Thor17, if you use IRC, feel free to join #gbdev on EFnet.
513 Jan 23, 2014 3:40 pm
Re: [DIY]Open-Source SD cartridge for GB/GBC (9 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)
514 Jan 23, 2014 2:11 pm
Re: [DIY]Open-Source SD cartridge for GB/GBC (9 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)
If you are absolutely sure you can do it, go ahead and try. There are already two projects on the way, one by krikzz and another one by someone else, who I'll keep secret for the moment. (Not me.)
I don't mean to discourage you too much, but if you're not sure you can finish it (given your available time and skill) you may just be wasting your time. The problem for you with doing an open source project is that anyone can make copies and sell (well depending on the license, but assuming GPL) without paying you anything. The problem for anyone producing the hardware is the same, the already thin profit margins are spread even thinner if other people start producing the same hardware.
I would argue that open source works well when the development time matches the user base, ie small user base and low developer cost, and big user base and high developer cost (for example the Linux kernel, Firefox, Apache, MySQL or your favorite large OSS project.) Otherwise the risk is that the project becomes stale because of lack of development effort. This is especially pronounced in a hardware project, since hardware has a higher production cost than the electricity it takes to compile a program.
For this project, I suspect the challenge will be the SD card state machine and FAT interpreter. You want this to both work and be fast enough. And you need a bootloader somewhere that cannot be easily erased so you'll effectively brick your cart. Plus, probably, an endless list of things that need to be fixed.
Well well, enough with the discouragement rant.
515 Jan 22, 2014 8:52 pm
Re: EDIT: finally refunded :) (9 replies, posted in General Discussion)
516 Jan 22, 2014 8:45 am
Re: Arduinoboy (Arduino Pro mini) (7 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)
A fake Atmega? Are you really sure about that?
517 Jan 21, 2014 2:19 am
Re: chip criminals top trumps (64 replies, posted in General Discussion)
Jose Torres, though that wasn't music crime.
518 Jan 16, 2014 10:38 am
Re: Low battery indicator for GBC or MGB? (7 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)
The circuit could be modified for use with a GBC/MGB, I'm pretty sure. I personally would have done the circuit a little differently. It now connects just to the battery terminals. I would have used three terminals, ground, regulated +5V Vcc and the sense voltage. The sense voltage trigger point could then be set to something suitable for either a DMG or a GBC/MGB (something using only two 1.5 V batteries).
The problem then becomes fitting the board inside a GBC/MGB. And speaking of that, unless that board is single-sided, it could be made more space-efficient by placing components on both sides of the board. Though that might be problematic when you're going to mount it, but yeah, might be beneficial for the smaller 'boys. But this is just turning into a technical review of the batt_dmg.
You could likely not use an indicator from a GBA SP, as it's probably made using a Li ion battery charging chip which has an internal voltage reference made for that battery chemistry. This mean the threshold for a low voltage is likely set higher than the voltage of two AA/AAA, ie two AA/AAA will always detect as being low. Not to mention that it's easier to design a simple circuit from scratch than it is to reverse engineer the GBA SP's.
Same with the GBA's, which is using AA batteries, but the indicator circuit is likely integrated into the voltage converter.
519 Jan 16, 2014 2:42 am
Re: Roland is rereleasing the 808 and 303?! (23 replies, posted in Other Hardware)
Assuming that store has the correct information. Not that I doubt it, though.
520 Jan 15, 2014 2:38 pm
Re: Got a DMG for a dollar. One big problem. (18 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)
Did you understand what I meant by the resistors? Do you need an image explaining what I mean?
521 Jan 15, 2014 1:26 am
Re: Got a DMG for a dollar. One big problem. (18 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)
Dirty. The solder probably rolls away because because of all that gunk. (And/or your solder or soldering iron suck.) You might be able to clean that up. But regardless, a pre-pot prosound is still viable. Just follow the signals back a tiny bit. you'll find that the pre-pot signal points connect to two resistors next to each other, one for each channel. If you can solder to any point there you might be good to go. You could also try on the top side, by soldering the signal wires directly to the resistors. If you do this, and nothing is shorted out on the dirty side, you should have a working prosound.
522 Jan 12, 2014 11:25 am
Re: guys, the golden dmg is right here: (3 replies, posted in General Discussion)
whats up with that lion king product pic... this guy...
Someone made it to ridicule hime, and I guess he's taking pride in that notoriety.
And sorry, shawn. This was fun while it lasted. Let's now move on.
523 Jan 10, 2014 5:29 pm
Re: Game Boy Original 1989 Custom Painted Clear/Gold!! Backlight! NES!!! (143 replies, posted in Trading Post)
One day you're going to look back at this thread and think to yourself that it was pretty silly. Until then, farewell, thread!
524 Jan 9, 2014 10:44 am
Re: Game Boy Original 1989 Custom Painted Clear/Gold!! Backlight! NES!!! (143 replies, posted in Trading Post)
boaconstructor wrote:very rare. so desirable. wow
Fuck now I want a doge DMG.
This hereby officially only allowed if you pay for it with Dogecoin.
525 Jan 9, 2014 1:31 am
Re: Game Boy Original 1989 Custom Painted Clear/Gold!! Backlight! NES!!! (143 replies, posted in Trading Post)
I'm trying to figure out for myself whether shawn's primary intention was to troll that guy or cm.o.
526 Jan 7, 2014 2:16 pm
Re: Introducing ALTANE, nitro2k01's cartridge flasher project (170 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)
I got a NL 1.0 cart you could test
Before possibly wasting your time/money, could you please look inside, take a photo of the board, and note what is written on the chips that are on there?
And, farfetched idea: could it also write eprom carts? I got a few weird ones
Unfortunately, the short answer is no. EPROM chips typically require a high voltage (around 12V, compared to the 5V for that the GB is using.) to be present, and that has to be generated somehow. Aside from the practical difficulty of doing this (This might be done with an extra adapter board sitting between the flasher and the cart containing a voltage boost circuit for example.) it might be impossible to this programming in-place on the cartridge. For example, the programming pin may not be routed to the cartridge connector, or it may be shared with one of the other pins, and connected in parallel with the memory bank controller chip in such a way that the MBC would be destroyed.
527 Jan 7, 2014 8:42 am
Re: Introducing ALTANE, nitro2k01's cartridge flasher project (170 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)
Holy shit, amazing. Don't mean to overreach but "while you're at it" -- begging for SRAM read/write support for earlier 1.x versions of Nanoloop.
Yeah that's the plan. Bud Melvin sent me an old NL cartridge for that purpose, 1.2 or 1.3. (The yellow type.) Weren't you supposed to lend me one of the older cartridges, the version that Bud didn't send me, for experiments? My memory is hazy.
When you say it can do nano one carts do you mean the a and b sections or the main ROM?
Either way this sounds great!
All the banks. Well technically not all the banks. Not the first bank, which is write protected and holds a permanent copy of Nanoloop which is used as a backup if the normal copy of NL is somehow deleted, so you cannot brick the cartridge. But yes, Nanoloop, ROM A and B and the save area will be readable/writeable.
HeavyW8bit wrote:This looks amazing!! Would it be able to read EPROM carts and save it as a ROM by any chance?
Yes assuming they don't have proprietary bank switching. very uncommon however so probably not a worry
Actually... Given the Python library that come with the software, it would be easy to write your own script that dumps such a cartridge, by telling the flasher to write value x to address y and then dump memory area z. But yes, it can dump anything that behaves like a normal cartridge.
Custom mappers is common among pirate multicarts, but not EEPROM carts in my experience.
528 Jan 7, 2014 7:42 am
Re: Paypal dispute question (4 replies, posted in General Discussion)
I think PayPal disputes are automatic, and that you shouldn't manually return money by making another payment. Assuming that's what you did.