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Hardware > Producing Home-made Cartridges

#19182 - iainprice - Tue Apr 13, 2004 3:19 pm

Now I know there have been a lot of posts regarding home-brew shops and the such - and it always comes down to the cost of cases and legal battle regarding the logo. I have one possibility that I don't think has been suggested...

If you were to buy a game that is not in demand - barbie for example - and re-program the ELPD to make it flashable, add your program and re-program ELPD to make it non-flashable. Sell game.

Now then this would mean no PCB and case costs. I am fairly sure (correct me if I am wrong) but as you bought the official cartridge, you also bought the logo on the original game and therefore when selling it are selling the logo that you bought - it is legal to sell the original game so why not part of it.... Now there is a very big problem with this method - are there any commercial games that can easily and neatly be hacked for reuse?

Even if this were not a good idea for a homebrew shop - would it be a useful cheap source of flashable carts?

I dunno, what do you guys think?

#19187 - ampz - Tue Apr 13, 2004 4:59 pm

iainprice wrote:
If you were to buy a game that is not in demand - barbie for example - and re-program the ELPD to make it flashable, add your program and re-program ELPD to make it non-flashable. Sell game.


1: There is no EPLD in commercial game carts.
2: There is no flash memory in commercial game carts.

#19190 - iainprice - Tue Apr 13, 2004 5:55 pm

OK, so I wasn't aware of that, but do they use a similar system? Does each company use a different system?

Just throwing a few ideas around thats all....

#19191 - Miked0801 - Tue Apr 13, 2004 7:45 pm

All companies must go through the all-powerful Nintendo manufacturing monopoly to publish for the GBA - hence first party titles usually have the biggest and best stuff because Nintendo doesn't mind paying itself for its own materials.

#19192 - ampz - Tue Apr 13, 2004 9:57 pm

iainprice wrote:
OK, so I wasn't aware of that, but do they use a similar system? Does each company use a different system?

Just throwing a few ideas around thats all....

Game carts use a ASIC with built in mask ROM or OTP.
And as Miked0801 said, all game carts are produced by Nintendo.

Sorry to say it, but this have been discussed several times already. You should be able to find earlier posts by using the search function.