Search options (Page 1 of 4)

Note that the images aren't showing properly for the linked doc page there. They show the sawtooth visual waveforms in the pulsing/palette table. I'm working on getting my website back up.

I've been able to deal with more things recently, having some help from a friend dealing things in my life. I wish arfink had released what he had, but it's hard to lay blame on someone for being considerate

I feel awful for having had to suddenly and completely leave all the online forums I used to visit. I couldn't deal with all the stuff, not even programming. It was terrible to not be programming, but it was very overwhelming (and still is, to some extent). Even still, I can barely approach all my projects. I desire so much to continue madly improving everything, but fall short when it comes to energy/feeling good enough to do very much.

I'm still working at much diminished capacity, and am trying to avoid taking on too much again. I've gotten all the source code for Munchausen put together (including all the assembly stuff) so that I'm not sitting on the only copy. Just dusting Munchausen off and using it, I was reminded how cool it is and how sad that it's been delayed so much. I'm trying to contact arfink but not getting much response, which makes it hard to find enthusiasm to get things moving along again.

Only 2A03 sound can be supported by the NSF player, unless you can hotswap a VRC6 cartridge into the NES. arfink hasn't had luck with hotswapping on his NES, and I haven't either with my Munchausen prototype. Apparently it depends on some aspect of the cartridge PCB, because some of my others hotswap just fine.

Given how the menu is currently running, SRAM features would be hard to demo

The remote run feture is quite useful. You can load a new program in and have it start running immediately, without having to select it with the controller.

Also, the "hold A when power up to run last selected game" is mainly meant for if you're at a show or whatever and don't want the jarring menu to appear. For example if you've got litewall selected. I mayb expand this to allow direct access to any slot, for example hold A+Up to run slot 1, A+Down to run slot 2, etc. so you can avoid the menu appearing. I may also add a toggle so you can have it always run the last selected item if you're not pressing anything on the controller. Then you'd hold A to SHOW the menu. Anyway, that's down the line...

SurfaceDragon, it will very likely support either six 32K NROMs loaded at once, or two NROMs and one MMC1, with a menu to select which one to run. It might be possible at some point to fit ten NROMs or four NROMs and one MMC1, though that would require more Flash rewriting each time one was loaded/unloaded. There is a lot of flexibility in the software, so the first release will have plenty of room for upgrades without any changes to the cartridge.

That was just for this development version where it's the only way to know it's working. The release will show a progress bar on the PC, so you don't need the NES even connected to a TV or anything while loading it.

Here's the current API I'm working on. It makes working with the cartridge extremely simple from C. It will be used to build the various tools for putting things on the cartridge and backing up SRAM. Initially I'm writing a simple command-line tool, but there should be some GUIs at some point.

// Bank parameter below selects 16K bank from Flash at $8000.
// It can be any value from 0 to $1F.

// Confirm that NES and Munchausen cartridge are ready
error_t ping();

// Read section of cartridge or NES memory, including SRAM
error_t read_mem( void* out, int size, int addr, int bank );

// Write any section of cartridge or NES memory, including SRAM
error_t write_mem( void const* in, int size, int addr, int bank );

// Find CRC 16 of any section of NES memory
error_t crc16_mem( unsigned* out, int size, int addr, int bank );

// Program any portion of cartridge Flash memory. Size and addr must be
// multiple of 256. Flash memory is 512K total ($80000 bytes).
error_t write_flash( void const* in, int size, int addr );

// Erase a 64K sector of Flash. There are 8 total.
error_t erase_sector( int sector );

Different errors are returned for the following situations:
* NES not responding
* Munchausen cartridge not working properly
* Data transfer error
* Flash programming failed
* Flash took too long to program
* Flash erase failed

All data transferred between the PC and NES is extensively checksummed, to avoid any undetected data errors. Given the clean API, it will be easy to write thorough tests of the cartridge and API. I plan on adding a cartridge test function which ensures all the Munchausen functions are working.

Great idea. Hold B and press Start to toggle animation of current bank on/off. While enabled, B+Up/Down adjusts animation rate:

blargg_litewall-10c.zip

Slight update to shape selection. The current bank isn't changed unless you hold B and press Select. It was resetting to the first one whenever you released B then held it again. Now if you hold B, you still select from the currently visible bank with U/D/L/R. You can still count Select presses since you started holding B to determine which bank you're on, allowing "blind" operation with a predictable outcome.

blargg_litewall_10.zip

Also, when making shapes, you probably want to make them as filled as possible, otherwise the image comes out darker. Some of the ones here are inverse, which is the best approach to keeping it bright.