/duckxylophone

Goddammit. This means I'm about *this* close from selling all of my eprom materials/testcarts for a powerpak.

Oh, and no I am not posting email response. Email him your goddamn self. Seb is tops. He's probably just going through some shit.

Well, I wouldn't exactly call it painful. The xylophone duck is almost troll-worthy though.

Ok, I draw the line at duck xylophone samples.

Emailing now.

694

(16 replies, posted in Graphics, Artwork & Design)

I absolutely cannot wait to get my hands on this software. Nice work!

Thanks! I'd relay the info, but my posts are ignored. wink

How did you manage to get Pulsar working on hardware? It literally boots to a grey screen with numbers for me. It turns blue when I reset. Ha.

I just tried the working MMC with Pulsar all wired up on an SNROM-03 and it is all garbled/scrambled/doesn't want to work. Perhaps I need to clear all/RAM but I'm not sure I see a menu for this in the Pulsar manual. Going to try PR8 now.

*edit*

PR8 runs/works until settings get crazy, at which point it freezes/continues to run with glitched out colors and characters. You have to wait about 1-2 minutes before powering back on, otherwise the program will not run. The reset button just fucks it up.

*edit #2*

It seems I found a setting which freezes it no matter what. It triggers one note and stops.

BREAKTHROUGH.

@derekb: I noticed after looking at your photos that both of your MMC chips had a larger font, while all the carts I made had a smaller font, despite the same MMC revision numbers. The one cart I managed to just get working had a larger font as well.  So then, what would happen if I removed the smaller font MMC from an NTRQ cart that didn't work and replaced it with a large font MMC from a completely different mapper/cart?

NTRQ now works on an NES Open Golf cart with the new large font MMC, despite being the same exact revision.

So after poking around bootgods site, I see that (according to the photos) the smaller font MMC chips are manufactured by NEC:

http://bootgod.dyndns.org:7777/profile.php?id=179

http://bootgod.dyndns.org:7777/profile.php?id=472

while the larger font MMC chips are manufactured by Sharp:

http://bootgod.dyndns.org:7777/profile.php?id=700

http://bootgod.dyndns.org:7777/profile.php?id=519

This is a little misleading however, because the photo/info on bootgod's site shows that NES Open Golf had an MMC manufactured by Sharp (large font) while any copy I have in my possession has an NEC MMC (small font). It also states Zelda had an NEC MMC as well:

http://bootgod.dyndns.org:7777/profile.php?id=703

http://bootgod.dyndns.org:7777/profile.php?id=173

So, having figured this out, it would seem as though it's luck of the draw when purchasing SNROM games. It's probably best to have a few spare Sharp MMC chips laying around if anyone is hardcore enough about not wanting to use Powerpak.

NOW the question is this: What is so different about the Sharp/NEC MMC chips that one works and one doesn't, despite having the same revision number? Furthermore, why is it that you can get an NEC MMC to work when using the power-switch-toggle-while-cart-is-in-the-NES-but-not-actually-pressed-down trick?

Perhaps you can short a pin to get it to work, instead of replacing the MMC outright?

OK, now this is fucking strange. I just tried a second Bard's Tale cart to see if I was losing my mind and it completely works. This makes two Bard's Tale carts with the same MMC1B2 chip, solid solder connections and working eprom...but one works and the other doesn't. Is there something else at play here?

I decided to revisit this project. I have now tried on the Zelda and Bard's Tale carts with no luck.

I know the flasher works and soldering points are good because I managed to split the .nes/rom file of the carts used for the donor, extract the .prg, throw on a 020 and pop the eprom w/ wires to get the cart working again. For whatever reason NTRQ (and PR8/Pulsar) does NOT like the carts I provide, which all seem to be MMC1B2 and MMC1B3.

I am completely puzzled.

700

(30 replies, posted in Nintendo Consoles)

Ok, so it must be the eprom. I tried a little experiment where I run a screwdriver across all the pins of the CHR eprom when powered off and it boots fine every time afterward. It's almost as though it's discharging something on one of the pins. Weird.

**edit** - it's doing the same with no carrier's lickshot. Eproms too fast?

701

(30 replies, posted in Nintendo Consoles)

I threw this on a cart using ne7's guide and it works perfectly until I power on a second time, at which point the screen becomes garbled and has a dark green color over everything. it goes away after waiting 4-5 minutes, powered off.

I used a 27c256 eprom for the CHR file, which I repeated until it fit. I'm assuming this would be the reason, seeing as how the program still functions. Can anyone confirm this? I did not use a 27c64 eprom as suggested. fwiw I'm using NROM-256 and not NROM-128

Oh wait, it's on the other side of the planet so the show is probably over.

DUUUUUUR.

The stream doesn't seem to be connecting, but it might be the coffeeshop. Going home to listen.

herr_prof wrote:

We need more c64s that run on 4aa fit in your pocket and have easy midi interfacing for the best programs it runs.

Just as long as I can bivert.