Oh man, I'd buy some of these up if there is a clear guide to using Neil's software on it, for sure.
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Australia
Timbob wrote:
Hi!
few questions:1: I ordered some of those aliexpress carts a while back. 2 60 pins game pcb's and one 60-72 pin convertor with case. If I get your programmer from your website (Without the cart slot) can I solder the wires to the pins and good things happen? (Planning on soldering the wires to the converter pcb and build it into the case.. some slashing may ensue )
2: I saw the gameboy flasher was sold out on your site.. are they coming back? saves on shipping costs etc
3: what's your favourite animal?
4: a new flash cart sounds awesome. Not really a question, more of a remark.
5: did you know the link to your website on your cm.org profile doesn't work?
Hi!
Few answers:
1: that is how my ready made nes flash cart works. If you just want the micro sub-board and a pin to pin wiring diagram, we can make that happen.
2:they'll be back in a week or so. Waiting on pcb's
3.Rush (the dog from megaman series)
4.That is correct
5.My old page is down. We're living in the middle of nowhere and internet is via a Yagi raised on a 4m pole. No web serving happening out here... I'll migrate it to my shop.
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Australia
Found a cheap manufacturer that will do ENIG plating (I'll check if they do hard plating or only soft) so this means the carts will go ahead.
I also dug out my old Homemade Game Shark, its a simple cart with ROM, CPLD and cart socket. I was having a play with some code I was thinking about the last few days and this is what I ended up with:
Implemented a hardware SPI port in the CPLD (To read and write to a micro SD card via the GameBoy)
Implemented a 'warm reset' button where upon pressing it will switch ROM's without having to sit through the standard Nintendo boot sequence, and then return back to the other ROM on request.
What does this mean? You can invoke a menu while in LSDJ which offers to Load or Save your current track(s) to an SD card and immediately return to LSDJ with your new tracks loaded, and offer Gigabytes of save storage!
This was to confirm all the building blocks are there for an SD card based LSDJ cart. Also considering adding SD based ROM flashing for kit patching etc... Coming soon!
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Did I read all that correctly?
I swung by this sub forum to see what kind of stuff people write about because I've been considering making a small attempt at going beyond my capacity and learning Famitracker. Then all of a sudden this particular thread took a turn to SD card based Gameboy flash carts? Would that be gigabytes of lsdsngs or sav's? At any rate, being able to circumvent the worries of a dead battery in the ems cart wiping your stuff would be so worth it. Basically....gimme! Are these really coming?
Last edited by bitpusher2600 (Apr 20, 2016 12:47 am)
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bitpusher2600 wrote:
being able to circumvent the worries of a dead battery in the ems cart wiping your stuff would be so worth it
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Australia
Yeah, I've put a few posts out on FB in various groups and have been given a lot of input into what is wanted.
Yes, gigabytes of saves/roms is the idea behind this cart, also bringing the price down. Over in Aus, an Everdrive GB goes for $200+
so right now, I'm finalising the part selection. I've gone with a modern 8mbyte Flash ROM which half will be dedicated to the bootloader which leaves the maximum ROM size at 4mbytes. SRAM has been chosen at 128k for LSDJ users.
A lot of people said the slow transfer time from SD to GB needed to be addressed. The problem is 4mbytes of SRAM or even PSRAM is both expensive and difficult to solder (BGA) so I've gone with the fastest Flash ROM I could find, supporting 1.3mbytes per second write speed. The delay will now be the GB's bus and clock speed. Realistic throughput will be approx 100kbytes per second, which to me is acceptable.
FRAM was another option for batteryless saves but with the SD card there, and auto saving an option at startup I think I'll pass on the FRAM too.
I'll be sending the design off to the PCB house tonight to get a batch of 10 made up in HASL before I commit to gold plating. It's not suitable for continuous use as lead/tin will pollute the GB connector and give poor reliablitly. But if anyone here would like to be a beta tester of the first batch, please contact me! It would be best if you have a background in GB ASM or already have a Joey Joebags as all the firmware can be restored in the event of a corruption in the early stages of development.
On the NES cart front, My PCB's are on their way for the cart reader/writer. I'll be making a generic NES flash cart withi multi mapper support, again at around half the price of existing solutions. Got it all drawn up in CAD, just want to test a few things on a protoboard before I jump in on that project.
I am taking a month off work in May to spend full days on these projects to get them up to scratch. They should be available in my store very soon!!!!!
Come visit me on FB (BennVenn Electronics) for updates and pics and all that good stuff.
Ben
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oklahoma
Sorry for being ignorant here, but is that a yes on these nes flash carts for neils stuff? I need two of these in my life. Flash carts for nes, genesis, and gb are all on the list for me, and the price is very nice.
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Australia
It's a yes on the NES flash carts though priority right now is on the GB carts, then NES, then Genesis, GameGear...
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Clermont-Ferrand, France
I've been lurking on this topic with much interest. Congrats for your work, this sounds very exciting.