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Australia

I've been busy creating these last few weeks and would like to present the Driver-Less Linker!

My Linker now mounts itself as a USB drive on any Operating system and allows simple drag and drop of Save files from your Gameboy. No tricky drivers or custom software. Plug it in, turn it on, and transfer your save files. Simple!

http://youtu.be/J9OGtY8W70A

Also in development and expected to be ready for shipping late next month are my Next generation Reader/Writers. These too are now fully driver-less USB and mount themselves in the same way as a USB drive. Drag and Drop ROM's and Saves at USB 2.0 speeds! no more USB-Serial FTDI bridges, drivers, Python scripts or OS specific software. Open the drive, drag the ROM into your Cartridges' folder. Simple!

These will be the FASTEST and most RELIABLE Cart interface available

All original Nintendo carts are supported as well as my BennVenn carts, EMS carts (Both pages) and more support to come!

The next gen reader/writers will be encased in a DMG inspired enclosure for that retro look

Stay tuned for more!

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hardcore, Australia

deleted

Last edited by godinpants (May 14, 2020 10:36 pm)

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Minneapolis, MN

God dang I'm hyped! I'll purchase one as soon as they come out!

Last edited by TEOMAWKI (Feb 22, 2015 12:58 am)

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Australia

Shouldn't be too far away. PCB's are almost done, Really just waiting on an EMS cart to ensure compatibility before I finalise the current firmware

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Abandoned on Fire

You're doing some really neat stuff, good work!

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Atlanta, GA

When you say EMS does that mean I can finally flash my old blue 32m EMS carts? or just the new usb carts?

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South UK

I know _exactly_ why I have this boner

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Australia

If I can get hold of an older 32M EMS I can add support for it too. Would you be interested in loaning me it? We can work out some kind of arrangement, paypal deposit, discount etc...

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Australia

A few questions have been raised regarding price and features.

For those with background in programming, you can probably appreciate the complexity of coding in pure assembly on a modern 32bit MCU (2500 lines of code and more to come), add in the many layers of the USB 2.0 Protocol from the Hardware Endpoint interfacing, Descriptor generation and handling, Enumeration, Mass Storage Class layer, SCSI transparent command layer, FAT file handling layer, the GB interface controller and gluing it all together is a rather complex kernel in charge of managing the many current different cart protocols.

Then add debugging hardware and software for USB 2.0, VID and PID registration.

There is a reason this has not been done in the past, that is the many hundreds of hours of coding and debugging and the price for the development boards, USB debugging hardware etc...

That being said, My prices have always been, and will continue to be reasonable. I plan on a final price lower than that of the current high end alternative. I've also invested in a 3d printer to make some enclosures both protective and aesthetic. (I'm currently thinking of an oversize cart where you insert your standard cart into the end of it?)

Onto the features,
As I said earlier, this device allows simple drag and drop of ROM's and Save's to and from a Flash Cart. If your cart supports multiple ROM's on the one cart, you will need to generate your compilations in the same way as you have before. Be it EMS, Bung, BennVenn. It is these files you drag onto the cart, or simply drag a stand alone ROM without menu and that is fine too.

I'll be adding a simple menu generator to the firmware for my BennVenn carts, dividing the cart into 4 regions and allowing individual transfer for each region. This won't let you store hundreds of ROM's like my compiler software does but simplifies things a whole lot for those that don't want to deal with a compiler program.

My first gen Reader/Writers and Linkers (and soon the Gen2 products) will still be available through Ninstrument.Com for those after a budget cart tool - and to be honest, there are still more features built into the Flashtool program than is possible using just USB Mass Storage implementation (On the fly register modification, bank switching, selective erase and writing etc...)

If you want speed and simplicity then I'd recommend the Gen2, If you want to dump some exotic cart with a boot menu, you will need the added features of the Gen1 to manually ROM swap via software to extract the ROM's.

-Ben

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Atlanta, GA
BennVenn wrote:

If I can get hold of an older 32M EMS I can add support for it too. Would you be interested in loaning me it? We can work out some kind of arrangement, paypal deposit, discount etc...

Definitely! Sending a PM.

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Atlanta, GA

double post

Last edited by Ninten Kwon Do (Feb 25, 2015 9:43 pm)

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Australia

Replied

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godinpants wrote:

This looks great. I'd love to be able to pull save files from a gb camera on a modern os.

me 2!

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Chips & Dip :3

How much are you gonna be selling it for if you don't mind my asking? $100-ish?

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Australia

Sub-$100, It's hard to say an exact amount, I am not too sure how much plastic a 3d printer would consume to make the enclosures (It cant be too much right!?) That is really the only unknown between here and shipping. (3D printer expected Wednesday next week)

I'll discuss this with my distributor today and get back to you with a solid number soon.

As for compatibility, I've generously been offered the use of a 32M EMS cart, I have a 64M EMS inbound (Thanks Kitsch!), I know a guy who lent me his MrFlash cart earlier last year so I'll send him an email to see if I can borrow it again, and of course my BennVenn carts. All commercial Nintendo carts (including GBCam) will autodetect in the 'Generic' folder and present themselves as the ROMNAME.GB/C and ROMNAME.SAV.

Other folders include EMS32, EMS64, BENNVENN, BUNG, SYSTEM.

EMS64 contains 2 subdirectoris, Page1 and Page2. BENNVENN is similar with 4 pages.

This is the simplest way I could think of to structure the support for multi carts and as a USB drive.

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Boston

BennVenn what 3d printer did you get?
My guess is for a normal sized roll of ABS or PLA you should be able to run off more than 20 enclosures (- misprints) but it all depends on the size and how much infill you use. Also PLA is not that good for much more than prototypes,its biodegradable and the sun breaks it down really fast. its more picky and prone to misprints but go ABS if your machine has a heat bed.