losergenerated
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New to this forum. Hello everyone. Just ordered an Everdrive-N8. I'm thinking it might be possible to use the usb connection to martial midi commands to the NES running a MidiNes-like software. I'm thinking this might be possible by simply modifying the already existing ChipMaestro or FaMi software packages. Here's what I know so far.

Both ChipMaestro and Fami appear to be designed to communicate with a UART. ChipMaestro's arduino source is available, but the NES assembly code is not :( bummer.

Does anyone know how I can get access to either's source?

stargazer
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SLC, UT

All I know is that some guy posted here about 2 or 3 months ago about how he was working on the FAmI code and almost immediately BatslyAdams posted asking him to not release the source. So getting your hands on that is going to be rough. As for chipmaestro, who knows? Email him and ask. I'd be surprised but you never know.

You could always develop your own from the ground up? I know at least FAmI is pretty well documented on his blog.

katsumbhong
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Taichung, Taiwan

Since you purchased the one with usb, I suggest designing and developing yourself.

yogi
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Jelly Stone park, MD USA
losergenerated wrote:

New to this forum. Hello everyone. Just ordered an Everdrive-N8. I'm thinking it might be possible to use the usb connection to martial midi commands to the NES running a MidiNes-like software. I'm thinking this might be possible by simply modifying the already existing ChipMaestro or FaMi software packages. Here's what I know so far.

Both ChipMaestro and Fami appear to be designed to communicate with a UART. ChipMaestro's arduino source is available, but the NES assembly code is not sad bummer.

Does anyone know how I can get access to either's source?

I've been interested in the Chip Maestro also. As far as I can see, based on the proof of concept project Tsundere, There isn't any 2A03 'code', but rather a looping state machine that generates Address and Data bytes to push values into the 2a03's PSG regs.
Where as Jarek's Tsudere started as a stand alone 2A03 sort of synth, the Maestro cart seems to integrate the Arduino and a CPLD connection to the NES cart bus. I believe that most of the discrete logic is just implemented in the CPLD, but there may be some advances to the design.
So I don't see how useful this might be; on the other hand, Neil Baldwin has some really great softs and he is working on a sync solution for them.
Plus, as I understand, the USB connection is just for dumping to the ram in lieu of the SD card. Faster for developers, but not used as an IO port ( like on an Arduino).
BS disclosure: Take nothing I say as 'Truth', 'Fact' or 'The last word'.! I HAVE BEEN WRONG BEFORE!
Yogi wink

losergenerated
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Thanks everyone for the input.

I plan on developing one myself, but I hope that by looking at the code of others who tried to tackle this problem, I can learn from them and not waste time trying to solve the same issues they solved.

Also, just a little personal gripe. Generally, when you call a tool open-source, that means the source is available. There are so many great console music-related google code pages with empty repositories

I contacted both tools authors but haven't heard back.

My everdrive is still in shipping. I'll let you know what I've started hacking!

yogi
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Jelly Stone park, MD USA

Cool! A midi interface has been on my wish forever (MidiNES was quite a disappointment for me).