Hello there! I am new to these forums, but I've been here some times before. I'm quite active on NintendoAge nowadays so if anyone knows me from there, feel free to shoot a PM. Here's the thing: I have recently acquired a Nintendo GameBoy Development kit through eBay and there's some things I need an expert's advice on as the original seller was 'just an artist' on the games made with this device and doesn't know how it used to work. I don't have a means of uploading images anymore so I'll link to the topic I started at NA: http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=22&threadid=31950 Hope someone can help me out! Thanks!
Hi. Not sure about all that but I wouldn't expect the interface on the cartridge to be IDE. Most probably it is an SCSI interface like this one here: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/de/1/11/SCSI3_Controller_60Pin_Kabel.jpg I recently acquired an SNES devkit from the same manufacturer like yours and it is most likely they were all used with some kind of SCSI cart. At least the SNES one such an ISA cart originally... haven't got my hands on it so far. Currently I'm trying to get something to work with an Adaptec SCSI cart (which SHOULD work somehow according to the manual)... Anyhow. This is mostly guessing on my side but I think what is needed is an SCSI cart... Maybe someone else around knows more
There has been some feedback from the SN European Developer Relations manager, stating the DMG probe isn't their make, the flash cart is however. Many thanks for your e-mail, unfortunately it doesn't look like we can help you out with this. The flash cartridge is the only part of the equipment you have that was developed by SN Systems. The flash cartridge was originally designed for our ProDG for GBA (GameBoy Adance) development tools. We didn't have anything to do with the DMG cartridge and therefore can't advise on spare parts or where to start looking. I did ask a few of our senior developers but they couldn't advise either. Update 2: Here's the product sheet I mentioned (see attachment). It's the only bit of information we have left on the carts. The product sheet also details our whole suite of tools which are no longer available. We only sold them for a short period of time and at the time, GBA wasn't a big market for us. All the best and good luck! I think for the Probe to work it'd need a SCSI adapter with the black box (probably a terminator box) like the one in the GBA devkit, and the ProDG software in order for it to work. For me, dumping the info on the flashcart has priority, so if you happen to know the cable for it, I'm all game. Thanks for the replies and keep me updated! I'll do my best to bring you all as much information as possible. Thanks again!:thumbsup:
:O You got in contact with SN Systems??!? Wow. Well, Shiggsy, a member here, could probably answer any questions you have about Nintendo dev hardware. His site is amazing btw *drools* Edit: Looked at your other topic, damn, even developers used the purple GBC. Is that all that existed seriously, myself and everyone I know have purple ones
Heh, still, neat find dude, all I've ever seen are Intelligent Systems stuff like the IS-CGB-DEBUGGER. (ASSEMbler, semi-offtopic, you know that dev software repo idea of yours, would an accompanying wiki documenting dev hardware be a cool idea, like user submitted guides on setup and use and such, driver dl's, and a feed of the latest dev hardware sales in the marketplace?)
no idea about the SN-cart but the other cart should connect to a IS-CGB-DEBUGGER/EMULATOR box. Never really looked in to them (only just tried to send over some homebrew game to verify that the hw works) so can't really help to much.. but will see if I can find some documentation or something when I get home.
Sorry, can't find any files.. preparing a move so my appartment is a bit of a mess But from what I recall there wasn't really any docs about the hw in the sdk files and most of the readme files was in japanese anyway.
So know anyone who can get me a IS-CGB-DEBUGGER/EMULATOR box? Thanks for looking though . I still wonder how I could dump the data from that SN Systems cart on my PC. I really wanna know what kinda proto this is.
I've just had a look at the photo you posted on the other board... I couldn't see any bigger chips on the cartridge so it seams to be quite a passthrough of the SCSI interface to the Gameboy cartridge connector. It MAY be that there are tiny flash chips on there somewhere (I have only seen one side of the PCB). But given the time when GBC was an active system, I don't even think Flash memory was used at all. Therefore, even if there were some chips holding data on the cart, they'd just be RAM chips. And if there's no battery to back that ram I think there won't be ANY data on there at all... Don't wanna crush your dreams but that's what it looks like to me :/
The SN Systems Cart goes with the their Gameboy Advance Development Kit. It's called a Flash ROM (255M) Cartridge it connects via USB to your development PC. It was used to make a core dump of the Gameboy Advance console's memory and registers following a crash. So you can analyze the coredump data! Your only problem is the software for it was only avalable on their website as a file called Cartridge Flasher.zip you also need their ProDG Target Manager, and ProDG Debugger to analyze the coredump! If you ever get tired of owning it PM me?
Thanks guys! I'll try to dump the rom via my DS. If that doesn't work, I'll check some other things out. I don't own the software that goes with it and I don't really plan on actively searching for it either. I am a GameBoy/SNES collector so this piece stays in the collection for a while . Thanks for all the help and I hope I might be able to find some nice gimmicks. Cheers!
Fairly certain I have some IS_CGB EMU units, if you decide to go down that road give me a shout. I will also check through all my software and see if I have anything that can help you.
You have two separate (and unrelated) items there. The SN Systems flash cart is just that. A flash cart. Once a valid image is flashed it'll run in any standard GBC just like any other flash cart. The "Game Boy Color" isn't really a GBC, it's a controller for the Intelligent Systems hardware. It should be lighter than a regular GBC and if you open it up you'll see that it's missing most of the core circuits. That device would plug into the CGB Emulator mentioned and would serve as a controller as well as providing a standard GBC screen to test on (rather than just outputting to a TV through the emulator). By itself the controller is unusable, just like any console controller. Hope this helps. -hl718
Thanks for all the additional info! I might get rid of the hardware in a while. It´s been lying on my shelf for some time now and I haven´t really touched it. It´s a novelty item in my collection but that´s it. Thanks for the help! Cheers
