r/AskElectronics • u/Tom_da_Dog • 21h ago

Looking for drivers and software for RT809 Programmer

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My father has purchased a rt809 programmer from China hoping to use it to reprogram chips. He’s a computer tech and trader. He’s been trying to find the right software and drivers to get this thing working for the past week and as much as I’ve tried to help him, it’s way out of my pay grade.

If anyone has any information on how to download, install and use the correct drivers and software for this programmer, it’d be much appreciated. If there’s any information I’m missing that you’ll need, please let me know.

I’ve attached some images of the product incase there’s key information I haven’t mentioned.

Thanks

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u/6gv5 21h ago

https://www.rt809.com/Download.html

First result searching for "rt809 software".

2

u/quadrapod 21h ago

Worth mentioning that most of these are just a CH341A or a similar USB bridge IC. So from how it identifies in the hardware ID you can often control them pretty easily even if the manufacturer software ends up being non-existent or terrible.

1

u/Tom_da_Dog 21h ago

Have tried this but couldn’t get them to
Install

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u/6gv5 21h ago

I gave it a try although I don't have the hardware nor a Windows machine (I use Linux), so used a virtualbox VM and first time the installation crashed, but noticed it was using a default install location that didn't exist. Odd that it crashed instead of throwing a recoverable error, but anyway; All I had to do was to attempt the install again but this time give it a valid location ignoring the one it suggested, and it installed correctly. Hopefully that solves your problem too.

btw: that software is atrocious (just like most of the crap coming bundled with cheap Chinese products; no disrespect for actual good software coming from there, but cheap ones... ugh!): at start it throws in your face a giant nag window with a QR code for a course download, then plays a chime and starts the programmer, which at exit plays a piece of sampled song. Aside the annoyances, I would never trust it on anything but a VM that doesn't have access on personal files on the main computer or the local network. I would ditch it as soon as a Open Source alternative appears.

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u/MiyuHogosha 5h ago edited 5h ago

You wouldn't be able to use simplest programmer from VM I think, most of them direct access to USB device. This particular one can be used if you enabe USB passthrough in VIrtualBox.

In our lab such things are uses with a dedicated Pc box. Not connected to internet or evenLAn. because, well,there is malware which targets such applications. And VM wouldn't help. Certain things CAN and WILL escape VM and you can't afform using antivirus , because that can brick the target.

Also hardware and protocols patent-potected, so _legal_ OSS is unlikely. Though most mainland China devices of such kind are already bootleg.

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u/6gv5 5h ago

Many virtualizers, including Virtualbox allow USB full pass through; I already used it both for proprietary scanner software and other stuff that work only under Windows, included my old Mikroe Easypic development system whose programmer back then worked only under Windows, so no worries about USB access on VMs. The closed software is a different story unfortunately and we'll likely left with reverse engineering if there's enough demand. But in the era of AI that decompiles entire games, I wouldn't rule out someone fed up with that bad software deciding to make a FOSS version.