Yet another homebrew saturn card

I just hope that dirty pcbs made the boards well. I've had hit and miss with them. Best to check the board traces thoroughly for grounds and shorts before soldering parts on it. To ease the installation too get a cheap stencil from OSHStencils and solder paste.

 

I do not mean to discourage you but:

"ROMs from KOF95 and Ultraman" simulation.

Can attest that KOF95 loads pretty fast, at least the first bout, as I got my ass kicked hard at the easiest level I cannot say more. I tried different characters and the first match loads very fast, like 5 sec or so, makes losing less painful as you get back quicker. [I have not tried KOF96 to compare load speed]

Ultraman -> it's so atrocious that it's really not worthy, also in my case the ROM cart is a little finicky and I have to insert it just right (thinner PCB I guess)

I bought both of them recently from Japan for a total price of less than 40US$ shipping included (not from the same seller, no discount) just to see what it was all about ... needless to say not the best 40US$ spent (but then again I throw so much money away on old junk that actually 40US$ for those 2 feels cheap enough that I am ok).

In conclusion the ROM simulation can be the last feature you need to worry about and if you cannot do it so be it, although KOF95 is not bad there are better version anyway, and Ultraman is something to be forgotten.

 

Test tool status : hex editor is finished, and I'm currently adding (= porting from Rockin'B benchmark utility) memory benchmark feature that may be useful when comparing performances of official carts vs wasca.

phoenixdownita > Personnally, I'm interested in this project anyway

 

Thanks. Actually, ROM emulation is there just for a comleteness sake. And since ROM is the fastest A-bus device, it might (theoretically) be the hardest one to emulate. Since i don't own any ROM games, i can't check it now. But if the ROM games use the same bus timing settings, as the RAM ones, this won't be a problem. Otherwise, i will keep that conclusion in mind.

 

Well, I for once don't even know if the ROM carts use bank switching to put more content than directly addressable.
If that is the case the 2 carts may behave very differently and you'll need to come up with the right switching, if not and they simply map directly in ROM space then obviously it shouldn't be too bad.

My whole point being that unless the effort required is small, putting a lot of time and energy before releasing in order to support those 2 ROM cart games is not in the best interest of the project.
I've seen too many brilliant projects stalling years on end for features that are marginal at best, in the end it's your project to run the way you please I was only stating the obvious fact that when all is said and done if only the ROM simulation is amiss (delayed, WIP or cut) it would still make for a killer project.

 

KOF's cart schematic is known, and it's a plain 1Mx16 (2 MByte) mask rom over A-bus. The dump floating around is the same size. The Ultraman's pcb looks the same.
To make things clear i promise these carts won't stall me until everything else in the first-stage roadmap works.

 

Speaking of which how is the progress going on this? Have you gotten the boards and components yet?

 

WOW! If Rom carts are a feature of this it will be one more reason to buy this! hitomi2500, you are a smart man. We all know you Japanese are very intelligent. Nice to see a project being made in Japan since most now are from China and the west regarding the Saturn and Dreamcast. We need more Japanese devs to help keep these systems alive since they are a cultural heritage to Japan.

I assume you are from Japan since your name sounds Japanese, if you are not please forgive me. Us westerners just love these Japanese systems so much.

Anyways, greeting from Texas. Add me to the preorder list when you sell them. I want to get this board. Thanks for the continued research.

 

You can find a beta of the test utility here.
Hex editor works, but benchmark thing need some fixes that will be done next week.
You can safely ignore this beta. I released it just because I promised to release something this week

 

The components are mostly here, still waiting for the board. Next time i will quit being a cheapskate and just will send prototype board to the local fab. Their prices will be 2 to 4 times bigger, but 2-layered might be ready in a week.

Hi. I've got good news and bad news. The bad news is i'm not Japanese. The good news is i'm not from China and the west either. I'm from a big northern country of bears, vodka, and political disasters. No offence taken, and i hope that my project will be judged by its functionality, not my home.
As for selling, i do plan selling some of these boards, and i can add you to the preorder list even now, but i hope i won't be the only one selling them, 'cause it's opensource. And by the time the project will be user-ready, there might be another manufacturer/seller closer to you. I will post a list of these people on the first page.

Now that was fast. I looked at it in yabause, and it's just what i need for now. Great work, thanks!

 

Just a random question : are the pull-up resistors on SD card's DAT1, DAT2, DAT3, CMD lines really needed ?
(I understand that pull-up resistor on DAT0 is necessary, because it is connected to FPGA input, I want to know about the others)


Sorry, I didn't made any changes to the test utility Please let me know if you want me to change/add something in particular.

 

I didn't elaborated this too much, just copied this part from a working design. I think they're needed in 4-bit mode, but may be unnecessary in SPI mode. If so, i will remove them in the next hardware revision.

 

Thanks for the info. I was asking this because a pull-up resistor only on DAT0 line works fine on my project, but I fear it would cause incompatibilities with some (cheap) SD cards.

 

I have a news to share. Now what should i start with?

First, wasca boards are here. One have some strange scraps over some traces, others 9 looks good. But the black soldermask was a bad decision. I thought it might look better in the black saturn unit, but the mask is too dark, and Sanshiro-sama is practically invisible unless you look from the right angle. Still he can see you, so don't you dare stop playing.
I will start populating them today, but i'm still missing FPGAs, i plan to get a hold of a demoboard with one tommorow, and a few more are hopefully coming soon.

Second, some time ago one of the SAROO project developers contacted me, asking to join the forces in development. I agreed, since SAROO and wasca are very similar, and most solutions found while developing SAROO will be useful in wasca and vice versa. Two days ago i've got the board from him, and started working with it a bit. I haven't achieved any visible progress yet, still digging up the code, but if you have some technical questions, please do ask them in SAROO thread , and i might answer them.

So i guess you can consider SAROO and wasca as brother (or sister?) projects. I will work on two projects simultaneously. Time will tell, which one of them will be more sucessfull, or if they will merge into one.

Update : I de-soldered FPGA from eval board and soldered to wasca. JTAG interface works. Still waiting for buffers to arrive, so can't connect ot A-bus now.


Update: Okay, wasca is working as volatile power memory now. I tested 4mbit (8000+ blocks) and 32mbit (65000+ blocks), both works fine until power is off. Saving/loading from games works too. Next thing i will do is syncronizing SDRAM content with SD card, so that volatile power memory will become an ordinary one.


Update : thanks to cafealpha2 wasca now have a boot switch software. It is still a test version, but it works nonetheless. Here's a small video, showing a boot process and power memory switching:

 

Hey, very nice.
If it is still possible, I wanna be on the preorder list. I have a Japanese Saturn with 1.00 BIOS and I would love to test the cart on it. I have all the needed games to do compatibility check and all.

 

if it runs on my 171-6874C board with 1.00d ROM I'd be interested as well

 

Project wasca is experiencing a few obstacles of a different nature right now, but it's still up and running. I'm not sure if it is the right time to start any kind of preorder now, but maybe it actually is, cause it might give us (there are two developers so far, me and cafealpha) some mental boost after all. I will organize the pre-order list soon, and those who alredy inquired here (or will inquire until the list is up) will get priority in chronological order.

There are some things i want to make clear about this.
1. There is no 100% guarantee that wasca will work with all the games simulating all the features described. There migh be inconsistencies. If they're software/firmware bug, then i will do my best to fix it, but if it's a hardware issue, it might be fixable only if you're good at soldering, or not fixable at all.
2. There is still some time until the project will be released. I hope we'll release it before christmas, but it's only a rough estimate.
3. Current wasca may cost a bit more that $50. Like $60 or $70, depending on actual bill of materials. Cheap altera chips are not available yet, so we'll probably go with more expensive ones for now.
4. I'm too far (like 7000km+ far) from most of the saturn users, in a country where local post is a source for speed-related jokes. Economy shipping from me might take months, and UPS from me might cost you a fortune. I will start wasca assemblers list (not to be confused with ASSEMblers list ), and i might transfer you from my preorder list to your local assembler's list, provided you both concur.
5. If you actually are good at soldering, and you do wish to make and sell wasca boards, please PM me, so i can add you to the assemblers list. Please tell me your location (city or country or GPS, whatever you like), and a way for your future customers to contact you (email/im/whatever). By all means you are not obligated to do this. You can assemble & sell wasca without being in the list, without notifying me, without paying me anything etc. The list is there just for the reference.

 

Oh, I didn't noticed the youtube link ! It's cool to see that everything made so far is working for real

 

I wouldn't call myself good at soldering, but I won't mind expensive UPS.

(Are you living in Tahiti or what?)

 

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