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I doubt this guy is going to be putting in anywhere near the level of detail, and perhaps love, that arfink is That's probably why it's so cheap from this other person.
I'm not too savvy on this stuff, but it sounds like you won't be able to save anything you make.
I'm in the process of having this guy make an Ntrq cart for me, I just have to send him the donor cart and label file:
http://www.nesreproductions.com/It's going to be $25 (plus a donor cart and shipping).
Any reasons I shouldn't, anyone?
reasons why:
1- it won't be upgradable
2- it won't have the multi SRAM bank
3- he won't be helping Neil with his charity fundraiser
4- he doesn't have Neil's permission to duplicate his COPYRIGHTED work (me and MuteCity are the only guys who have asked him, to my knowledge)
However, if 1 and 2 don't matter to you (and that's your call) you should get one from Mute City, who will make them with love etc. but with fewer expensive features.
Well, the prototype is coming along nicely. I'm "cooking" a batch of EPROMs in the UV box as I write this. The ones I got for my personal prototype were "pulls" and needed to be cleared off. In around 45 minutes I'll know for sure if the first part of my wiring worked right. 
Another update- while I had said that using NVSRAM would be a really cool idea, and it still would be a really cool idea, it's also a really expensive idea. Average per-component pricing for these chips runs around $26 for the kind which have Flash based battery-less backup. Ugg, perhaps some more thought should be given to using a battery after all, since it's so much cheaper.
Hey Afrink will these carts work on PAL systems?
Plus have you worked out a price range for this Product? thanks
Well, if you provide a PAL donor cartridge then you can boot the software on a PAL NES, however Neil has already stated that the software is not originally intended for PAL systems. I have not had the opportunity to test this on a PAL NES, but my guess is that it will work but will sound out of tune if you try to play your songs on an NTSC NES.
Also, for pricing, my guess for the cost of parts only is:
$4- EPROMs
$10- donor cartridge (send your own, save $10!)
$15- 100 year life 4-bank NVSRAM (no battery)
$6- sockets (gold plated, extra durable)
$2- PCB
$2- wire/solder/misc
$0.50- switches for bankswitching
for a total of: $39.50 just for parts, unless you send your own donor, then it's $29.50 in parts. However, these are somewhat labor intensive to make, so I'm thinking of selling them for around $60-$80 and giving $5 to Neil's charity organization. That's nearly minimum US wage per cartridge given the hours I'll spend making these.
... found some possible donor carts, now to track some down. (crappy) games like:
Al Unser Racing
Baseball Simulator 1000
Baseball Stars
Faria
Ghost Lion
Heroes of the Lance
PiratesAlso, I believe most of the Ultima games would work... need to check that.
Faria, Ghost Lion, Pirates!, and Ultima: Warriors of Destiny are a bit rare, it'd be nice if you didn't use those as donors. Baseball Stars is just too damn good to destroy, please don't use that one either.
Good thing there is a large supply of Al Unser Racing, the crappiest racing game on the NES ever. Plentiful and cheap!
OK, I just realised that to use the NVSRAM chips I'll have to decrease the number of banks to 4 instead of 8, or increase it to 16 banks, because Cypress (the sole manufacturer of this kind of SRAM) has graciously decided not to manufacture 512kb NVSRAMs. Yay! I am thinking 4 banks will be a better option simply because it simplifies bankswitching (which is done via actual switches, I might add) and reduces cost while keeping the 28 pin footprint (and pinout, huzzah!) that's already on the cartridge, which reduces labor involved.
If I increase to 16 banks well... that nearly triples the IC cost. And blows the whole "ease of use" thing. And the pinout. So the spec is changing- 4 banks. That's still a good deal of space, I should think.
Secondly, purchasing will be different this time. Because these have a substantially greater cost per unit than the Glitchnes cartridges I made before, I'll still be offering preorders but will require payment before I start building, simply because I don't have the cash to lay down to order parts, etc. for a dozen or more of these things. Keep in mind this will be a very small production run, assembled entirely by hand, by only me.
Lastly, I have nailed down the price. Given the amount of time I have put into my prototype (which is nearly completed) I can now estimate my personal contribution: the labor. Which means the price is going to be $85. If people are really really upset by this price I'll revise the specs or possibly offer units with less features.
Perhaps the only standard option I am considering at all is the omission of the multiple SRAM banks, instead leaving only the built in single SRAM bank which the donor cartridge ships with. This would substantially reduce cost, eliminating the single most expensive part and reducing labor somewhat.
If all goes as planned (IE, my chips ship) I will unveil my prototype and begin preorders this coming weekend. Keep in mind that preordering will most likely be limited to 26 units, absolute tops. Why 26 you may ask? It's the minimum multiple you can order these new Cypress NVSRAM chips in, and I don't want to make 52 cartridges.
Did you say that the Ultima Games work for a donor cart?
will this one, Ultima: Quest of the avatar ,may work?
How can i check that?
thanks in advance
I know the Quest of the Avatar has a similar but incompatible board, the SUROM.
However, for other games which you aren't sure of do this: Open it up and if it's the right kind it'll look like this on the inside:
Make sure it's the same- it should have the battery, a chip that says MMC1(xx) on it, and two big chips, one of which will have 28 pins and say "NES-XX-XX PRG" and the other will have 32 pins and say "NES-XX-XX CHR." Replace the XXes with anything, it will differ from game to game to differentiate the mask data inside.
Do not confuse the SKROM with the similar-looking SNROM and SUROM. SKROM boards look like the picture and do not usually have a label on them which declares them to be SKROM. But the SNROM and SUROM will always have a label in the uppper-left corner by the battery which will say SNROM or SUROM.
EDIT:
OK, got a few more games to add to the donor list, courtesy of BootGod:
Conflict*
Desert Commander
Built to Win*
Vegas Dream*
Turbo Racing (not Al Unser endorsed, same game)
However, those marked without the star don't have a battery, but since I'll be using an NVSRAM it'll be OK, since the PCB is the same and I'll be removing the original battery anyway.
Also, interestingly enough, this PCB configuration was far more common in Famicom games, but I'm not even going to think about modding FC carts right now!
Last edited by arfink (Apr 27, 2010 4:51 am)
it's friggin' great that you're doing this, but for $85 and no ability to transfer saves off the cart, wouldn't people almost be better off spending another $50 for a PowerPak? that would give you basically an unlimited number of saves/songs which can be stored on the PC, as well as being able to play 1000+ (?) NES games and NSFs on the real hardware. really not trying to shoot down what you're doing, but i almost think someone would be nutty not to just go for the PowerPak instead. either way though, i'm sure you'll be able to sell 26 copies if that's what you end up doing.
... One thing I have never understood is why losing your songs to a battery failure is such a concern for people. If you record your work then it'll be just fine.
huh? 
that might work great for a guy who writes tunes on his acoustic, but i'd be pissed if i lost a track that i spent hours fine-tuning in a tracker or sequencer. especially if it's a WIP, and you haven't even gotten to the point of recording it yet. it's not just a matter of knowing what notes you were using, but instrument settings/tables/commands/etc.
it's friggin' great that you're doing this, but for $85 and no ability to transfer saves off the cart, wouldn't people almost be better off spending another $50 for a PowerPak? that would give you basically an unlimited number of saves/songs which can be stored on the PC, as well as being able to play 1000+ (?) NES games and NSFs on the real hardware. really not trying to shoot down what you're doing, but i almost think someone would be nutty not to just go for the PowerPak instead. either way though, i'm sure you'll be able to sell 26 copies if that's what you end up doing.
arfink wrote:... One thing I have never understood is why losing your songs to a battery failure is such a concern for people. If you record your work then it'll be just fine.
huh?
Thanks. As for the price, I'm thinking the same thing, but it comes to $75 if you have a donor cartridge, so that's good for some people. Plus it's a dedicated cartridge, which some people want. Now, without the NVSRAM this becomes and even less expensive option, though I have not priced that out yet,
As for losing songs to battery failure, that will never happen with my design now that I am using NVSRAM, since there is no battery! Isn't that awesome? And as for transferring saves off the cart... well, we will have to wait and see if Neil implements it, but the possibility of a cable which runs from the P2 port to a PC is there.
Last edited by arfink (Apr 27, 2010 4:53 am)
... well, we will have to wait and see if Neil implements it, but the possibility of a cable which runs from the P2 port to a PC is there.
hmm, that sounds pretty interesting, i'm not sure i've seen that mentioned anywhere. depending on if/how it works, something like that may also be useful for NES gamers if it'd be possible to pull SAVs from carts.
arfink wrote:... well, we will have to wait and see if Neil implements it, but the possibility of a cable which runs from the P2 port to a PC is there.
hmm, that sounds pretty interesting, i'm not sure i've seen that mentioned anywhere. depending on if/how it works, something like that may also be useful for NES gamers if it'd be possible to pull SAVs from carts.
It was something he mentioned to me. It's be software controlled though, so that wouldn't be useful for other games. One other possibility is that with the NVSRAM, since it's stable without a battery, it can be removed and backed up with a regular chip reader too.
Hi arfink!
I would love to be one of the lucky 26 to buy your cart but I live in a PAL country (New Zealand) and it seems donor carts are hard to find here! Best thing I can think of to do is buy a turbo racing cart on ebay Australia and get the seller to send the PAL turbo racing cart to you and get you to work your magic but by the time I factor in shipping costs (New Zealand is far away from everything and has a weak currency) it seems I should probably just spend that large sum of money on rent and food 
tl;dr
Any idea of shipping costs to New Zealand?
Or know of any Australian cart developers?
Thanks for your time! Your work is awesome.