Matthias_H

Fair enough, I agree my craftsmanship should finally get the smearing it so dearly deserves... So you were only referring to 2600er games? Because as I wrote, proper firmware support for 2600 is still pending. In case you bought your adapter from my online store, I tested those on Pitfall and/or Moon Patrol before they were sent out. There is still a certain possibility that your adapter is simply broken, because the connector sitting on the edge was a veritable pain to solder. How about GBA, N64?

Did you ever get back to me about those? If you don't tell me that something is broken, I can't fix it, you know More information = better

Not so sure about that. More likely a firmware issue. Atari 2600 carts are autodetection hell and their support in the Retrode firmware is far from mature.

Thanks for your encouraging words! Of course I know what 3D printers are good for; I've worked with several different high-end models in the past. Prototyping: yes. Production: no way (accuracy, stability and looks of finished part, printing speed, operating cost). I'm just sooo glad I can leave the manufacturing of my products to professionals

I totally agree, but ... what for?

I'd guess more of a "parallel universe" thing. In this one, it seems that nobody really wants to pay for that, see the recent poll on retrode.org

Retrode 3? Did I miss something? Savestates are something done by the emulator. So yes, the Retrode "allows" save states in that it doesn't care what you do with your emulator. As for on-cartridge savegames, those can be read from (and written to, if need be) the cartridge for a large number of SNES and Genesis titles.

Actually, I've always wondered if this "hybrid" kind of emulation would make sense. I mean, on-cart hardware actually being used by the emulator. Kind of a fascinating idea. Are there any software emus that do this sort of thing? I don't see how this would work with regular de-bank-switched ROM files. The emu would constantly need to write stuff into the ROM file, and the ROM would have to change on its own according to bank switching requests etc. Which obviously doesn't make much sense if the file is, well, just a file. Since the Retrode does not have any memory of its own, it might in principle work. If..., well, if it weren't for the whole mass storage thing. Anything hybrid requires full random R/W access but today's mass storage devices allow sector-level access only (that is, 512 byte blocks for USB).

I might add that support for the plug-in adapters is in a very early stage. Only yesterday, I fixed a rather serious N64/GBA size detection bug, and I'm sure that there must still be lots of open issues for A2600 carts as well. I will try to fix them gradually as I receive more and more user reports.

Cool youki, thanks for the info - the official website for this is here. There is also an Atari 2600 adapter here, but unfortunately no ColecoVision adapter yet. Hi, I sent you an e-mail a couple of days ago. If you're interested in contributing a ColecoVision adapter for the Retrode, I'll be more than happy to help you.

Got the first N64 game to work last night. It obviously "feels" a bit slower than SNES, due to the massive increase in data. Schematics to follow.

This might actually work out, but you'd need two adjacent slots since the Retrode is about 50% higher (= width in regular tabletop use) than a regular 5 1/4" bay. Cheers, Matthias

Short answer: Here and now, no. Long answer: It really depends on how "transparent" these devices are with respect to the cartridge contents. For the SGB, for instance, the SNES only sees the 256kByte ROM that constitutes the Game Boy border. The Sega Power Base might be a different story since Master System carts plugged into it are actually processed by the Mega Drive/Genesis, so the cart ROM must be available through the Genesis slot somehow. Still, in order to add support for it in the firmware, I would need to get my hands on such a device. On the other hand, I am trying to come up with dedicated plug-in adapters for the Retrode that would allow for the insertion of other games. Atari 2600 is already working okay for some games (schematic is online, so get your prototyping breadboard and a handful of wires and you can easily build one), and N64 and the Game Boys should be next once I find an elegant solution for managing the different voltages. Once the Retrode has a certain user base, and if some programmers out there are interested, I might consider releasing the source for its firmware so anyone can add new features. Sorry, but there's not much I can do about your worthless currency As for the price, developing the Retrode and bringing the hardware to its current state wasn't actually cheap, and of course the production itself ain't free either. I already had a lot more made than I should have, in order to get the right connectors and at least some volume benefit. Anyway, as long as I am sitting on the first batch, I cannot guarantee that there will be a second one. Then again, I think with the Retrode you really get a lot for your money. Just add the cost of two flash cart programmers (Tototek / Mash-Mods), and you're already way above the Retrode's price. And these things are much more of a pain to use, unless you're into command line tools, printer port data transfers, proprietary drivers for exactly one operating system, autorouted circuits with sawn-off connectors, and the likes. But, you know, that's just, like, my opinion, man... Cheers, Matthias

I don't know why you couldn't, as long as it works as advertised. "Play the games with this device" in the sense of loading them into an emulator - sure, that's exactly what the Retrode is for. With about 60 units in circulation, I have yet to get my first complaint. A user report about another 125 games just came in, resulting in a total of 314 confirmed SNES and Genesis titles. Besides, I know that some folks plan to integrate their Retrodes into some superduperkiller gaming machines. http://www.google.com/#q=60+eur+in+usd :-) If you have any questions, feel free to ask me. Matthias