SNES Dev Kit information?

So now I've got that lovely nice SNES SRAM board, which looks just amazing.
But there's a problem, I have no idea on how I should use it, since I dont have the chance to actually use it. I mean, the only way to use it would be over a 26 pin cable, which is just one (!) too much for a parallel port.

The only information i was able to gather about the kit is that it camed with a additional extension and an internal "control" board, and that it was used in the Mac Performa series. So quite old.

So here comes the question, and its directed to those who actually own/owned/saw/can tell something about snes dev kits. Do you possibly have one on which a 26 pin cable connector resides? On that, i am no expert about macintosh at all, is it common for the mac world to have a 26 pin cable?

Any help is and will be really appreciated! Thank in advance!

kammedo

 

If I remember correctly, SNES development was done on Apple IIgs machines (which had the same CPU as the SNES, a 65816), which is why developers criticized the development environment as slooow...

 

pictures, please! =)

 

There you go! ^^
Notice the connector on the right side of the board..

EDIT: Removed, see below

 

Looks to me more like a 26x2 pin IDC connector interface which goes to another board PC-side. If anything is a parallel port interface, it's the 14 pin unpopulated connector towards the bottom labeled "P I/O"...

Not that I can make out the pictures well (don't you have a focus switch?), but it clearly has 8M of SRAM, battery backed SRAM and the option of DSP. It must be from ~1992.

What would be helpful in figuring out the interface is knowing what the big NEC IC is next to the SRAM.

Is C1 the CIC?

I also would not say most or even close to as much SNES development was done on Apple IIgses as IA16/32 platforms (PC98/PCAT) or 68K (Amiga) with a cross-assembler.

 

The images are quite old and taken with a cam that now is gone. Actually, the problem is not the focus its that they are moved.

Here is a better one.



C1 is the capacitor, U1 is but yes it is the CIC. The board has a 1MB-4MB jumper, which obviously controls the memory size of the board. It has an expansion slot, which is 2x13 Pins too.
As for the SRAM, yes it is Battery SRAM (8MB). The chip on the right (the nec) is a common 8255. Still havent been able to map the pinouts of the 8255 to the connectors to it tho.

Thanks for the cable hint! That helped further!

EDIT : http://www.pccables.com/cgi-bin/orders6.cgi?action=Showitem&partno=07123&rsite=f.07123 this pinout could fit...there's the 26th pin that is unconnected. I will check if its the case on the board. If thats the case, it shouldnt be too hard to get a 13x2 to DB25 wiring.

 

The 8255 must be for communicating with the PC but I still think there is another card you're missing, it doesn't look like it could connect directly to the parallel port. Back then most computers had output only parports as well (if you wanted communication back to the PC you had to use the status bits, so that's very slow) and if there was an external interface to a high-throughput unit, it was SCSI.

This won't be TOO easy to figure out with the programmable logic and without the software any development features probably won't be usable. Upgrading the 1M ROMs to 4M would be a nice improvement if you wanna play commercial games but probably not worth it today at $10-15 each.

 

The less easy it is the more funny it gets . I got the BIOS already, and its correct. I can reverse engine it easily, i have a minimal memory layout already; the only problem is that I need the right way to connect to it. As said, it possibly should have been used on a macintosh. I am still trying to see if i can get the pc board. But that looks to be quite not possible, as well as the possible expansion slot...

 

If you can figure out the PCB, then you shouldn't need the PC board. The expansion slot you're talking about I think is just part of the PC link. To expand the memory, you need to replace the chips, not add more.

The BIOS may only arbitrate communication so it might not be very helpful at all. If it does have debug handlers, I think it'll be quite difficult to understand without any sort of reference material and rather pointless. The way I see it is that you're better off designing your own device than spending countless hours working to marginally understand an inferior one.

 

Ok, I think we are getting off of topic here. The problem was not what Im supposed to do with the dev kit, rather than gathering information about similar dev kits to get a more complete background of the whole thing.

The Expansion board is actually an expansion board (confirmed by the guy who sold it to me, so meh chip substitution).

On that, there's a jumper for setting the board from SNES mode to the PC one, which could let presume real time debugging is not possible.

 

UPDATE!
I checked the board closer.

The EXP port seems to be holding control signals. The comm port data ports.

Sorry calpis, you were right

Ciao
kammedo

PS : yes im going to replace the 9 1 Mbit chips with 9 4 Mbit ones...is
KM684000ALP-7L compatible with KM684000ALP-7, as can i replace the KM684000ALP-7 with KM684000ALP-7L? This because I cant seem to find any KM684000ALP-7...there are 8 of them on the board and only one KM684000ALP-7L (probably due to power saving?)....*chough* calpis?

 

One of those 9 chips is not for game storage so don't replace it. You can use any 4M SRAM because they're all going to be under 120ns. The generic name for 4M SRAM is 628512. 62 = CMOS SRAM code, 8 = 8x multiplier, 512 = 512kilobits. Here is what you need: http://www.jameco.com/webapp/wcs/st...&catalogId=10001&productId=157358&pa=157358PS

At $20 each, I don't think it's worth buying 8 simply to have a 32M kit you can't use yet!

 

Hm...if its not for game storage, what would it be for then? The kit camed with no battery. It has a ST BIOS Chip M27C256. So the BIOS its not.
It has two other strange chips (see them in the corner up right), which i still have to map... think im going to examinate those next!

I know its not, but I know it would be freaking cool! xD And as I already said: chances are i can _at least_ recover the protocol for transfering data on the cart.

 

Extra RAM for debugging or just extra work RAM, not all games with SRAM had batteries. I looked at the board again; so there's 11 x 1M chips there now, you should really trace the /CE lines to see how they're decoded to know what they're for. Until you do that it's all just speculation. Either 8 or 10 of the chips are for the game, that's for sure. There are no 11M games because 11M can't be made with two ROMs like 10 and 12M can.

I don't get why it'd be cool really, someone at Accolade just made it, it's not like an official unit. $160 is a lot for what it could do even if it was working. If you had to do something to modify it, you could put in the DSP and that'd be a whole lot cheaper.

 

I see, its getting intresting, is it - well, at least for me.

Yes, but its the first (from someone officially used) dev kit for snes i have. And its just a nice way to throw away time and redig my old courses in Digital Electronics...You know, kind of a treasure hunting.

 

Kammedo did you finally managed to do something with that dev cart ? Keep us updated.

See ya

++ Lint

 

:lol:

No. No time. Grading actually in December, so i have to finish that first. Then comes my girl. Then there comes N64. Then SNES.

 

n64> girls kammedo

 

Congrats on the find kammedo, looks all good.

I got something from a friend which seems to be a part of a SNES dev. kit also. I honestly don't know what it was used for, maybe someone here has some info.

http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2004-6/744236/snes.jpg
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2004-6/744236/snes1.jpg

 

Wow... that appears to have been part of a dev environment for the SuperFX! Too bad you got a rather boring part, just a ribbon cable and a cart with some glue logic :-(