145 Reply by lastfuture

(14 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)

Timbob wrote:

What you could do is get a USB port (female) that you can mount in your DMG case, and wire that to your USB midi adaptor. Then you can just place that somewhere inside without the need to fix it to anything.

that's my plan, but how to mount the port? I find parts like this one, that gives me a port but no idea how to keep it staying in place...

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146 Topic by lastfuture

(14 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)

Hi,

I'm sure somebody must have done this before but I got the idea to add a USB port to the DMG, put the nanoloop USB MIDI adapter directly into the Game Boy itself and use its pins as solder pads. Bam, USB Boy.

Now I'm not very electronically savvy but I think I can pull the soldering off, sounds easy enough. The only thing I'm not sure about is how I would fix the USB port in place. In other electronics that I've opened up their USB ports were mounted on PCBs that were held in place by screws.

Any ideas?

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147 Reply by lastfuture

(16 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)

OK what I don't understand is why the ROM seriously glitches out after starting it but works fine after pressing B, which I've looked up to be the paste function. Is it trying to load preset data at startup and failing because it can't use save states on the nanoloop cartridge? Also, I think it's really interesting that the glitches are depending on the specific DMG I put the cartridge into. The green one does the charset cycling as described for the screenshot above, the grey and black ones both show the same different but static pattern. All of them work after pressing B. I will try this out with another black and a red one which I should both be getting soon.

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148 Reply by lastfuture

(16 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)

e.s.c. wrote:

Could be bad cable or interference issues

I have the sneaking suspicion that you are right and the transfers that have totally failed were in fact caused by cellphone interference. However the "good" ones that still start up with a weird screen seem to be fully operational after pressing B once.

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149 Reply by lastfuture

(16 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)

uXe wrote:

...is it because you are trying to load 64k into 32k? mGB v1.1.0 is only 32k - maybe see if that works?

as far as I've read (from oliver himself, who makes nanoloop) the upper 32k of mGB should be empty and it should not be a problem. I'll give it a try though and see if it improves matters.

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150 Reply by lastfuture

(47 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)

I'm sorry to say I lost interest after my nanoloop MIDI-USB dongle arrived today. I can do pretty much all I wanted with it. Still, great project you got going there. Best of luck!

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151 Reply by lastfuture

(16 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)

I think I found out what the problem is regarding mGB

The visual weirdness goes away when I press B once, and actually after that it works fine. I've thoroughly tested it just now, putting notes and cc messages on all 4 channels.
When I load a preset for a channel (if that's what pressing B on the preset option does), it will load garbage and the corresponding channel will fuck up its display just like on startup. pressing B outside the preset options seems to reset mGB to a good/default state. So I am assuming now that the garbage display has to do with mGB attempting to load its last save state and failing.

Can anyone confirm this?

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152 Reply by lastfuture

(16 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)

Thanks for pointing it out.

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153 Reply by lastfuture

(16 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)

e.s.c. wrote:

Tried a different link cable? Could be bad cable or interference issues

I only have one and had to shell out 9 bucks for it. I might try ... though right now I got a copy of mGB to work (except for right after startup) ... and the cable seems to send everything just fine ... notes, pitch bends..

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154 Reply by lastfuture

(16 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)

After a few more tries with different combinations DMG / ROM and a lot of flashing things around I managed to get a version of mGB on the Game Boy that looks weird until you press B once, at which point it returns to a functional state. I'm able to send MIDI data there right now.

Still... this looks like it's still not supposed to be that way. In Gambatte for example I don't have to press anything to get it to look right. I've not tested it everything works, but I can send on all 5 MIDI channels and the corresponding sound channels respond with the sounds I've set up

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155 Reply by lastfuture

(16 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)

It gets even weirder... the ROM I flashed on B as shown in the photo above is behaving differently on 2 of my 3 DMGs without reflashing it in between. The screen you see above only happens on my green Play it Loud DMG. On the grey DMG and my black Play it Loud DMG it's looking differently (it's not cycling through the charset but is still not looking right).

When I flash the ROM on the two other DMGs it's even more broken, only displaying random horizontal lines or segments of lines ... I don't know what to think of it. I'm genuinely stumped.

They're all unmodded, the PIL Game Boys have DMG-CPU-08, the grey DMG has DMG-CPU-06, so it's also not a CPU issue. Batteries are all fresh.

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156 Reply by lastfuture

(16 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)

I tested one more thing... I flashed nanoloop back to version 1.6.3 WITH the scrolling "hello" logo just to rule out that the non-logo update ROM was at fault, then I sent the mGB ROM to B again... still the same result. I guess I'm not very lucky. I also tried turning the cable around, plugging the side that was on the USB dongle into the Game Boy and vice versa, also with no different result.

The last thing I'm going to try is using another Game Boy. If that fails, too, I'm out of ideas.

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157 Topic by lastfuture

(16 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)

Hi people,

I got my nanoloop MIDI-USB-Adapter and used it to update nanoloop to 1.6.3 without the custom scrolling "hello" logo. That worked just fine.
Then I tried loading mGB onto one of the two 32k-spaces, and it's not working. I thought it was supposed to be.

What I did:

  • Download the latest mGB version 1.3.0

  • run ./nlmidi02 -send mGB1_3_0.gb in terminal on the Mac running 10.8.2

  • press Select + B on the Game Boy and Enter on the computer, then wait for the transfer.

What happened:
after 32k of the 64k were transferred the game boy started mGB automatically. (I read that the upper 32k of the ROM are empty so this should not be a problem) BUT ... in mGB I don't see the full interface that I see in an emulator like Gambatte. Instead I get this:

The top row where the xx for the octave usually is scrolls through all the characters. Quickly on the first character of the pairs and after each cycle of the first character through the charset the second character of the pairs also increases by one ("C" in the photo, was "B" shortly before).

What I tried next (all resulting in the same behavior as above):

  • Restarting the Game Boy with and without the link cable connected and pressing B again to start mGB.

  • Sending the ROM to B again.

  • Re-inserting the cartridge after blowing in the slot, then sending the ROM to B again.

  • Disconnecting and reconnecting the USB dongle, then sending the ROM to B again.

  • Sending the ROM to A instead of B.

Just to complete the report, this is the commandline-output which looks like a successful transfer to me

schrein:nlmidi_02_osx mostinterestingman$ ./nlmidi02 -send mGB1_3_0.gb 

nanoloop MIDI adaptor found

nanoloop MIDI adaptor found

Loaded Game Boy ROM: mGB1_3_0.gb

In the nanoloop boot screen,
press SELECT + START or A or B,
then press ENTER here.

64k of 64k sent... done.
schrein:nlmidi_02_osx mostinterestingman$

Is this a known problem?
Does it mean either the MIDI-USB adapter or my nanoloop cartridge is broken?
Can it be a wonky link cable? (though the result is reproducable)
Or am I missing something crucial here?

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158 Reply by lastfuture

(8 replies, posted in Commodore Computers)

Thanks for all the tips. I'm very comfortable with tracking, been using trackers since at least 1996 smile Goattracker is a great piece of Software as it seems though and I'll definitely give it a whirl first.
Should I feel ready to move on to the real thing I'll think more about it.

Definitely saving the C128 when christmas rolls around then.

@irrlichtproject: Thanks for the generous offer! Unfortunately traveling across the entire country for a free TV isn't feasible for me smile

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159 Topic by lastfuture

(8 replies, posted in Commodore Computers)

Hi,

I have a fully functioning C128 with disk drive lying around in my parents' basement and I'd like to try my hand at making music using a real SID. Now I'm looking for the cheapest way of getting started. It should be noted that I don't own a TV and I'm using a Mac as my computer.

I see two possibilities right now:
Making music on the C128, which means I need some way to display the image and also a way to run music software.
Harvesting the SID and putting it into a hardware solution that I can use with the Mac or standalone.

What do you think would be the cheapest way for me to get started?

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160 Reply by lastfuture

(11 replies, posted in Nintendo Handhelds)

I've been thinking about something like that. Cutting the nanoloop to the smallest size possible, cut out part of the case's back to fit the small nanoloop, fixate and seal with scotch tape, fill up with epoxy resin, remove tape...
not sure if it would work

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