Perfect FDS 2C33 audio when not using actual FDS disks?

[Great Hierophant]

OK, I threw a shitty webpage up with a paypal order-thing. I tried to set it up to allow international shipping, I hope it works.
Limit one per customer. I don't have a lot of these. Once they run out, the price will go up. For now, you get the nesdev special discount
There are a lot more coming, but they won't get here for another month or so.

If you prefer something other than paypal, let me know, maybe I can work something else out.

http://home.comcast.net/~olimar/NES/FDSStick/

Ordering worked okay for me, although I'm within the domestic shipping category. I can't wait for mine to come so I can test it and write a blog post about it.

[rainwarrior]

It had a thing to calculate shipping to Canada, for me, so I guess the international shipping part works. Thanks for making these!

[tokumaru]

Since this thing will probably be coming from Japan by ship (which I expect will take 3 months or so), I wouldn't be surprised if loopy was already selling his little device before my RAM adapter even gets here!

A little over 3 months later, here's what arrived in the mail today (the picture looks like crap, but the RAM adapter looks practically new, which kinda surprised me):

fds-ram.jpg (108.15 KiB) Viewed 4191 times

Just in time for the first batch of loopy's devices too, which may sound like great timing, except for the fact that I'm kinda broke right now...

Guess I'll take a few minutes/hours to think and make a decision!

Of course there's the fact that I have absolutely no use for the RAM adapter without the drive emulator, but sadly that doen't change the fact that I'm broke.

[Great Hierophant]

The FDSStick's page appears to indicate that it will write disk images back to real disks in the FDS drive. Do the later FDS drives with a FD3206 drive controller and/or the revised power boards require the modifications described here :
http://famicomworld.com/workshop/tech/f ... write-mod/
and here :
http://famicomworld.com/workshop/tech/f ... fications/

[loopy]

Yes, the drive will need to be modified if it's a later model with copy protection.

[Tomy]

Hi Great Hierophant,

http://famicomworld.com/workshop/tech/f ... write-mod/

If this mod too trouble for you, you can consider this one (they are same function) :
http://www.tototek.com/store/index.php? ... cts_id=143
http://www.tototek.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2855
http://www.tototek.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3306

Before you start to work on it, you should look inside the drive board.
If it has 7201 chip on it. Then no need to do this mod.

[Great Hierophant]

I checked my FDS disk drive, it has a Power Board rev. 05 and an FD7201 chip, so I guess I will only need one mod, assuming the drive works. I never acquired any disks, so I cannot test it out.

[pikasurf]

another grateful new nesdev'er here. thanks loopy, i've been dying to play Nazo no Murasamejou on the everdrive with real 2c33 audio for awhile now. i didn't think it would ever be possible!

edit: whoops the everdrive isn't even necessary!

[Tomy]

Hi loopy,

I want to ask, after I saved game with FDS Stick. Can I read it back to *.fds ? If not, when I flash new game, the save record will gone. This function still in development ?

[loopy]

No, not yet. I'm working on it.

[Pokun]

Oh it's already for sale! And sold-out!

Do the command-line program just copy the clean FDS image to the stick's memory as is?

[Tomy]

Yes, and its memory has 8 slots. So, you can put 8 games in 1 if games image only one side.

[loopy]

Oh it's already for sale! And sold-out!

Do the command-line program just copy the clean FDS image to the stick's memory as is?

It's not an exact copy, it's converted to a raw format that more closely resembles what's on an actual disk (with file gaps and CRCs added)

[Pokun]

I see, thanks!

Anyway the FDS Loader is cumbersome and almost never works, the Japanese variants requires many expensive parts to build and the Everdrive and Powerpak solutions are not very satisfying. But this seems to be the simplest way to run custom FDS code so far. Not mentioning dumping and writing disks. I'm interested in getting one of these when they are back in stock!

[ImATrackMan]

Funny enough, I had no idea this was a thing (shame it's sold out, I actually talked to kitahei88 about getting one of the JP FDS writing solutions), but a few days ago, I actually mocked up an FDS flash menu complete with a cover of the Nintendo Power flash cart music.