How's the progress so far? I'm interested in getting a Famicom version to try on my Super Joy 3. Then see about shoving it and said Super Joy in a bigger casing for a true all-in-one NES. May even put my 3.5" screen on if for a handheld console...
I already ordered final version of pcb, may be cart will be released bit faster than i estimated. Vey possible that release date will be in Jan 2013. By the fact, cart already ready to use, work over menu is over, most of mappers is ready. I pretty sure that i will make a lot of os and mappers updates in first months after release, but i would like to make release with already good kit of features. Also need a lot of testing. Cart should work fine with almost any clone system, cuz nes/famicom cart slot does not have "not important" pins, which can be ignored by pirates, like in genesis case. Also i test new cart with some dirty clones from the mid of 90th. But of course i can't give the warranty that cart will work with any clone
I don't know what exactly will be implemented in initial release, i decide what to do "on the fly". Even don't have work plan, or something like that. I worked few years in gamedev companies, and from those days i still fucking hate doing estimation, work plans, some uml diagrams etc At this moment cart supports around 40 mappers, gg cheats, saves without needs to push reset, saves auto backup on SD, file name sorting, micro sd and usb interfaces, low power consumption, fast rom loading. Also there is some dev features for software and hardware(FPGA) development, homebrew developers will be able to use cart for rom and mappers testing, maper code can be loaded to fpga via sd or usb
did you decide to use micro sd? will we be able to change the sd card without opening the cartridge shell?
If you keep teasing us with such tantalizing features you're gonna get someone breaking in to steal it... I'd do it if I wasn't half way around the world... (Joke of course...)
thanks for the update. can't wait for it. i hope just like everdrive 64 you would have an option to buy it with a cart shell at retrogate.com. it would also be great to be able to change sd card without opening the shell. there is still a lot of homebrew, translations,hacks etc, so it would be great to easily remove the sd cart without messing with shell. like everdrive 64. of course it is your decision and i respect it. also, do you plan to support FDS? it would be great.
I will think about fds, once work over mappers will be done. At this moment i even did not looked at fds specification
it's not possible to use a sdcard port instead of microsd ? i prefer the sdcard because it's cheaperand easier to use. i have lost a lot of microsd card
Just don't forget the save state option ... just saying since most of the nes games are bitter hard to defeat and this device could aid a little with the progress
I hope it won't be too hard. The one the Russian RAM Factory are working on has FDS support. After all, the disks were 64 KB per side. Seems pretty small enough to me. Even a 2 disk game that uses both sides of both disks would be at 256 KB or less total size. Surely the memory chip(s) being used are bigger than that.
WOW!! I can´t wait for it. Thank you for the updates and.... "Shut up and take my money!" :love-struck:
The size of the games is not the issue. The issue is simulating the Disk System for the games to operate. This takes some effort to implement. Basically you have to reimplement all disk access and for some games that includes being able to write back to the disk image. It's not a huge deal but it's also not a 2 minute job. Chances are KRIKzz has implemented the mappers used by the vast majority of games already and that others will come along eventually.
Good point and I'm in the same boat of thought. I would think that since most mappers are out there already it isn't too hard to get them into the FPGA coding. Make the world a little bit easier...
