I recently made a Snes reproduction pcb and I wanted to share it with you. As RetroCircuits winds down to a hobby level, I plan to release publicly many of the Pcbs I have made in the near future.
Below is a YouTube video of the pcb and in the description is a link to PCBway that hosts the design which you can download or order. It has both Hi and Lo maps capability, supports Fram and Sram upto 1mB (there’s only a few games that have ram larger than 256k but if you mount a 1mB sram, it’s then capable)
Before anyone gets too excited, this design uses the 5volt, hard to find 29F032 roms. I used these roms only because many years ago I purchased a few thousand of these roms new, and this design is a way that I can use them rather than continue collecting dust. All the parts are surface mount so if you make any by hand, you’ll need those SMD rework tools and skills.
The cart can use the (a little easier to find) 29F016 roms but you have to be a little more careful on the mounting (video explains why). Lastly, the cart is also capable of the Extended rom mapping but you must use a programming device for those because of the different pinnings of the 2 roms
During my prototype testing, I have about 100 already built. I also have a programmer device that I plan to also release soon which makes programming the carts much much easier than hand mounting.
This pcb cart is my design but the CIC and programmer device firmware was created by a user here on NesDev. He can chime in if he wants to be recognized. I am truly grateful for the years of bugging and pestering him with questions and help. Thank you!
https://youtu.be/sBp_pglnG_Q?si=HSpoQx8PnqY8LeWL
Snes reproduction pcb
Moderators: B00daW, Moderators
Forum rules
1. NO BLATANT PIRACY. This includes reproducing homebrew less than 10 years old, with the exception of free software.
2. No advertising your reproductions, with the exception of free software.
3. Be nice. See RFC 1855 if you aren't sure what this means.
1. NO BLATANT PIRACY. This includes reproducing homebrew less than 10 years old, with the exception of free software.
2. No advertising your reproductions, with the exception of free software.
3. Be nice. See RFC 1855 if you aren't sure what this means.
Re: Snes reproduction pcb
Great stuff! I use shift for hi-lorom
Re: Snes reproduction pcb
Very nice. Even though my pcb has 2 places for a rom to go, that is primarily for those who hand mount the roms. With a 4mB rom, you only need rom position #1 for Hi or Lo maps. The chips do the switching for you ~ so long as you have the programmer device. I’ll upload that some time soon.
Re: Snes reproduction pcb
Itsa me!
The relevant thing is that I decided I didn't want to write programmer software for windows, so I just set up a clever set of lies so that windows sees a USB mass storage device, and when you copy the file over, it just so happens to write all the data into the right place.
I can't have been the first person to have the idea, and I know I've seen a bunch since - not least of which is the RP2040 firmware updating mechanism.