Hi Greg:
Interesting that the teleconverter chip makes the non working lens work. Is the f/stop reported correctly? The teleconverters I have add two stops to the lens aperture.
Yea, it hardly seems worth it unless the lens is something special.
You Should be able to program a PIC or other microcontroller to mimic the lens ROM. The info reported to the camera seems to be simple four bit binary, at least for the focal length;
http://www.pbase.com/pganzel/minolta_maxxum_lens_roms>
Pete 