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Quick update on the SXROM research; been doing some testing - sourced some 62256 sram, traced out the connections between the chips (MMC1 + SRAM + logic) and will be putting some test boards together next week :O) fingers crossed we can Frankenstein really really common boards into SXROM boards to run Pulstar and PR8 this way \o_
Last edited by ne7 (Feb 23, 2012 9:52 am)
respect to ne7 and everyone helping this come along, a pr8 cart with saving for considerably less than the cost of a powerpak would make me wee with excitement.
phew! finally got some time + the postman delivered me a NES open golf cartridge today (not Famicom) so I spent a few mins getting inside and checking out what was causing the problem for RG --- check out the following picture after I snipped off the PRG rom:
It seems just to make life harder good ole' NIN decided to solder each and every pin on both sides of the board on the N.E.S - so if you are following my Famicom guide religiously - this is what is causing you problems getting NTRQ working on one of these boards.
Simply solder each and every pin that connects to the board on both sides... and use a 27c020 eprom :) as that is the drop in replacement for the board in question just to be on the safe side.
also a lovely batch of sacrificial famicom carts have arrived from Japan (only took over a month gotta love surface mail sometimes!) so stay tuned for more on PR8/Pulsar 
i say alive. its almost alive :P -testing atm-
currently on the slab;
1x normal bog standard SNROM famicom cart which I've replaced the S-RAM on, and connected it up to the carts MMC chip and enabled the SRAM write thru a hex-inverter - which in effect has converted it to SXROM (I've converted got it upto 32kb) - PR8 is booting just fine and saving, however its not saving patterns (only the instruments) - cue head scratching :) but almost there!! might be a case of trying a diff inverter ... :)
Last edited by ne7 (Mar 12, 2012 8:03 pm)
http://hackitup.tumblr.com/post/1920173 … rom-to-run
^ there ya go :D
Happy PR8 hardware drumming or Pulsar hardware tracking everyone!
cheers Neil :O)
I've just updated the guide at http://hackitup.tumblr.com/post/1920173 … rom-to-run with a diagram to assist in building PR8/Pulsar btw \o_
I'm so trying this pretty soon. Ne7 you're amazing.
\o_ cheers Analog
Btw peeps - I've just popped up PDF labels for NTRQ + PR8 as PDF files (to assist with printing at correct size for sticking on a Famicom cart :) grab them at;
http://hackitup.tumblr.com/post/1936854 … r-ntrq-pr8
here's the PR8 one *grin*
Last edited by ne7 (Mar 15, 2012 11:51 pm)
phew! finally got some time + the postman delivered me a NES open golf cartridge today (not Famicom) so I spent a few mins getting inside and checking out what was causing the problem for RG --- check out the following picture after I snipped off the PRG rom:
It seems just to make life harder good ole' NIN decided to solder each and every pin on both sides of the board on the N.E.S - so if you are following my Famicom guide religiously - this is what is causing you problems getting NTRQ working on one of these boards.
Simply solder each and every pin that connects to the board on both sides... and use a 27c020 eprom
Hey!
First off, thanks for your hard work in resolving the issues, let alone the actual research in getting this to work. As echoed before, you are legend.
So I desoldered the chips, put them back onto the boards and soldered both sides (just like the first two times I tried this) and it still isn't working. I did notice that the traces look differently on the PRG portion of my boards. Perhaps I have two that don't want to play nice? Maybe it's my chip burner?
I'm going to source a third board and try again.
hey RG - I just had a bosh at getting NTRQ running on a NES cart of Nes open golf and had the exact same problem you did - I am seriously thinking something is up with this board layout - I actually tried probing the lines of the EPROM in line with the correct NES PRG pinout and succeeded in frying the EPROM and possibly the board itself which is pretty funny when you consider I've made loads of these 
with no busted boards in sight...
Perhaps trying to source an alternate donor board and avoiding this one is the best bet until I've worked out what on earth is going on this this one, it is really -really- odd.
The first thought I've had is that it is something to do with the MMC1 revision present on the board...
I did a little blog on some of the things I built and experiments done in getting PR8/Pulsar running on h/w here - http://hackitup.tumblr.com/post/1956991 … -board-h-w
