#98541 - spinal_cord - Tue Aug 15, 2006 9:13 pm
I'm in the process of starting a NES site (as described in the title). Just wondering if anyone is interested in giving me some suggestions of things to include in it?
My idea is to have a wide range of NES mods and builds like some of the NES-PC's and NES controller MP3 players etc.
The working title is 'NEStruction' (as in destruction, only with an N) and a slogan something like 'Why destruct it when you can NEStruct it'
If anyone has any ideas either about including things in the site, changing the title or slogan, then let me know.
You can see a simple version of the site here. It only has my three builds so far, but others will of course be added later.
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#98545 - tepples - Tue Aug 15, 2006 9:49 pm
How about an online store where I can buy NES flash cards, even if they only support UNROM/UOROM? I'd love to have a SuperCard style device that takes CF cards and loads homebrew NES games into 256 KB of RAM on the NES cartridge.
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#98569 - sgeos - Wed Aug 16, 2006 2:24 am
Have you ever seen a pre-JAMMA Nintendo VS (arcade) board? The ROM chips are burnable and can be... burned and replaced. (There is a custom chip that holds the palette). The hardware is very similar to the NES. (Excitebike was cool. =)
Is flash clearly the way to go? Given that we are 20 or years in future now, what would it take to make NES carts with swapable ROM chips? I don't imagine that we'd need more than one modern ROM chip. How much would it cost to hire someone to design such a board?
-Brendan
#98574 - tepples - Wed Aug 16, 2006 3:32 am
| sgeos wrote: |
| Is flash clearly the way to go? |
Given the popularity of SuperCard compared to that of traditional GBA carts once SuperCard came out, I'd guess so.
| Quote: |
| Given that we are 20 or years in future now, what would it take to make NES carts with swapable ROM chips? |
You'd need to yank the (one or two) ROM chips off an NES cart, wire in sockets, and insert 8-bit NOR flash chips such as the 29F040. Anything 150ns or faster should work, but make sure it's 5.0 V compatible. You'd also need to build a programmer.
| Quote: |
| I don't imagine that we'd need more than one modern ROM chip. |
The NES stored tile data in a separate ROM on a separate bus, which some cart boards such as UNROM and SNROM replaced with 8 KB of RAM. So you'd need one ROM chip for the program and one for the tile data.
| Quote: |
| How much would it cost to hire someone to design such a board? |
Please take your idea to http://nesdev.parodius.com/bbs/
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-- Where is he?
-- Who?
-- You know, the human.
-- I think he moved to Tilwick.
#98600 - spinal_cord - Wed Aug 16, 2006 9:31 am
There is always this.
You have to assemble it yourself though.
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#98703 - tepples - Thu Aug 17, 2006 12:28 am
I think the requirement of soldering is part of why the NES homebrew scene is more than an order of magnitude smaller than the GBA homebrew scene. But if you're willing to assemble and sell these products, can I reserve one?
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-- Where is he?
-- Who?
-- You know, the human.
-- I think he moved to Tilwick.
#98820 - spinal_cord - Thu Aug 17, 2006 8:04 pm
no way. My soldering is poor at best, looking at the size of some of the smaller components, anything I try will end up dead.
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#98862 - zzo38computer - Fri Aug 18, 2006 2:31 am
Maybe you should make a USB device that lets you run software directly from a NES cartridge even on systems that don't support it. (Note: That includes the save-file if it has one)
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#98871 - tepples - Fri Aug 18, 2006 4:01 am
But for what mapper? It might be easier to integrate an ATA interface and RAM so that the NES cart can use a CF card.
_________________
-- Where is he?
-- Who?
-- You know, the human.
-- I think he moved to Tilwick.
#98898 - sgeos - Fri Aug 18, 2006 10:14 am
How hard would it be to invent a new mapper? (Probably the wrong board =)
-Brendan