Thanks Koatl. I'll have you know, you're the first person to contact me. You'll get the first one!
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Ciudad de méxico, MX
I *may* be up for another one. Just got some nanoloop fever and I don't know were to go with it. I'll send you a message if i'm still for it. thanks you in advance, i respect your work a lot, and the DIY movement. Fuck da powerpaks.
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Minneapolis
Flopps wrote:
Analog wrote:Fuck da powerpaks.
Bit of a strong statement
He's entitled to his opinion. If I was given the choice I'd personally like to have both. 
But I just have the one I made for myself, which is needing some cleanup and then I can show it off. I'm going to try and get kinks worked out of the prototype this week. I made some stupid design decisions on the first one because of time constraints and lack of materials/funding which will not be present in the final product.
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edit: nevermind
Last edited by Flopps (May 26, 2010 1:02 am)
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Ciudad de méxico, MX
Flopps: I'm sorry to bug you. That was just a little side joke; a little absurd and a little dadaism.
the powerpaks are just fine.
EDIT: Jokes apart, i was just trying to say that is important to support this kind of iniciatives. first of all, the more people developing hardware hacking the better.
Last edited by Analog (May 26, 2010 4:27 am)
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Minneapolis
Well, right now I got one preorder, and only one. What would it take to get people interested in this? I understand the higher cost is a problem for people. Is my price just too high? Are there not enough features? Is something which is handmade less desirable? Is the preorder just too risky sounding for people?
I know that this kind of thing is quite beyond the modding skills of some people without an extremely detailed tutorial. Would this be more useful than a service to build them?
Last edited by arfink (Jun 2, 2010 3:10 am)
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Milwaukee, WI
The price is right. In our case we've just moved on to different formats. Had this been six/seven years ago we would have purchased three at that price.
Honestly though, that software is so good we're on the fence again.
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Ciudad de méxico, MX
arfink wrote:
Well, right now I got one preorder, and only one. What would it take to get people interested in this? I understand the higher cost is a problem for people. Is my price just too high? Are there not enough features? Is something which is handmade less desirable? Is the preorder just too risky sounding for people?
I know that this kind of thing is quite beyond the modding skills of some people without an extremely detailed tutorial. Would this be more useful than a service to build them?
i was thinking a lot about this. I'm not a hardware guy, but the thing that you can't update your cart easily or backing up your songs is a major problem.
Maybe i'm taking nosense, but if you can build a cheap interface for some sort of easy upgrade(ponyprog?), or backing up data (now with the sav. to .nsf converter just released) the product may be just perfect for ALL the needs. Even if it cost a little more.
I know i sound very ambicious.
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Yea not being able to backup and save songs is a deal breaker for many, i think.
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Ciudad de méxico, MX
maybe encourage people to buy/ build something like this
i'll happily build my own if it can work to upgrade / save
you can maybe sell the parts cheap for the people to DIY it?
or even if you can build it inside the cart ... or connectors... maybe i'm rambling too much.
Last edited by Analog (Jun 2, 2010 7:27 pm)
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Minneapolis
Well, thanks for the input guys! This is very helpful. However, the lack of backups being a problem does puzzle me. After all, the NVSRAM I'm using is really and truly not volatile, as the acronym would suggest. The lack of a battery which could fail and the automated flash backup which takes place on the chip itself would seem to be pretty fail safe to me.
Of course, I would agree that doing something like this would seem pretty silly without an easy way to update it by yourself, since people would probably be averse to mailing the cartridge to get updates. As for the $5 EPROM programmer, it's a very nice looking design, and could be handy.
Lastly, when I think about doing NTRQ carts, I keep thinking of the way Nanoloop is being sold- not upgradeable and backups only available through a separate device. Perhaps if I made my cartridge fixed on one version in order to reduce cost?
Ah well, back to the drawing board it would seem. Unless Koatl is really hopping for one of my deficient designs I'll probably scrap this round.
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Minneapolis
As for USB updating, it could conceivably increase the cost a good deal. And with a UART, signal line multiplexers, an external USB connector, and all associated code, one might as well as an FPGA in the mix and make it just like the Power Pak. Of course, a cartridge and docking station type setup could certainly be done in the vein of the SpartBoy carts for GB, which would decrease the cost per cartridge by moving the programming apparatus into a separate device. I guess I'll look into it.
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Yea but nanoloop is a bad example as that is rarely updated (or bugs are fixed) and NTRQ seemingly is. Its more in the spirit of an LSDJ where the users and dev have a good communication rapport and shit gets updated on a regular basis (go neil!)