nesdev.org

Small update for the record. BGA reflow soldering proved feasible. So there will be 128Mbits of 16-bit PSRAM + 4Mbits of 8-bit SRAM on the secondary bus. A DAC for the SNES's analog line in will be included. (Testing the DAC is the last todo before a prototype PCB is ordered) The B address bus is fu...

Currently I have no clue about the bright screen issue, it never happened to me so far. The LED color problem may be related to pin 7 of the PIC. Pin 7 selects LED polarity. Connect it to 5V for common anode LEDs or GND for common cathode LEDs. If it is left unconnected the input will sometimes read...

Port 3 is the "tristate register", it is used to set the pin directions of port 0. It does not appear to be connected to any physical pins. Going from snes to nes should be as easy as calling the mangle routine once instead of three times not changing pin directions on the fly replacing th...

Klaus Wolf of Wolfsoft wrote up a blog post with some instructions and nice macro photos of his mod: http://blog.wolfsoft.de/?p=603

He chose to remove the CIC but I can confirm it works with the original CIC in place and pins 1,2,10 and 11 lifted as well. 8)

Not really atm. I think jims cool will have the NES covered.

N64 is out of reach at the moment as the data looks completely different from what the NES+SNES CICs do, and I think it would certainly be more complicated given the fact that the CIC status can somehow be queried by software.

Ah, that source code has a little flaw actually. Lines 97-103 suggest that the streams are swapped but in reality the CIC just swaps its i/o pins. So sometimes the lock stream is output on pin 1 while the key stream is expected on pin 2, and vice versa. When monitoring one fixed pin sometimes you'll...

Interesting :) Seems like we're talking about the same thing while thinking we're talking about completely different things :) so: ,-----. < CPU_D4 >---| | | /PARD >---| e.g.|---< PPU2_D4 > | /PAWR >---| PAL | | PA[7:0] >===| | | PIC_D4 >---| | `-----' wire IS_213F = PA[7:0]==8'h3f; assign CPU_D4 = ...

I doubt that $213f is the only register that enables PPU2. If you just lift D4 of PPU2 then all reads and writes to all registers that concern PPU2 will be "missing" bit 4. The A and B buses are address buses. There is only one shared data bus. And /PARD has to be taken into concern. The a...

EDIT: $213F seems to originate from S-PPU2 (U3, 5C78) pin 55 and 73 are both D4, these pins would be lifted and connected together.. the other soldering point could be U4 pin 16.. the PAL could then make D4 one or zero without bus conflicts What you seem to be referring to is D4 of the VRAM data bu...

Well, that's good to hear. :) So maybe the original CIC has to be removed after all? I'm looking forward to more reports. ;) The OSCCAL value doesn't matter btw, the internal oscillator is not used. I recommend using the newer firmware anyway since its timing is more accurate. Might be more reliable...

Yes, in the meantime I got the same feedback from another guy via mail. Thought a bit about it but that's it so far. Did you remove the CIC (+added the pulldown) or did you just lift the pins? I seriously need to get an SA-1 game... I made a minor timing change in the meantime (I was one cycle late ...

How to inject a bit? I can decode the B Bus address + /PARD and drive an output connected to D4 but the PPU will still drive its own, won't it? Does it come down to just hoping that the logic gate's output driver is strong enough to override the PPU output? Or is there a way to tell the PPU to trist...

That's exactly what's planned. Current setting is indicated by a dual LED. Inspired by seb's switchless mod. I just heard about the rainbow mod for the first time here

PICs don't come with crystal balls, so you'll have to switch manually in that case. And there's always the auto option.

Yes. It will be switchable between "force 50Hz", "force 60Hz" and "auto". This is the planned behavior. "PIC" is the user setting, "game" is the detected CIC region. PIC game behavior ------------------------------------------------------ 50Hz 50Hz 5...