Does anyone (read: Kyuusaku no doubt!) have schematics for the SNES wild card? For one thing, I have some units in need of repair. For another, I would be interested in learning a little more about their operation. In fact, any copying device for any cart machine would be interesting
Sorry, but a public schematic isn't available at least yet. If you did have schematics though you'd still be a little lost because the important parts (memory controlling/decoding) is done through the PEEL chips which are of course read-protected (not that having JEDECs will be informative either!) and a great deal of the "glue" is in the custom FFE SWC ASIC which cannnot be read at all. If you'd like to know more about the unit, it's BIOS and operation, protocols etc there is an official JSI Wild Card tech doc floating around the wired. Which Wild Cards do you have in need of fixing? Which unit do you want to know about? All units are very similar in design and I could explain how they work to the best of my ability if you want
Here are some pics of one: The other I have is the same, but the 32Mb version, basically (I think). Incidentally, why do they have Super Magicom written on the board? Wasn't that another console? So, did you have something to do with FFE, then? You speak as if you are privvy to special insider information that noone else would have access to, or understand if they did. If you're half the engineer you say you are from your previous posts, then you'll know that if a unit has a fault, a schematic is a very handy tool in the faultfinding process. It gives you part names and values, which may not be present on the board, for one. It is easier to follow a schematic than to trace links, for another. For basic faultfinding, a schematic would be very handy to any engineer! If there is a problem with any of the custom chips, then nothing will help short of a new custom chip - I know that! Anyway, the information I'm curious about... One thing is regarding the later Wild cards and the other drive, which allowed for an IDE device. How does the IDE interface work? The other area I'm interested in (and yes I know there's a site, but it is missing information), is in making such a device for NES.
Yup I know he is, and I respect that. That's why I asked him specifically - cuz I respect his knowledge. Having said what he said, I would ask the following: 1. Wasn't what they were doing (borderline) illegal? 2. Wasn't their reasoning that they are from a country that does not have copyright law and therefore Nintendo's copyright was null and void there? 3. Didn't FFE get shut down, or at least are no longer trading? 4. If there are no copyright laws in the country of origin (Hong Kong?), and it would have infringed rights in the West, then doesn't that mean the Wild Card is not copyrighted? In this case, surely the "rights" to the wildcard are in the open, and whoever has this information could share it? They aren't exactly able to build copiers any more, are they? And who would want to buy a SNES copier now, to make it worthwhile for them to do in the first place? I understand that a lot of us have information we sit on for fear of legal action, but surely noone cares about the rights to an old pirate device any more?
It has Magicom written on them because the Wild Card evolved from the Magicom, the first PCBs (which are a total bitch to upgrade) are labeled Magicom Plus and use the oldest ASIC, some don't even have ASICS some have upgraded Altera EPLDS from Magicoms! No I don't have insider information but there isn't much to know. I know I think all there is to know despite some really technical things that I don't have the knowledge or tools to figure out like the ASIC core. Other than that, I just have read practically every piece of data FFE released to the public from 1990 onwards and know what the parts do. Whoa, whats going on here? I'm not an engineer, I'm just an amateur. Of course a schematic is good but for fixing a unit?! I think not, it won't do any better than being able to read the label on the part that's broken and replace it. How do schematics fix anything for you? You're the one that has to do the probing regaurdless of obtaining a schematic. Anyways, certain clues will let you know which parts are broken. Well all the part names/values are on the actual parts True but what are you going to do? Make a pinout doc? Well the thing here is that only 1 chip is custom, the ASIC. The PLD can of course be erased and rewritten. Only the Super Wild Card DX2 supports IDE drives, and by IDE it really only supports a few old hard drives (must be FAT16 so it's limited to 2Gb) and CDROMs. The interface for the drives is actually provided on the necessary external case, the Disk Dual. The interface chip is a Kingbyte IDE -> parallel converter that I assume the SNES talks to. The SWC3201 can't be upgraded to a DX2 sadly. SWC, SWCDX and DX2 are all seperate devices utilizing seperate PCBs, cores and designs. There are however 3 or 4 revisions of the original SWC and the one in the pic is the oldest. Quite ambitious, just like you I'm trying to do the same Super Wild Card archetecture won't get you anywhere with NES units though. All existing Famicom units work on a simple principle, since you can't emulate every variation of MMC, hack all the games to use your own. This method of course isn't acceptible in this day when the majority of games are using complex MMC3 chips. To start your quest on building a NES unit, head on over to http://nesdev.parodius.com Do you know how NES cartridges work? There is a lot to know about. Most people when they understand everything decide that there are TOO many ways to make a NES copier and none of them are easy. Wild Cards can be seen as a walk in the park compared to NES units. The only reason why I'm attempting it is because Famicom copiers are my obsession and well, every old Famicom copier can barely play play shit and the shit it can play takes a lot of 6502 assembly to get running. Even then, games are buggy and slow, and every 0-5 seconds, the screen will flash white when the copier has to interrupt the system and bankswitch character memory outside of Vblank since the 6502 can only do so much during it! Here is all you need to make a NES copier, if you want to play MMC5 you'll need 512K SRAM instead of 256K for CHR: 512K SRAM (PRG) 256K SRAM (CHR) 8K SRAM (save) 8K ROM ("BIOS" i guess) FPGA (any from 1999 onward will do) a boot memory for the FPGA if necessary NAND memory connector/card (your memory card you load games from) 1) Make sure the FPGA is on top of every necessary pin (all PRG addy and data, IRQ, CLK, all CHR address, CHR data if you're going to attempt MMC5, you know stuff thats necessary) and that the FPGA is flashed from your bootrom 2) Put the 512K SRAM, 8K SRAM and 8K ROM on the PRG bus and the 256K SRAM on the CHR bus. 3) Write a FPGA bootstrap that disables the 512K and 8K SRAM so the unit starts up with 8K ROM, also pull the addy lines low to make the 256K SRAM 8K and a register to limit the 256K SRAM size Now you have an empty 8K "BIOS" for lack of a better description w/ VRAM 4) Make glue logic of system and be sure to map the NAND memory into the unused NES IO space. Make sure the FPGA UART is mapped in too! Map in registers to volitiley flash FPGA, disable your BIOS and map in the 512K SRAM or keep the BIOS and map your "PRG" SRAM into the other 24k 5) Write a graphical program that can read your NAND memory (I don't think you really need a controller) then switch over to the 512K and write it. After your PRG is written, disable it and copy the CHR data from the NAND memory over to the NES's RAM (obvisouly only use a few byte pointer, the NES only has 2K RAM) so you need to have the FPGA bankswitch your viewable banks to write to just like the "PRG" SRAM and you DMA your data into the banks inside VBlank, and be sure to swap back your old VRAM before your time runs out. Eventually, you'll have to write the last bank of VRAM where your BIOS VRAM lies. Only swap that out at the last Vblank before booting your game. Now, your BIOS once it has the game loaded into RAM, should read once more the NAND memory and flash the FPGA with another file (the MMC logic aka "mappers") and then disable the BIOS and turn on the PRG and CHR SRAM, clear the RAM and jump to the 6502's reset vector. If you understand all that, then that should be a great step forward. Instead of using the CHR SRAM with the "BIOS", it would probably be easier to use another SRAM chip to swap. the other 8K SRAM on the PRG bus is for save RAM residing in $6000-7FFF, you can enable / disable it with the volitile FPGA flash. Be sure to battery back it up on board so you can save it to the NAND memory in your BIOS. I can't think of a better way to make a NES copier and this is the basic principle of the unit I'm designing. Again, I'm obviously no technilogical guru, I'm an artist that understands the principles. No offense but it's suicide to jump right into this, after designing your unit, you'll additionally need to devise "mapper" logic files for every type of game you want to play. 99% of the mappers will be more complex than the very copier itself and you'll be completely on your own to implement them digitally. You should check out Kevin Horton's brilliant new creation, maybe it'll discourage you from building your own unit
Some interesting stuff to go on there, thanks. Indeed I had a lot of information on the working of a NES, but I am not sure where it all is and it has been many years since I read it. I have wanted to do this for some time, but never sat down and started! Indeed, I am not a programmer, and would need help on that side! Kevin Horton's new creation, you say? It was his old copynes project (http://www.tripoint.org/kevtris/Projects/copynes/) that got me started on the idea properly! As far as I remeber, though, his site was never updated with some of the files he promised to put up eventually. I may be wrong, though. Which project were you referring to? Indeed, I know that the Magicom only took 16Mb RAM which is why I was puzzled as to why the board was in this copier... when I have an identical unit that has 32Mb RAM! I guess that one is one of the later ones - must dig it out! If I can't get them going, I might think about investing in the DX2 or that other copier that takes an external CD-ROM. ...was it the SF7? Which is better?
The DX2 is technically superior but the SF7 is 4 times cheaper, has retented memory and is capable of more tricks if you know how to use it. You will however have to convert games to play on the SF7 because it uses Bung's Game Doctor format, not the internet-standard generic SMC/SWC/FIG files. If you do get a SF7, know that the CDROM for the SF7 is pretty rare and will cost you at least $150, usually $300. DX2 = $200+ (64M) Disk Dual = $100+ SF7 = $55 (32M, 128M add on $60) SF7 CDROM = $150 The SWC has some features that the SF7 doesn't like a built in hex editor, friendly interface and flexible file format, it also allows for unhacked LoRom DSP games. SF7 needs a special DSP passthrough adapter to play DSP games and can only play HiRom games. Thus if you want to play Pilot Wings, you'll have get a patch. SWC has worse real time saving than the SF7 and some games will need to patched if you run into problems. Both units are the most capable. I'd recommend you get a SF7 personally w/ 48M or more so you can play every commercial "normal" game, and 128M if you decide to get into it and transfer games through your parallel port.
For Kevin Horton's new project, see this thread: http://forums.cherryroms.com/viewtopic.php?t=3618 PS: if you don't want to fix the SWC(s) or any other unit for that matter, I'm always happy to buy more shit for a reasonable price.
Nice project... from what he says, though, does that make it not technically a NES? Or am I understanding that wrong. Surely it still has to emulate parts of the NES that aren't present at sometime, albeit in a different way from software emulation?
I don't know what you mean. It's going to be much more than a NES since it will emulate multiple consoles. It's completely emulated, but in hardware so it's essentially identical to the original hardware, but he uses a custom alternative design to achieve the same results. Technically, it's far better than the original console in both audio and video performance.
1st part I meant their topic title was misleading. I also meant - well emulation...... Emulation doesn't mean a piece of software that carries out the functions of the original hardware. It can also mean another piece of hardware that will run the software as intended. The fact that an emulator is "detectable" means that it isn't emulating the hardware 100%. If this "non-emulator hardware" really is exactly like a NES, then it is a perfect emulator, albeit hardware based rather than software. What I meant about emulation.... Well, if he is emulating hardware entirely by hardware in that space, then that's amazing. Look at STELLA. Have you seen the original board? Take a look here (thanks to www.atariimuseum.com for hosting the image!!!). If I were to want to make a copy of the NES custom chips myself entirely in hardware, then it would look something like that - a huge mass of circuit boards, wires and logic arrays. Atari made that originally, then compressed it down to a few chips. Those microchips must have cost a fortune to make. If he made such a chip, and one that will emulate anything in theory, then it must have cost a small fortune! So surely there must be SOME element of software to it? It is a great thing, for sure, but at the moment, it is all theoretical. His only chance for marketing it is as a programmable console. He personally can't really tell people how to make it run like a NES - that would mean running their copyrighted software.
His design is software that runs on a FPGA, the software HOWEVER is a matrix of logic gates, the very elements of all computer parts. His software is "flashed" into the FPGA which simulates with 100% accuracy a digital design. ASICs, mass produced application specfic integrated circuits, are what you're referring to. His unit uses a FPGA, a device that can be thought of as a volitile programmable ASIC and they only cost between $20 and $1000 depending on the amount you purchase and their age and preformance. He claims his costs around $80, I believe I can get it for less. His "emulator" of course is not detectable, software emulators aren't necessarily detectable either. The difference between a software emulator and his design is that software emulators are written to cross-emulate a system. Doing this results in inefficient code of course. His design is made up of 100% REAL hardware parts simulated by the FPGA and executed in real time as REAL LIFE gates/flipflops so it's 100% efficient at it's job, nothing is better at "emulation" than something that is logically the SAME THING. He has verified that his system is cycle accurate and that every element is functioning correctly in his system. That means that both the CPU and PPU and glue logic all work. Provided that his system faithfully reproduces his target (the NES) his system is functionally a NES. The FPGA is not a processor so again, it itself is not emulating the NES. It BECOMES a NES in hardware, get it? He will have no problem selling it. It contains no copyrighted software because the Famicom doesn't have a BIOS of course. You cannot copyright hardware. Nintendo patented hardware but his design violates no patents (it's not going to be shaped like a N64 controller.) Video game clones as long as they don't violate a *design* patent should hold up in court. Edit: also thats just the start of it, because his design is digital, he of course will integrate all the necessary cartridge hardware to play games. No "backup units" (Famicom backup units cannot backup games) can faithfully reproduce a game such as his unit. He is the leading authority on NES cartridge hardware and has implented so far over 100 different NES "mappers" (which I hope you understand) with full accuracy. This is the best thing that ever happened to 8-bit gaming.