derekb
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TSC wrote:

Sort of off topic, but could someone explain to me what makes this cart work, opposed to the method described here:

http://chipmusic.org/forums/topic/5765/ … art-guide/

This has been punching my brain for the better half of six months now. We're close, but not quite there.

his wiring guide is partially off, you don't need one of the wires he used on NTRQ

PR8 / Pulsar, the reason it has so many steps is because PR8 runs on a hardware setup only found in a total of 2 games across the entire famicom and NES library, so he goes about hacking the hardware into an existing easier to find board instead of hunting a donor down. You can find a suitable donor (Final Fantasy 1+2 for famicom) reasonably cheap, shipping always kills the deal though, so you're almost guaranteed to be paying atleast 8-10$ for the cart

TSC
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Milwaukee, WI
derekb wrote:
TSC wrote:

Sort of off topic, but could someone explain to me what makes this cart work, opposed to the method described here:

http://chipmusic.org/forums/topic/5765/ … art-guide/

This has been punching my brain for the better half of six months now. We're close, but not quite there.

his wiring guide is partially off, you don't need one of the wires he used on NTRQ

PR8 / Pulsar, the reason it has so many steps is because PR8 runs on a hardware setup only found in a total of 2 games across the entire famicom and NES library, so he goes about hacking the hardware into an existing easier to find board instead of hunting a donor down. You can find a suitable donor (Final Fantasy 1+2 for famicom) reasonably cheap, shipping always kills the deal though, so you're almost guaranteed to be paying atleast 8-10$ for the cart

NTRQ - Interesting. I'll check this out tomorrow.

PR8/Pulsar - I understand why there are so many steps. If you managed to follow the thread (lengthy!) you would see that I tested the build with a friend of mine and the build used for a Famicom donor doesn't work on the American NES w/ an American donor. My question is why doesn't it work for the NES when it works for the Famicom?

Telerophon
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Austin, Texas

The NES and the Famicom hardware are different enough that I bet there's a Gremlin in there that will be hard to find…

derekb
Offline
TSC wrote:
derekb wrote:

his wiring guide is partially off, you don't need one of the wires he used on NTRQ

PR8 / Pulsar, the reason it has so many steps is because PR8 runs on a hardware setup only found in a total of 2 games across the entire famicom and NES library, so he goes about hacking the hardware into an existing easier to find board instead of hunting a donor down. You can find a suitable donor (Final Fantasy 1+2 for famicom) reasonably cheap, shipping always kills the deal though, so you're almost guaranteed to be paying atleast 8-10$ for the cart

NTRQ - Interesting. I'll check this out tomorrow.

PR8/Pulsar - I understand why there are so many steps. If you managed to follow the thread (lengthy!) you would see that I tested the build with a friend of mine and the build used for a Famicom donor doesn't work on the American NES w/ an American donor. My question is why doesn't it work for the NES when it works for the Famicom?

what donor did you use?

I assume someone traced the SXROM board to see if it uses every pin on the cart header, NES-SNROM pcb's don't always have every pin on the board. It's the same issue that affects building FF3 repros since the only suitable US donor is a copy of Super Mario Bros 2 that happens to have every pin intact (alot of copies dont).otherwise you have to manually re-add a pin to the cart header which isn't very reiiable. Maybe (probably) SXROM is using one of those additional pins and it needs to be reconnected

Top of my head without knowing which carts were used, I would think thats a possible culprit. I haven't read the thread.

Telerophon
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Austin, Texas

Dammit, I wish I were better at EAGLE.

There are so many repro board projects that need to happen, and they are all really simple PCBs by most (non-video game) standards. NES boards don't even have to use SMT parts.

derekb
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theres a guy producing a new run of pcb's prepopulated geared towards final fantasy 3 repros over on nesdev, hes charging $11 I believe in the end

derekb
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Telerophon do you have a band btw? Link me

TSC
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Milwaukee, WI

I'll double check all used donor carts later tonight/test NTRQ, sans wire.

Not that anyone cares, but I gotta say I prefer donor boards over new pcbs, simply because it's one less cart in a landfill/one less cart being produced. There's thousands available, why not use what's already there, you know?

Telerophon
Offline
Austin, Texas
derekb wrote:

Telerophon do you have a band btw? Link me

No, the active chip musicians in Austin are organized into a planning committee and work as a group to book shows; that's what I mean when I say "we" in the context of booking and promoting.

we have a Facebook page and a (currently underused) Twitter (@txchipmusic), and we're about to start working on a website.

I don't really have any formal releases at the moment, personally. I need to fix that. tongue

I'll definitely keep you posted, though!

Last edited by Telerophon (Aug 20, 2012 4:45 pm)

derekb
Offline
TSC wrote:

I'll double check all used donor carts later tonight/test NTRQ, sans wire.

Not that anyone cares, but I gotta say I prefer donor boards over new pcbs, simply because it's one less cart in a landfill/one less cart being produced. There's thousands available, why not use what's already there, you know?

Honestly I prefer donors mainly because I can source them for basically free, whereas if I order an unpopulated board from retrozone I need to also add in a ciclone for the lockout chip, extra chips for mmc1, etc etc etc. Better off just using a board that's already populated, its not like the rewiring for the EPROMs is that over the top. If retrozone was selling boards prepopulated so that you just dropped in chips and went your happy way, then yeah i'd probably use them instead.

Also I don't like that retrozone's NROM boards need two separate types of chips, rather than just using two 27c256 I have to use up a 27c010 too? meh

derekb
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Telerophon wrote:
derekb wrote:

Telerophon do you have a band btw? Link me

No, the active chip musicians in Austin are organized into a planning committee and work as a group to book shows; that's what I mean when I say "we" in the context of booking and promoting.

we have a Facebook page and a (currently underused) Twitter (@txchipmusic), and we're about to start working on a website.

I don't really have any formal releases at the moment, personally. I need to fix that. tongue

I'll definitely keep you posted, though!

cool man, let me know if yall ever come down here / need help setting something up down here, I hang out with a bunch of dudes from a regional electronic label

Telerophon
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Austin, Texas

That'd be sweet, man. I'll definitely be in touch!

derekb
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would there be any interest in some PR8/Pulsar carts if I were to construct some?

kitsch
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matt's mind

yes

derekb
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price would probably be a lil higher than NTRQ because I'm probably just gonna source donors through some JP contacts, rather than go through the whole SNROM > SXROM bit

TSC
Offline
Milwaukee, WI

OK, so I just tested the NTRQ donor (using NES Open Golf donor cart - NES-SNROM) with the extra wire (connecting pin 31 to hole 2) removed and I'm getting the same behavior as before: erroneous data/crash/clear menu not clearing anything/etc.

The only way I managed to get a donor cart to "work" with NTRQ in the past is to power the nes with the cart inserted, not pushing the cart down, waiting for a flash or two, pushing the cart down with the power still running and powering off/on once rapidly.

If there's a difference in the architecture between NES and Famicom, why would the cart for sale in this thread work on the American NES, while the donors do not? What is the difference between the donor and the one for sale?

Oh, and apologies for hijacking this thread, but hey - more views for your item, right?