have EXPENSIVE old HP instruments that are from the 1980's that work great and are certainly very good instruments, completely usable in the home lab. Each has between 4 and 12 of the old UV type EPROMS that hold the program and other data used in the instrument. How long do EPROMS retain data? Am I on borrowed time with these instruments?

ronna
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    Depends on which exact EPROM it has to read the retention specs from the datasheet. And still it tells very little, as the EPROMs may have been used in much worse or much better conditions than the rated conditions in the data sheet. – Justme Aug 04 '22 at 13:11
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    I have an old HP waveform generator. I never realized that it may contain EPROMs. If they are in sockets, you could remove them and read the data. Then you could reprogram them someday. Probably more risk removing them than waiting for them to fail someday. – Mattman944 Aug 04 '22 at 13:29
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    Seems that Intel's design target for data retention for UVEPROM devices was ten years. An Intel document that may have addressed this was **Intel 2716 Reliability Report 19**. Good luck finding it. These chips often had a checksum programmed into them. I'd be surprised if HP did not do this, but its format might not be available. – glen_geek Aug 04 '22 at 14:08
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    Note that retention is usually specified at maximum ratings. It can be very long indeed at room temperature. – Tim Williams Aug 04 '22 at 14:41

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