Memblers

Not very easily because of the physical fit, but I think it's possible. I guess you'd need enough adapters to extend the connector out enough for the FDS RAM cart to fit. Been a while since I've seen one, so I'm not sure how exactly.

I didn't consider trying a ferrite core, that sounds like a good idea. Doing a composite mod sounds like a really good idea too. Even if it doesn't fix it, at least I'd get some better output from my normal carts. Right now I'm using this rusty old Coleco-branded RF switchbox. I'll have to take a look around the forums to see which carts might have EPROMs in them (I've got over 200, so surely I'd have at least one of them). I imagine they're not a 28-pin type though (like 27C64 at the minimum), so I'd probably have to build a new adapter cable with some.. custom.. wiring, heh. I think the power supply I normally use (an adjustable voltage one, can't find it right now since I moved) puts out 850mA, seems like that'd be enough. I don't know how the original AC adapter is rated. I could try my giant 12V 1.5A monster on it though, heheh. Thanks for the suggestions!

I've had some trouble using my EPROM emulator with my 2600. Right now the VCS is put away, but I'm wanting to get it out and have another go at it sometime soon. My setup is a Parallax TurboROM + 8kB VGWiz board. ROM emulator is powered by the 2600. Problem was, it would run programs just fine but the picture and sound would be extremely noisy. Fuzz all over the screen, slightly distorted picture, faded colors, barely audible sound. Totally unusable. The cable from the emu board to the cart is fairly short, <6 inches. I was told wrapping the cable in grounded tin foil would help (I only had aluminum foil, and that didn't help). Now also, I use this EPROM emulator on my NES. And it works there, but it does corrupt a few sprites. One of my friends had an FC-NES adapter I tried with it, and fixed the sprite problem apparantly because each data line has a series resistor (270 Ohms I think) installed on it. Weird. Maybe that would fix the VCS interference problem, but it would be a lot of work to find out (kinda difficult physically). I considered designing my own EPROM emulator some time in the future also, and if I did that I would definitely want to make it compatible with the 2600. So I'm just wondering if anyone else has used an EPROM emulator with their 2600, if they'd had a problem like this. Or just any suggestions in generally would be much appreciated.

You'd need to connect the audio line to one of the unused expansion pins on the cart port, then solder a jumper (and I think a capacitor and resistor) on the expansion port on the bottom of the NES. I'm not sure exacty how it's done, you could take a look on the hardware forum at http://nesdev.parodius.com/bbs/ for more info.

Thanks! I just got my first ST and this program saved the day. BTW, looks like it was just updated today to v0.7.

Any luck with the edge connectors? I'm looking for some of those, can't find any with the right pitch and board thickness.

Add another 8K of RAM to that, Dragon Warrior and almost every RPG on NES has extra RAM at $6000-$7FFF.

I go through myropcb to have boards made over in China. Minimum order for a new layout is about $80 (prototypes + shipping). If you make protos and then 100 boards, the cost is probably not far over $2 each altogether (assuming your proto design was correct on the first try). Just a rough guess, sounds pretty decent to me if you can use 50 or 100 boards.

You probably know already, but be aware when stocking carts for CICs that the most common ones use globtops. Especially SMB/DH, and SMB/DH/Track Meet. I'm still buying those however, since my newer cart will pass it's CIC signals through.

There's a lot of people writing NES stuff. It seems that the games that are beyond the simple stuff rarely or never get fully developed though. I'm making NES carts also, I have 2 different versions of Squeedo available (only has bare PCBs for now, Midines uses these currently), and a simpler board design on the way. I've also released a multicart, "Gargage Cart" with Munchie Attack, Hot Seat Harry, and Solar Wars. It was limited to 24 carts though (mostly since I was using recycled PCBs). A sequel is being worked on.

Alright, here goes the last PAL version. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...item=8227989470 Also check out giskard's cart, only 15 hours left and it's still well below the MSRP. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...item=8226466364 Garage Cart is pretty much gone after this. Until the sequel.

Here's this. It's serial # 2 out of 24 made. The last NTSC version available. Started at $1. Garage Cart on eBay

I need to mod my 2600 to support resets too. The ROM emulator I have doesn't like it when I cycle the power (resets to load mode, which takes the ROM off the bus). Looking at the schematic, it looks like I just need to put a low pulse to the CPU and RIOT's reset pin. Will it need more than that?

It's very nice, thanks.

Searching for "4PDT rocker" on http://findchips.com/ would be a start.

Well, get ready to hear about some places in Asia, then. I chose Myropcb for all my designs so far, and I've been really happen with them. That sparkfun deal sounds pretty good too, I was gonna try something with them until they doubled their price. But just for getting one small board or something, that's pretty nice.

I have a Willem programmer too. The software (included with it) is ver .98c though. But there's an "io.dll" file in the same folder as the .exe, it sounds like you may need it so windows can access the parallel port.

http://futurlec.com/ is another place that welcomes single-part orders, as it says on their 'about us' page. I get some pretty decent parts from them.

I mean Static RAM (as opposed to DRAM). I assume you mean connecting a cartridge to an SBC, if so then sure, that's doable. You could use 2 8-bit latches, one decoded for reads and another for writes. That's enough for the data, if you can latch more bits you can get addresses too. That's pretty much what I do my NES cart too, but I'm using a system on a chip (PIC MCU) instead of a system on a board. The PIC I use has a parallel port for latching reads and writes, but I added an extra latch for addresses (just going one way though). That's if you want a parallel interface. Serial is useful too, but in that case you might as well hook it up to the system's controller port (which I've done too on NES).

Yeah, that sounds like an accurate high-level description of it. But normally there'd only be one signal output from the address decoder, such as an active-low signal that would connect to the /CE on a ROM or RAM. All the address and data signals, even when the system accesses internal memory, will make it out directly to whatever's on the cartridge. But since the /CE signal would be high (chip disabled) from the address decoder, the chip would ignore it if it's not being addressed. The address decoding on my NES cart enables SRAM for $6000-$7FFF on these conditions: /A15 NAND Phi2 = 0 A14 = 1 A13 = 1

This is called address decoding. If you have multiple chips on a cartridge, you'd have all the data lines and (relevant) address lines hooked to every chip. But your interface or memory chip would have an enable line. You'd have an address decoding circuit that checks the address lines and other conditions, and hook it up so it enables the chip when the needed conditions are met (if the address is $D001, and the Phase2 signal is high, read or write, etc.) I hope that helps. On my NES cart I do all of the address decoding with a 74HC139 and part of a 74HC00. With that I get a register at $5xxx and SRAM mapped at $6000-$7FFF.

If it helps, I can give you the part #s for some that have been spotted in the wild. One time I found the website for the manufacturer of one type, they had a lot of docs and a few dev tools for it. I can probably find it again. AFAIK, all the new ones in clone systems I've seen use the bare die with epoxy on it. I also have an older clone system that has the CPU and PPU as seperate DIP-40 chips. I'm interested in getting some too. At least a few to play with, and the hope of being able to get more. And no, the NES does not use off-the-shelf hardware. It's CPU is 6502-based, but has some different functions (DMA, sound, no decimal mode, at least).

http://tototek.com/ sells an SNES flash cart, depending on the memory/game size it will hold multiple games. I haven't used one myself, but it looks pretty decent. Maybe not exactly what you're looking for, but at least then you can have the games you want on it.

NES is actually pretty difficult to emulate, if you wanted to do it accurately anyways. But if you just want to run Donkey Kong, Excitebike, SMB etc. I guess it's not much to worry about. Lots of games don't really push the hardware too much, but others will use timed code to change the display multiple times per scanline, and stuff like that seems to require emulating both the CPU and PPU one cycle at a time. At least it is documented pretty decently though. Colecovision looks pretty simple, but I've only played the system. I haven't really looked into it enough technically to say for sure.

I haven't seen any Amstrad machines at all, so I could be wrong. If this DB9 connector is mounted to the PCB, then it sounds like you may need a right-angle DB9 connector. http://futurlec.com/Connectors/DSUBPCM9.shtml The Fururlec site there is one place to order it from (they're pretty nice about taking small orders).