Turbo Laser Lynx Posted October 8, 2016 Share Posted October 8, 2016 Gz Karri, awesome stuff! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+karri Posted October 9, 2016 Author Share Posted October 9, 2016 The next step may be to write the driver for the 64k eeprom chip that is one option. Perhaps I could modify the EOTB image to use the 64k chip for saves... The EOTB has just 16k for the saves so in theory it should work. The 128 byte eeprom worked fine. It was used in MegaPak I, S.I.M.I.S., Solitaire and probably in most of other games with saving high scores capability. Is there any games out there with the 2k eeprom? I am not aware of any. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GadgetUK Posted October 9, 2016 Share Posted October 9, 2016 Looking great! Would love to buy some carts off you when you get to a point where you're ready. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+karri Posted October 13, 2016 Author Share Posted October 13, 2016 (edited) Just a small note about latest news. The programmer code has changed a lot during the last days. It has built-in diagnostics. The cart reader code will also read in carts using AUDIN technique correctly. Burning carts using AUDIN does not work due to missing A10 pin. (With a little drill and soldering one wire produces a correct cart.) Fortunately there is just two carts using this technique that I am aware of. Creating working Cart programmers is still a problem. My safety pin stuff is not 100% reliable. If someone needs a programmer and has a dead Lynx then the task is easy. Without a dead Lynx there is still problems. So I am looking for dead Lynxes. Edit: the Lynx prices on ebay are really crazy. €310 for a modded Lynx I from France. I suppose my best bet is to find short spring-loaded test pins and create a 3D print for keeping them at correct places. @GadgetUK. I am already shipping carts to a few developers. The shop is open http://discohat.com/shop I am also very happy with the new Monoprice Select Mini 3D printer. It prints a Lynx cart using black PLA in about one hour. The price is only $199 for the printer and a spool of 1.75mm PLA cost €18 for 600g (one cart is 8g). I bought the printer from USA and it cost me almost €400. But in November/December this same printer will be available in EU for about €200 by a brand name Malyan m200. I have a modified gcode file that I can share for perfect prints on this printer. If you buy only an assembled cart without eeprom the price is €7.10 per cart including shipping (in boxes of 10). Then you take care of printing the cover, labels, user guide, box and programming the game. Edit2: I just found the perfect Lynx connector. It will not read standard Lynx carts as the cart is too thick. But it will allow you to program these carts as before adding the plastics the width of the pcb is just right. The connector would be with a 0.8mm pitch. Every Lynx cart pin would have 2 pins making contact instead of 1. So I need to carefully align the cart to the connector. The price of the connector alone is €30 and it has 200 contacts (Molex 170673-1200) Edited October 13, 2016 by karri Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+karri Posted October 13, 2016 Author Share Posted October 13, 2016 Just a small note to the developers who are using my RetroPie image for burning carts. I just noticed that my Emulation Station is using GPIO pins as well as the Adafruit Retro-keybord add ons. The bad thing is that if they are running at the same time it conflicts with burning a cart and you may burn wrong data on the cart. I wrote a verifycart utility for checking the content after burning. So please kill emulationstation and retropie processes before burning carts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Turbo Laser Lynx Posted October 15, 2016 Share Posted October 15, 2016 (edited) Thanks for the heads up and the interresting update. Will it be possible for us others as well to get a hold of the updated programmer and cart verifyer at some point? :> Nice find the new connector since Lynx prices are soaring. I've followed Lynx prices for a long time and it seems the overpriced Lynxes never really get sold but they're always there giving a falce impression about what a Lynx is worth. 150e for a loose Lynx I is pretty heavy even if it's in good shape Anyways the prices seem to have more than doubled in ten years. Maybe retro-gaming has become more popular over the years, especially on real hardware. Maybe the Lynx's popularity is on the rise, most youtube videos are really positive about the system. I've noticed the most popular Game & Watch games in decent shape have risen from 15-20e to 60-80e in ten years! Probably there's some inflation too. Then again some other more popular 8 and 16 bit systems still seem to be reasonably priced. I noticed you have the 3d printed covers for sale now too, cool! 200e seems really cheap for a 3D-printer! Edited October 15, 2016 by Turbo Laser Lynx Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+karri Posted October 17, 2016 Author Share Posted October 17, 2016 I just ordered a modern replacement socket for the Lynx cart. The final price is €37 just for the connector. This means that price of the Lynx Programmer board will go up. The connector is a 200 pin connector with 100 pins at 0.8mm intervals on both sides. The card thickness is 1.85mm. So it does not fit the Lynx cart. But. If you split it into two, create a PLA case that makes it exactly suitable for Lynx carts you should get two sockets out of one edge connector. This is probably a lousy idea anyway. So let's do it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Turbo Laser Lynx Posted October 18, 2016 Share Posted October 18, 2016 Haha xD At least the price should probably be cheaper than most broken lynxes on ebay these days "35£ for the broken lynx and 40£ postage" or something. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+karri Posted October 25, 2016 Author Share Posted October 25, 2016 The new Lynx cart programmer also doubles as a RetroPie Lynx emulator as my programmer image is based on RetroPie. So you can connect some push buttons to the connector at right for playing Lynx games on the big screen. There is also a bi-directional ComLynx port that interfaces directly with the Raspberry Pi UART and it supports all the baud rates used by ComLynx. So I hope to use this for real-time debugging of Redeye. Perhaps even Mednafen learns to talk ComLynx with a real Lynx some day. The boards are being manufactured during the next 2 days and I will get them by Hong Kong post in November. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Turbo Laser Lynx Posted October 30, 2016 Share Posted October 30, 2016 There is also a bi-directional ComLynx port that interfaces directly with the Raspberry Pi UART and it supports all the baud rates used by ComLynx. So I hope to use this for real-time debugging of Redeye. Perhaps even Mednafen learns to talk ComLynx with a real Lynx some day. Really exciting stuff going on as usual! It seems I might have to upgrade my programmer later! Getting comlynx to work reliably and somewhat easy to understand, even for two players, would open up for a lot of fun multiplayer game ideas. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wookie Posted November 17, 2016 Share Posted November 17, 2016 Wow, Karri, I go away for a few years and you guys do some cool stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+karri Posted November 17, 2016 Author Share Posted November 17, 2016 Hi Wookie. Yep. Signing carts and fiddling with bootloaders are history. Thanks to your work So what about your assembler and streaming objects? Any news? I assume that your Lynx site is still down? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+selgus Posted January 11, 2017 Share Posted January 11, 2017 Hey Karri, are you still making/have programmers for your flash carts? I didn't seem them on your store-front. I was looking into making my own pcbs using either an eprom or a similar Microchip flash-rom, but if you already these working, maybe that is a better route. I am working on my game now, so I have time but did want to start planning on a delivery plan. Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+karri Posted January 11, 2017 Author Share Posted January 11, 2017 Hi, I have a new programmer design that only lacks some 3D printed supports and testing. The design will pop up when it is available. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+karri Posted August 5, 2017 Author Share Posted August 5, 2017 The files progverify.c in the lynx/contrib/blankcart/programmer repository have new code for programming larger carts. In order to run it you need to modify the programmer slightly. Cut the traces at the red marks. Add wires as the yellow wires. The new code can program 4 chips carts where CART0, CART1 and AUDIN are used for selecting the ROM. The chips are accessed like AUDIN=0 Cart0 - 0..512K AUDIN=0 Cart1 - 512K..1M AUDIN=1 Cart0 - 1M..1.5M AUDIN=1 Cart1 - 1.5M..2M 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Turbo Laser Lynx Posted August 19, 2017 Share Posted August 19, 2017 AUDIN=0 Cart0 - 0..512K AUDIN=0 Cart1 - 512K..1M AUDIN=1 Cart0 - 1M..1.5M AUDIN=1 Cart1 - 1.5M..2M the Sky is now the limit for the Lynx! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+karri Posted September 17, 2017 Author Share Posted September 17, 2017 (edited) the Sky is now the limit for the Lynx! And it works!. The empty pads are for 2k or 64k eeprom. Save game etc. Edited September 17, 2017 by karri 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BadPricey Posted September 17, 2017 Share Posted September 17, 2017 And it works!. The empty pads are for 2k or 64k eeprom. Save game etc. Tsop2m.jpg Great, have you tried Eye of the Beholder on it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+karri Posted September 18, 2017 Author Share Posted September 18, 2017 (edited) Great, have you tried Eye of the Beholder on it? Eye of the Beholder has all the code in one bank. The second bank is RAM. This cart is for really large games like "The mists of Ataria". A worthy successor to Wyvern Tales... I did think about writing an eeprom driver for EOTB to allow saves. But the game is not that good. Besides, I already have EOTB with save functionality. Edited September 18, 2017 by karri Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sage Posted September 19, 2017 Share Posted September 19, 2017 ... remeber that i wrote a patch some while ago to allow storing with "normal" RAM (not the handshake one which is used) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+karri Posted September 19, 2017 Author Share Posted September 19, 2017 (edited) ... remeber that i wrote a patch some while ago to allow storing with "normal" RAM (not the handshake one which is used) Does this mean the creating a driver for, let's say AT24C512C-SSHD-B, EEPROM Memory 512kbit,, 65536 x, 8bit, Serial-2 Wire would be feasible? CLK connected to A1 and DATA connected to AUDIN. Edited September 19, 2017 by karri Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sage Posted September 20, 2017 Share Posted September 20, 2017 (edited) no. working a bit-banging would require to add (enlarge) code. I could only do that patch because the original code size (and therefore jmp offsets) stayed the same Edited September 20, 2017 by sage Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+karri Posted January 3, 2019 Author Share Posted January 3, 2019 (edited) I just got my next batch of my blank carts. In case you are interested I will sell these at €30 per panel plus postage. The chips on board are 512k flash plus 128 byte eeprom. One panel has 10 carts on them. Unfortunately the boards are untested. But in my experience the yield is pretty good. I believe it is around 95% or so. I also decided not to send single pcb's anymore. It is not worth the effort to mail €3 boards. These chips are re-programmable. You can program them with my programmer board + a RaspberryPi. You still need to print a cover for the carts with a 3D printer (cover.zip) or mill a wooden bamboo cart like in "Shaken, not stirred". The thickness of the cart is 0.6mm. The chip depth is 1mm. I did actually buy a Proxxon M70 milling machine to speed up making these bamboo carts. It saves a lot of time compared to fully manual work. cover.zip Edited January 3, 2019 by karri 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thefred Posted January 3, 2019 Share Posted January 3, 2019 I just got my next batch of my blank carts. In case you are interested I will sell these at €30 per panel plus postage. The chips on board are 512k flash plus 128 byte eeprom. One panel has 10 carts on them. Unfortunately the boards are untested. But in my experience the yield is pretty good. I believe it is around 95% or so. I also decided not to send single pcb's anymore. It is not worth the effort to mail €3 boards. blankcarts.jpg These chips are re-programmable. You can program them with my programmer board + a RaspberryPi. You still need to print a cover for the carts with a 3D printer (cover.zip) or mill a wooden bamboo cart like in "Shaken, not stirred". The thickness of the cart is 0.6mm. The chip depth is 1mm. I did actually buy a Proxxon M70 milling machine to speed up making these bamboo carts. It saves a lot of time compared to fully manual work. cover_0.png cover_1.png Do you have any programers avalable? Any chances of making up any covers to go with the carts? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+karri Posted January 4, 2019 Author Share Posted January 4, 2019 Do you have any programers avalable? Any chances of making up any covers to go with the carts? I am currently working on a new one. It still lacks the mechanism for pressing the cart on the pogo pins. Covers is a problematic issue. Making a 3D print takes about an hour. The best way is to get a 3D printer and have it running in the background. Using bamboo is slightly faster. Around 15 minutes per cart. But I have to pass on making the covers. Creating enough "Shaken, not stirred" carts eats up my spare time right now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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