FPGA Based Videogame System

[Namdor]

Dang it, beat me to it. Still no mention of a 15 foot cable though...

I ordered mine from here:

 

https://console5.com/store/neo-geo-aes-atari-5200-pc-controller-joystick-extension-cables-6-1-8m.html

 

Haven't got them yet though

[Sneakyturtleegg]

RetroUSB UOROM is a bit different to UNROM512. Aside from flash saving, the mappers are extremely similar but the addressing is slightly different. They are easy enough for a hacker to convert, which is why many of the UOROM homebrews have public demos with UNROM mappers.

 

I did get a certain RetroUSB the game ripped and running on the NT Mini. I used the UNROM512.bin but I had to change a few things after it was ripped in order for it to run. However I haven't thoroughly tested or played through the game, so I'm not sure if there are any glitches or crashes. So far, so good.

[Andromeda Stardust]

I ordered mine from here:

 

https://console5.com/store/neo-geo-aes-atari-5200-pc-controller-joystick-extension-cables-6-1-8m.html

 

Haven't got them yet though

That's six feet.

[Namdor]

That's six feet.

I know, that's all I wanted. I just wanted others to know they have options if the tototek sells out. If 12 feet works I do think I remember seeing a website a few weeks back. They were like $20 I think though.

[phoenixdownita]

When I needed it (I made my own custom Famicom Extension to dual NES pad port adapter) I simply ordered a "NeoGeo controller extension cable" from eBay.

There's plenty of vendors starting from around 12.5US$ and shipped from the US:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/381701927963

[emubastard]

So I bought a couple of these Famicom controller to NES adapters.

 

http://www.raphnet-tech.com/products/fc_to_nes/index.php

 

Does anyone know how they will function with the Analogue Nt Mini?

 

My goal was to use the Famicom Computer Controller with the keypad to play Colecovision games.

 

So will I plugging the controller into the back of the NT Mini's accessory port? Or will this also work properly plugged into the front with the adapters from Raphnet?

 

-James

Edited April 13, 2017 by emubastard

[RevQuixo]

So I bought a couple of these Famicom controller to NES adapters.

 

http://www.raphnet-tech.com/products/fc_to_nes/index.php

 

Does anyone know how they will function with the Analogue Nt Mini?

 

My goal was to use the Famicom Computer Controller with the keypad to play Colecovision games.

 

So will I plugging the controller into the back of the NT Mini's accessory port? Or will this also work properly plugged into the front with the adapters from Raphnet?

 

-James

 

 

I have a feeling that the extra buttons (the number pad) Will not work on the front ports with an adapter. Even if it did, the cores may not recognize it as they are expecting the Network controller to be plugged into the accessory port.

[emubastard]

Would that mean that you can only use one Network controller with the Colecovision core (which is supposed to work) or is there a splitter you can get or some way to daisy chain two controllers off the accessory port?

[simbin]

So I bought a couple of these Famicom controller to NES adapters.

 

http://www.raphnet-tech.com/products/fc_to_nes/index.php

 

Does anyone know how they will function with the Analogue Nt Mini?

 

My goal was to use the Famicom Computer Controller with the keypad to play Colecovision games.

 

So will I plugging the controller into the back of the NT Mini's accessory port? Or will this also work properly plugged into the front with the adapters from Raphnet?

 

-James

 

 

 

 

I have a feeling that the extra buttons (the number pad) Will not work on the front ports with an adapter. Even if it did, the cores may not recognize it as they are expecting the Network controller to be plugged into the accessory port.

 

I can confirm the Famicom Network Controller works with the ColecoVision core, using the port on the back. It also seems to work fine with the NES core. I haven't had a chance to test all the other cores. One big bummer is the lack of menu support, so you can't use it as your sole controller. Hopefully kevtris will expand the capabilities with firmware updates.

[ccovell]

I can confirm the Famicom Network Controller works with the ColecoVision core, using the port on the back. It also seems to work fine with the NES core. I haven't had a chance to test all the other cores. One big bummer is the lack of menu support, so you can't use it as your sole controller. Hopefully kevtris will expand the capabilities with firmware updates.

 

According to the update log in the firmware readme, older versions of the firmware DID allow the NT mini menus to be controlled by a Famicom controller in the FC expansion port, but Kevin took this feature out. I made a request that this feature be put back in, a couple dozen pages back. :[

[emubastard]

Wierd. Why take it out?

[Pixelboy]

Y'know, I wonder if a homebrew NES cartridge PCB could be devised that could support any NES mapper with just a bit of configuration (a sort of one-size-fits-all PCB solution) and would fit inside a standard Famicom cartridge. Then new Famicom/NES carts could be produced (with either Japanese Famicom or US NES ROMs) which could take advantage of the Famicom cartridge port on the NT Mini. I'm not talking about something like the Everdrive, this would be a one-game-per-cart PCB.

 

Of course, in reality, the exercise would be rather pointless, since a jail-broken NT Mini can play NES/Famicom ROMs straight from the SD card. Many NT Mini owners probably wouldn't see the point in investing in a collection of repro carts. But it would still be kinda cool to own brand new game carts for use specifically with the NT Mini.

 

As you can guess, I'm not a big fan of the bulky form factor of American NES cartridges. If I was given a choice for repro carts, I'd go with Famicom cart casings.

[genfuyung]

Anyone have a problem where as soon as the nt mini loads up the main menu it has a hard time reading nes controller inputs and no matter which option you choose it just shows the analogue logo and never does anything....

 

Switching to the newest official firmware fixes all these problems but obviously that isnt ideal.

Edited April 14, 2017 by genfuyung

[Great Hierophant]

How does the Famicom System Controller work? I imagine that the D-pad and regular buttons behave like any other third player controller that connects to the Famicom Expansion Port, using 4016 D1. The D-pad and four regular button presses are sent through an 8-input shift register. What about the other 13 buttons? That would require two more shift registers if sent serially, otherwise the device could use matrix addressing like the Famicom Keyboard or the Colecovision pad.

[nitro322]

Kevtris,

 

I mentioned a while back that I dumped all of my NES games using the CopyNES Mini. I was able to get all of my games dumped and verified against the No-Intro DAT file by stripping the header bytes (their checksums exclude the header). However, looking a little closer, I see that about half of them differ from my previously downloaded/verified ROMs in the header, with the Mirroring bit the differnce for most (if not all). It seems that nearly all the ROMs dumped via CopyNES Mini are set for Vertical mirroring, while most of the download ROMs use Horizontal.

 

Mega Man 2 is one such example. The downloaded ROM uses Horizontal mirroring, and according to http://datacrystal.romhacking.net/wiki/Mega_Man_IIthat's correct (NesCartDB, for comparison, lists mirroring as "Mapper Ctrl" for this game). My dumped version is Vertical, though. The dumped version still plays fine on both the Nt Mini as well as an emulator.

 

So... I'm not sure if there's some bug here or not. The difference doesn't seem consequential, but I'd like to understand what's going on. After going through all this trouble, I'd like my dumps to at least be accurate. :-)

 

Can you weigh in here? I can certainly provide more info if you'd like (eg., see if there's a common mapper/plugin used in all of the game with this difference, etc.).

[Great Hierophant]

Kevtris,

 

I mentioned a while back that I dumped all of my NES games using the CopyNES Mini. I was able to get all of my games dumped and verified against the No-Intro DAT file by stripping the header bytes (their checksums exclude the header). However, looking a little closer, I see that about half of them differ from my previously downloaded/verified ROMs in the header, with the Mirroring bit the differnce for most (if not all). It seems that nearly all the ROMs dumped via CopyNES Mini are set for Vertical mirroring, while most of the download ROMs use Horizontal.

 

Mega Man 2 is one such example. The downloaded ROM uses Horizontal mirroring, and according to http://datacrystal.romhacking.net/wiki/Mega_Man_IIthat's correct (NesCartDB, for comparison, lists mirroring as "Mapper Ctrl" for this game). My dumped version is Vertical, though. The dumped version still plays fine on both the Nt Mini as well as an emulator.

 

So... I'm not sure if there's some bug here or not. The difference doesn't seem consequential, but I'd like to understand what's going on. After going through all this trouble, I'd like my dumps to at least be accurate. :-)

 

Can you weigh in here? I can certainly provide more info if you'd like (eg., see if there's a common mapper/plugin used in all of the game with this difference, etc.).

 

Some cartridge have hardwired horizontal or vertical mirroring and cannot be changed. For the games on these cartridges, having the right mirroring set is essential. Other cartridges can control the mapping via the chips inside them or use a board where the mirroring is always set to a certain method. For those games, it doesn't matter which mirroring mode is set because they can switch it on the fly.

 

NES Mappers 0, 2, 3, 11, 34, 66, 71, 79, 144, 206, 232 and 234 all have hardwired mirroring. The other common NES Mappers have the mirroring, 1, 4, 5, 7, 9, 13, 47, 64, 69, 118, 119, 168, 228 under hardware control or only use one type of mirroring.

Edited April 14, 2017 by Great Hierophant

[Pixelboy]

Unrelated, but I'm highly amused by everyones' theories on what my project is. Unfortunately I can't say but I have greatly enjoyed the speculation!

A little more seriously, if it had been possible to support the Game Boy Advance with currently "affordable" FPGAs, I would have envisioned the possibility of you starting a new project with Analogue to create a sequel to the Analogue NT Mini, one that would have featured a Game Boy cartridge port instead of Famicom/NES cartridge ports. It could have supported GB, GBC and GBA games, and it could sport the same NES controller ports (although the GBA shoulder buttons would be a slight problem, now that I think about it...). Anyway, a nice little console to play GB/GBC/GBA carts on the living room HDMI TV.

 

Just daydreamin'...

[Wolf_]

A little more seriously, if it had been possible to support the Game Boy Advance with currently "affordable" FPGAs, I would have envisioned the possibility of you starting a new project with Analogue to create a sequel to the Analogue NT Mini, one that would have featured a Game Boy cartridge port instead of Famicom/NES cartridge ports. It could have supported GB, GBC and GBA games, and it could sport the same NES controller ports (although the GBA shoulder buttons would be a slight problem, now that I think about it...). Anyway, a nice little console to play GB/GBC/GBA carts on the living room HDMI TV.

 

Just daydreamin'...

Supporting the Gba/Gbc/gb with the same port is an issue with more than just the fpga side of things because a connector that works with the gbc/gb and gba carts doesn't exist. (At least according to Krikzz who couldn't make an all in one everdrive)

[Andromeda Stardust]

So I bought a couple of these Famicom controller to NES adapters.[/size]

 

http://www.raphnet-tech.com/products/fc_to_nes/index.php

 

Does anyone know how they will function with the Analogue Nt Mini?

 

My goal was to use the Famicom Computer Controller with the keypad to play Colecovision games.

 

So will I plugging the controller into the back of the NT Mini's accessory port? Or will this also work properly plugged into the front with the adapters from Raphnet?

 

-James

Since the Super Famicom Network controller likely has a different pinout (SNES = 16 bits [12 buttons plus 4 key bits] followed by extra buttons on the network controller, vs FC = 8 bits followed by extra buttons on the network controller), you may run into compatibility issues using the front ports, unless Kevtris comes up with a smart detection solution.

 

Unless both controllers were developed at the same time, it is likely they aren't compatible. If the FC version was developed first, then the SFC version would have had to allow for the extra SNES bits.

 

How does the Famicom System Controller work? I imagine that the D-pad and regular buttons behave like any other third player controller that connects to the Famicom Expansion Port, using 4016 D1. The D-pad and four regular button presses are sent through an 8-input shift register. What about the other 13 buttons? That would require two more shift registers if sent serially, otherwise the device could use matrix addressing like the Famicom Keyboard or the Colecovision pad.

Right, the 4021 shift registers are daisy chained, though the 1st party SNES controller used a custom SMT chip with 12 inputs. SFC controller would have needed more bits but it is possible a custom 32-bit shift register could have been used to cut costs. It is possible the controller may have used the SNES key bits for identification, but I don't have a logic diagram for either atm or a controller to test with.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Supporting the Gba/Gbc/gb with the same port is an issue with more than just the fpga side of things because a connector that works with the gbc/gb and gba carts doesn't exist. (At least according to Krikzz who couldn't make an all in one everdrive)

Retrofreak/Retron5 accepts both cart types, using heuristics to determine cart type and set proper voltage levels. Retrode dumper needs a DIP switch to set voltage. Supplying +5V to a GBA or N64 cart would be risky, and 3.3V to a Game Boy likely won't work, so approach with caution.

[emubastard]

I wonder how hard it would be, or if it's even possible to have a system save state for the NES core so you can come back and play any game exactly as you left it. Holly cow pies!

[roaringchicken]

I wonder how hard it would be, or if it's even possible to have a system save state for the NES core so you can come back and play any game exactly as you left it. Holly cow pies!

 

Pretty sure Kevin said save states were not going to happen unfortunately.

[funkwad]

Hi,

 

Not seeing a normal "Friday" update - from sir Kevtris

 

Is it safe to conclude this "wraps" the regular weekly jailbrake updates for the NT Mini?

 

I'd really like to see the 7800 resolution issue fixed for analogue/15 khz output, since 1.5. Did anyone else have the issue I mentioned? really tweaked my PVM running 7800

 

Ok - totally understood on the change in frequency of updates due to Kevtris's other priorities...just curious if there's any formal feedback/tracking of exceptions/issues.

 

BTW - the Nintendo Classic has been discontinued....long live the new flesh (aka the NT Mini)

[Pixelboy]

Not seeing a normal "Friday" update - from sir Kevtris

 

Is it safe to conclude this "wraps" the regular weekly jailbrake updates for the NT Mini?

I'd say Kevin is now in "busy with real life stuff" mode, and while he may drop by this thread and reply to a few comments, I wouldn't expect him to work on any cores for at least the next few months. At best, you'll get a bugfix for a core or two, but even that's stretching optimism.

 

 

BTW - the Nintendo Classic has been discontinued....long live the new flesh (aka the NT Mini)

Yep, and now that Nintendo's out of the retro-plug-and-play market, surely other companies (especially in China) will step in to produce similar products, perhaps something that contains only third-party NES games. Capcom and Konami alone could release such a device with all their NES titles bundled in. People would eat that up just as much as the NES Mini, although such products would likely show up online rather than in brick-and-mortar stores, which is fine by me. Make it an Amazon exclusive if you want!

[emubastard]

I tried the Raphnet adapter with the Famicom Network Controller and it works fine as an NES controller but the number buttons don't register in the Colecovision core. They buttons work just fine when plugged into the accessory port of course.

 

Would be nice if compatibility with the number buttons were possible through the front port.

Edited April 15, 2017 by emubastard