Search options (Page 185 of 208)

Response from Oliver on nanoloop forum:

"I'm sorry for how little development / information there was with the audio/data backup yet.

While I was looking for a simple backup solution that would be cheap / easy to DIY, I came up with the idea to record / play back the data as audio (inspired by the datasette: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datasette). The link port protocol is slow and robust enough and there is one line for clock and one for data, so I gave it a try. While recording the data didn't work well, it was actually possible to send bytes by playing specially prepared audio files on a PC. In nanoloop 1.5, I implemented a function that encodes a bank's data in this form. So it is possible to archive the data on a PC in form of a recording. It is also possible to restore that bank on a nanoloop 1.5 cart by simply connecting the PC's audio out to the Game Boy's link port and playing back the recording.
However, I soon found that it only worked on my MacBook and only at maximum volume, I could not get it to work on any other computer yet. It seems to be an issue not just of voltage but also resistance or capacitance. It often seems to work, but then data suddenly get scrambled, it's like the voltage is drifting. I have tried a number of ways to stabilize the signal and adjust the offset (comparator, optocoupler) but with no luck yet.
The problem is that audio line-out operates at a much lower voltage than the game boy's 5V, that it's positive and negative (-2V to +2V) and that the signal is pulled to ground.

I'm not familiar with audio electronics, I just know they're rather different from (CMOS) logic and both probably shouldn't be coupled directly. But I'm still optimistic that a very simple circuit can solve the issue and make it work for any device with a line-out.

The connections are as follows:

left - clock
right - data
ground - ground"

Posted on nanoloop forums:

http://www.nanoloop.com/node/1069

Fingers crossed.

Yeah, I wanna be like Chumley!

I'll be out of town until Tuesday night but I'll upload a data recording when I get back.

Good lord that's timely!  My brutalized gbl thanks you!    Looking forward to the new kits as well.

Doh!  You're correct of course.  I only want to have a restore-able backup of my cart (or several different backups).  I guess my real question is:  How reliable is the restore-ing part of this process?  Does anyone do this regularly?