I've been searching for a GB (not GBA) flash cart with a USB interface with no results.. any ideas? Wouldn't it be just great if the companies who make GBA flash carts to produce some for classic systems? There are people who would die to easily play ROMs on real hardware without having to go through hard times with outdated small sized flash carts. Time for some bad fotochop: ...but tell me, wouldn't something like that be fantastic?
I know of two: IS-CGB-EMULATOR and DMG FLASH GANG WRITER other than that I've only seen flash carts that use the DB-25 parallel port.
I know about those, but I'm talking about modern carts, like this or this. 64Mb can only hold one large ROM, plus flashing them is a pain in the butt. (And actually my PCs don't have parallel or serial ports)
what? A PC w/o serial and parallel ports? how do u hook up debug channels over RS 232 for debug on console devkits?!
you have no idea how suprised we were when we just had recived a devkit and was going to hook it up to the best computer we had at the office and noticed that it didn't have any serial port :lol:
It would, but there would be only a tiny market for such a device so chances are close to none. Wasn't some kind of MD cart being produced by a forum member here? ;-)
What about the PC-Engine flash card from: http://www.neoflash.com/ It can be flashed using only USB. The card has a GB connector in addition to the PCE connector. Maybe you can use it for GB too, like CCL's old GB/GG combo smartcards.... Anyone who knows? http://www.ic2005.com/html/2005/show-40.htm CF
Perhaps we are so unlucky, that we don´t have any GB flashcarts, just no flash NES cart (yet) even though there is a Finn who is working on a NES flashcart.
There was a Finn working on one, Artoh abandoned it but publicly released his work which is "complete" but far from a commercial product usable by the average gamer. There is another being worked on (it's completed, it only needs to be manufactured) which is far more advanced called the PowerPak though. One reason why there isn't a simple flash cart is that Game Boy is a lot like NES; the games have memory controllers and even Bung flash carts do not support all of them. One reason why there are no SD card units is that Game Boy is VERY slow, way too slow to control a SD card directly, it would literally take minutes to load a game. One reason why there are no USB units is that for USB you need a USB microcontroller for programming the flash. This cannot normally be fit into a GB case, it would require a base unit "linker" to be USB instead. The only reason why GBA units have USB is because they can be programmed over the GBA serial port or the integrated circuits which take care of mapping also do USB controlling (as well as saving etc.) there is no way someone is going to make a brand new IC for a GB flashcarts because it would probably cost over $100,000. BTW, newer "flash carts" which use CF/SD cards generally have one ASIC which controls everything and it only accomplishes this by patching the game software, they do not really contain the original cartridge components as NOR flash carts do. Instead they load the game into typically 32MiB of PSRAM ("static" DRAM) and replace the features with software hacks which directly manipulate the CF card to save etc. This wouldn't be feasible to do on old consoles which are a lot more conservative with their resources. In a way, it's a lot like how Game Shark works on new consoles compared to old consoles (I can explain if anyone is interested.) The Neo Flash PCE thing (repackaged old ~2002 PCE flashcard; crap like all Neoflash stuff) shouldn't be able to be used for GB because the GB also needs the mapping hardware which wouldn't make sense for it to be there. BTW, the GBA->GBC adapter by F2A also has mapper logic inside.
Great news!! I found out about a company that produces carts for consoles with inputs for GBA flash carts with SD card support (unfortunately they sell the GBA SD adapter separately). For the moment they only have a mega drive model but they claim they will make cart adapters for SNES and N64.
I don't like to be negative, but that 3-in-1 MD flashcart have been available for pre-orders for a looooong time. I would not be suprised if you have to wait for a while.... They do however have another MD flash cart that is available now (the 32M MD Flash Cart Lite), but you need a parallel port to program it. As for neoflash's N64 flashcart, I read somewhere that it was cancelled, but I hope I'm wrong. If anyone considers ordering anything from IC2005.com, I would check if they have updated their ordering system first. Last time I ordered an item from them, they posted their customer's full name and shipment tracking number in an open forum. I didn't like that. CF
I wouldn't advise anyone to buy NeoFlash team products. They have a pretty shakey reputation really. If you want a Flash cartridge goto Tototek.com The only thing they don't have is NES for obvious reasons. You will be a Parallel port still, but is that really such a big deal? All my PC's have them.
