DS2506
The next 32 bytes of the EPROM Status Memory (addresses 020 to 03FH) contain the Write Protect bits
which inhibit altering the Page Address Redirection Byte corresponding to each page in the 65536-bit
main memory area.
The following 32 bytes within the EPROM Status Memory (addresses 040 to 05FH) are reserved for use
by the iButton operating software TMEX. Their purpose is to indicate which memory pages are already in
use. Originally, all of these bits are unprogrammed, indicating that the device does not store any data. As
soon as data is written to any page of the device under control of TMEX, the bit inside this bitmap
corresponding to that page will be programmed to 0, marking this page as used. These bits are application
flags only and have no impact on the internal logic of the DS2506.
The next 256 bytes of the EPROM Status Memory (addresses 100H to 1FFH) contain the Page Address
Redirection Bytes which indicate if one or more of the pages of data in the 65536-bit EPROM section
have been invalidated by software and redirected to the page address contained in the appropriate
redirection byte. The hardware of the DS2506 makes no decisions based on the contents of the Page
Address Redirection Bytes. Since with EPROM technology bits can only be changed from a logical 1 to
a logical 0 by programming, it is not possible to simply rewrite a page if the data requires changing or
updating. But with space permitting, an entire page of data can be redirected to another page within the
DS2506. Under TMEX a page is redirected by writing the one’s complement of the new page address
into the Page Address Redirection Byte that corresponds to the original (replaced) page. This architecture
allows the user’s software to make a “data patch” to the EPROM by indicating that a particular page or
pages should be replaced with those indicated in the Page Address Redirection Bytes. To leave an
authentic audit trail of data patches, it is recommended to also program the write protect bit of the Page
Address Redirection Byte, after the page redirection is programmed. Without this protection, it is still
possible to modify the Page Address Redirection Byte, making it point to a different memory page than
the true one.
If a Page Address Redirection Byte has a FFH value, the data in the main memory that corresponds to
that page is valid. If a Page Address Redirection Byte has some other hex value than FFH, the data in the
page corresponding to that redirection byte is invalid. According to the TMEX definitions the valid data
can now be found at the one’s complement of the page address indicated by the hex value stored in the
associated Page Address Redirection Byte. A value of FDH in the redirection byte for page 1, for
example, would indicate that the updated data is now in page 2. The status memory is programmed
similarly to the data memory. Details for reading and programming the EPROM status memory portion of
the DS2506 are given in the Memory Function Commands section.
The Status Memory address range of the DS2506 extends from 000 to 1FFH. The memory locations 60H
to 0FFH and 200H and higher are physically not implemented. Reading these locations will usually
result in FFH bytes. Attempts to write to these locations will be ignored.
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