trekeyus
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St Louis
nitro2k01 wrote:

It will supprt EMS 64M, but only for one of the pages. It will in general not support GBA carts because GBA carts are using 3.3V power and old cartridges are using 5V power. A 3.3V chip may not tolerate those 5V, but if it can be determined that a certain GBA cartridge is 5V tolerant, there's not much stopping me from adding software support for flashing it. This might be a can of worms if people accidentally fry their GBA carts, though.

One solution would be to make use of some sort of adapter card that you plug in between the flasher and the GBA card that drops the power down to 3.3V and passes the rest though as a simple passive passthough.

Koji-Kendo
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nitro2k01 wrote:

It will supprt EMS 64M, but only for one of the pages.

Any chance that a firmware update could possibly fix this, or any other workaround..?

BennVenn
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Australia
trekeyus wrote:

One solution would be to make use of some sort of adapter card that you plug in between the flasher and the GBA card that drops the power down to 3.3V and passes the rest though as a simple passive passthough.

The AVR will happily run at 3.3v as will the logic in the FTDI, Use the 3.3v from the FTDI and add a switch/jumper to select 3.3/5v cart voltage. No passthrough required, just a $0.10 jumper. That is how my Reader/Writers have GBA and GB compatibility

trekeyus
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St Louis
BennVenn wrote:
trekeyus wrote:

One solution would be to make use of some sort of adapter card that you plug in between the flasher and the GBA card that drops the power down to 3.3V and passes the rest though as a simple passive passthough.

The AVR will happily run at 3.3v as will the logic in the FTDI, Use the 3.3v from the FTDI and add a switch/jumper to select 3.3/5v cart voltage. No passthrough required, just a $0.10 jumper. That is how my Reader/Writers have GBA and GB compatibility

Might be a bit late for that as the Final preorder ALTANE production units are already being manufactured. They might have to keep that in mind though for the next revision.

nitro2k01
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Sweeeeeeden
BennVenn wrote:
trekeyus wrote:

One solution would be to make use of some sort of adapter card that you plug in between the flasher and the GBA card that drops the power down to 3.3V and passes the rest though as a simple passive passthough.

The AVR will happily run at 3.3v as will the logic in the FTDI, Use the 3.3v from the FTDI and add a switch/jumper to select 3.3/5v cart voltage. No passthrough required, just a $0.10 jumper. That is how my Reader/Writers have GBA and GB compatibility

This was considered, and there's a footprint for a 3.3V regulator that would allow an ALTANE unit to be converted aftermarket to 3.3 V operation, either permanently or with a switch. It may also be possible to use the internal 3.3V regulator in the FTDI chip, but I would recommend against that, at least until it has been properly tested, since the total power consumption may exceed FTDI's rated 50 mA for the regulator during erase or write operations. This may lead to unreliable operation for some flash carts.
However, GBA support was not originally planned and I have not amassed a large collection of GBA flashcarts to work with, as I now have with GB flashcarts. This will be considered as an option for the future.

BennVenn
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Australia

If you're interested in adding GBA support I can send you a range of currently manufactured flash carts for testing/dissection and the protocols I've R.E'd.
I use the PL2303 and even with its quirks has no problem supplying the 20ma flash erase current these carts draw, even during bus collisions.

trekeyus
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St Louis

Any news on when you expect to begin shipping ? You said  3-4 weeks (As of January 23, 2015) and well it's been 4 weeks. Just curious whats the latest news.

nitro2k01
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Sweeeeeeden

Most likely during the upcoming week. Thank you for your patience. smile

egr
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Abandoned on Fire
nitro2k01 wrote:

Most likely during the upcoming week. Thank you for your patience. smile

cool heart

Apeshit
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.

Last edited by Apeshit (Jul 17, 2019 12:22 am)

trekeyus
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St Louis

thanks for the heads up the wait is almost over.

egr
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Abandoned on Fire

Fighter Carts too? smile

Shugo
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-snip-

Last edited by Shugo (Jan 20, 2020 4:35 am)

Apeshit
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.

Last edited by Apeshit (Jul 17, 2019 12:22 am)

Shugo
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-snip-

Last edited by Shugo (Jan 20, 2020 4:35 am)

nitro2k01
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Sweeeeeeden

There will be a page with detailed information about cartridge support etc once the currently produced devices start shipping. To answer the question, yes you can in principle write any game to it.