Upcoming Jaguar Game Drive Cartridge

[sandroace]

Oh boy, any news/progress on this gets me excited!!! Can not wait!!!

[leech]

So excited for this as well. I started a conversation about remote storage for old systems over on the Atari forums, and it came up in discussion a thing I hadn't even considered possible. SD cards with Wifi built into them. Any idea if this would work on the Jag SD Cart?

 

Being able to just have roms on an NFS share rather than having to copy them around sounds pretty nice to me. Especially for developers. Write a rom, copy it to a folder on a share, test on real hardware, rinse and repeat.

 

Something like this;

https://www.amazon.com/Transcend-Wi-Fi-Class-Memory-TS32GWSDHC10/dp/B00A659ILQ

[SainT]

I'm using a memory card at the moment... However I will have USB support for remote dev work. There's no reason I couldn't give access to the file system on the memory card via USB...

Edited October 25, 2019 by SainT

[Glen's Retro Show]

Always the good old micro to SD cable adapters 😎

[SainT]

Very true! I have one of those wedged in my 3D printer now you mention it... so yes, it should work.

[Glen's Retro Show]

Great minds my friend..well you have the great mind.. I'm just a shadow 😋😎

[leech]

I don't know about everyone else, but my computer is in my other room than my Jag, so a USB cable for that would be kind of painful The main reason I'm looking into things like this is for various platforms, I think it'd be much easier to do all the management of what files are there from a central place. With all the SD/micro SD cards I have floating around, it's getting kind of nuts!

[JagChris]

Aw poor baby.

 

When I was growing up we actually had to get up to change the channel on the TV.

[+CyranoJ]

Hi SainT

 

Is this using mSD or SD? I only ask because we now have wifi enabled SD cards with samba shares .....

[SainT]

Man, that was a pain. Found a bridged via after removing 3 chips. Fixed it. Yay. Found another issue which meant I couldnt write to the chip... tried to bodge it... managed to rip a pad off a via and buggered the PCB. Arse. Next de-soldered and re-soldered all the components to another PCB. Eurgh.

 

Anyway, upshot is I have been able to read the flash manufacturer and device id from the cart, so it should be at the bare minimum required to get something to boot on the Jag now. I just need to actually sign a little test program and flash it.

 

This is the cart so far. Notice all the small chips at the bottom of the cart on both sides. They are ALL 3.3v<>5v level shifters. The only other things on there are a little 3.3v voltage regulator between the voltage shifters (U13) and the flash (U3). You can now see for yourselves this cart will be voltage safe...

 

 

[Glen's Retro Show]

Excellent.. well some progress is Good progress

 

All so very exciting!!!!

Edited August 7, 2017 by Glen's Retro Show

[DoTheMath]

Ah ! We get to see the guts of the beast.

The hype is real. Nice to hear it's safe.

[SainT]

I've finally got something worth doing a quick video on:

 

 

It's now at the first stage -- booting code from the on-board FLASH. This is designed to be the fail-safe state -- even if the custom chip gets bricked during an update the fail safe state is to still boot the FLASH. This enables you to then do another update from the Jaguar through the microcontroller on the cart. Likewise the microcontroller will have a protected boot area such that it can't get bricked either. It should be impossible to bugger the cart through power loss, etc...

[Glen's Retro Show]

Man.. Saint..this is another awesome Flashcart .. you sir are amazing

[waiwainl]

Good work there! Awesome to see this progress already

[Stephen g]

Can't wait

[productof76]

wow, really excited to get one of these...

[Zerosquare]

Great job

 

Looks like the PCB edge is not beveled. I understand this is an internal prototype, but I'd advise you to use a file to manually remove the sharp edge, roughly like this:

http://www.eurocircuits.com/Edge-connector-beveling/

 

I made the same mistake for the Jagtopus prototype, and ended up having to replace the connector on the Jaguar because plugging the PCB crushed some pins ; it's expensive and a real pain to do.

 

Be sure not to forget to specify gold plating on the contacts on the final version, too

Edited August 8, 2017 by Zerosquare

[SainT]

Thanks for the advice again, yes I do intend to have a bevelled edge on the final board. I hope this will be something the pcb fab house will be able to handle for me, but I've not had that conversation yet. But I think I'll take a file to the proto board as you suggest while all the pins are in good shape on this jag. No point temping fate...

 

And, yes, I use immersion gold finish on final boards. HASL is fine for prototypes.

Edited August 8, 2017 by SainT

[Zerosquare]

I hope this will be something the pcb fab house will be able to handle for me, but I've not had that conversation yet.

It's best to ask them right from the start. Some of them have no problem with it, others (lower-end ones) do not offer it. You may have to shop around a bit.

 

Here are the bevel parameters, for reference:

[samson7point1]

There isn't a reservation list for this one yet is there?

[SainT]

There isn't a reservation list for this one yet is there?

No, there's really no point until it's working.

[bbuchholtz]

I've finally got something worth doing a quick video on:

 

 

It's now at the first stage -- booting code from the on-board FLASH. This is designed to be the fail-safe state -- even if the custom chip gets bricked during an update the fail safe state is to still boot the FLASH. This enables you to then do another update from the Jaguar through the microcontroller on the cart. Likewise the microcontroller will have a protected boot area such that it can't get bricked either. It should be impossible to bugger the cart through power loss, etc...

 

Shut up and take my money! I sponsor other projects. Let me know if you're taking donations...

 

-Brian

[Endprodukt]

Impressiv! I'd like to donate, as well!

[+madman]

Is "I'd like to donate" the new "put me on the list?"