May I ask, where is the white cart donor shell taken from?

770

(99 replies, posted in General Discussion)

http://trash80.com/junkfood/8bitnamegenerator

771

(41 replies, posted in Commodore Computers)

Switching 5 and 9 (the analog inputs) should be enough. You don't really need to put a switch on 7 and 8 (+5V and ground). Using a 4PDT switch is way overkill.

Now, there are different degrees of cheapness you could aim for. Here are a couple of modified schematics with descriptions. I've marked +5V with red and ground with black for clarity.

Terribly cheap: Two SPST switches. Connect 5 and 9 right through to the other jack, and connect the potentiometers in parallel through individual SPST switches. Now both switches must be in the on position for the respective potentiometer to work, and both switches must be off in order for the second jack to work properly.

Still terribly cheap: Two SPDT switches. Each input is now properly switched between the potentiometer and the second jack, but you still have two switches you need to care about.

Somewhat less cheap: One DPST switch. Same as the first example, but with only one switch to care about.

Recommended: One DPDT switches. Both lines are properly switched with a single stroke.

772

(32 replies, posted in General Discussion)

Downstate wrote:

when i come to cm.org i usually cry about the death of 8bc. and the death of chiptune. and the death of my classes pet turtle.
crymusic.org

And so seapunk ws born!

Yep. The malware is still there. I can see two things. One Java applet, and one thing that probably attacks specific browsers that are vulnerable. I can contact them I guess.

774

(2 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)

Sounds like a bug. Either poke Johan about it, or try an older/newer version.

775

(9 replies, posted in Releases)

Bit wish wrote:

Ok, why is this a thread? And why is it not closed?

If you look carefully, you'll find a link that leads to another link that leads to an archive filled with strange files with an nsf file extension. Rumour has it that you can somehow get sounds out of these files.

Whoa! Time flies like an arrow! I didn't even notice the age of the thread.

Bud: I'm interested and I'll contact you in a PM.

Bud of all Melvins: I'm making my own flasher, which you will hopefully be able to buy at some point. I want to support as many different cartridges as possible, and having physical access to them helps ensure that I'm doing things correctly.

778

(304 replies, posted in Trading Post)

Maybe you should point out that red and orange are crossed over in a DMG-04 cable, since obviously in on one end goes to out o the other.
Then there's the name "SD", which can be confusing. The name SD comes from GBA link cables. The name is normally not actually used for any kind of serial data in 8-bit GB hardware. The official name for this pin for 8-bit generation hardware is the slightly more cryptic P14. This is the name of the CPU pin it's connected to in a DMG; which is an output related to reading the state of the buttons.

Re: canopy type battery holder. I don't see this as feasible. You are relying on the PCB layout to provide the cathode (negative battery terminal) connection. On the yellow cartridge, the cathode is to the left of the battery. You could perhaps solve this by adding a little bit of wire soldered to the pad which goes under the battery, but I don't think you can guarantee good contact this way. You also need to attach the other  side of the "canopy" for mechanical stability. This is farily easy to do if you scrape off some of the solder mask from the ground plane above the battery, and also disconnect said section of the ground plane from the rest of the ground. (Just a few cuts with a knife.)

However, that seems a bit hackish, and might create problems with data loss because the connectioncomes loose. The way I would probably solve this is with a 180° tabbed battery. Solder the anode (positive battery terminal) to the right place. Bend the other tab and fold it around the top edge of the PCB. Solder a jumper wire between the tab and the ground pad on the board. This would require some thought when bending the tab, but should otherwise be the best solution.
...
Though again, thinking about it. that might not work because the top piece of the cartridge will occupy that space momentarily when you slide the cartridge shut.

Anyway, I think I would recommend a tabbed battery which is soldered into place rather than the canopy version, for mechanical stability reasons. This should still extend their life by ~10 years, so it shouldn't be that bad.

Oh and of course, maybe I don't even need to add that I would be interested in playing with these cartridges hands-on for some research. (Such as figuring out how to back them up and flashing new software to them.)

780

(10 replies, posted in General Discussion)

Closerized!

781

(26 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)

I wonder how much of the noise that is picked up is EMI, and how much is fluctuations in the supply voltage. I wonder if a choke coil/LC filter on the voltage supply to the EL film would make any difference.

Somebody reported this long ago. I really should make a single page for LittleFM so there only one place to keep the links up to date.
Updated version: http://blog.gg8.se/gameboyprojects/week … apon02.zip

I have never touched this type of cartridge before. I do not know exactly what can or can't flash this cartridge. Maybe a bleepbloop/smartboy type flasher can flash it, maybe not. I'm working on a flasher of my own however, and would love to get my hands on this and see if I can add support for it.

It's using the FTDI driver which is pretty standard and available for all platforms. The problem is making the flasher software work. It's known to work perfectly on Windows (32 and 64 bit alike since there are no drvier issues.) For other other OS's ymmv. There's a port for OSX which used to work well, but I've heard reports it doesn't work. For Linux you'd have to build from source. At least the source code is available, so that's good.

Driver: http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm
Software: http://sourceforge.net/projects/gbcf/files/gbcflsh/1.1/ (Windows/source)
Mac links: http://thretris.blogspot.se/2009/12/gam … c-osx.html
http://randombazz.blogspot.se/2011/08/g … c-osx.html