nesdev.org

kyuusaku wrote:If the console is implemented using reverse engineered documentation and isn't enclosed in a similar case, why do the patents have to expire?

Because the clean room method applies only to copyrights for reasons that apply to copyright law but not to patent law. A patent encumbers making a product embodying any of its claims within a country whether or not the product is derived (in the copyright sense) from the patent document or from an authorized product. The use of the blanket term "intellectual property" in mass media has fooled the public into thinking that copyrights and patents are more similar than they are.

Hey cybertron.. nice to hear you are working on some snes dev hardware related stuff. I'll take the liberty of adding my 2 cents on this topic
as well:

Personally I would love to have some hardware that allows for ...

- A quick test cycles. No annoying plugging/unplugging of carts and
cables etc.

- Some sort of runtime interface that could be used for debugging
purposes. Ideally something that would make hardware level
debugging possible. Or maybe just something to exchange data
between PC and SNES without too much overhead on the SNES
side.

That'd be awesome :) Oh and pretty please linux support and
no parallel port connectivity :D But you already said you are
going to use USB.

Good luck on that stuff.. Looking forward to hear more

Thanks man!

My first design had a USB port built in, but that caused way too many design problems. Plus you need your computer right next to the TV!

Flashing is fast, about 2 mins MAX to reprogram the whole chip. Should be less then a minute for a smaller program.

Debugging is an interesting idea! If it had a built in USB port, I could have put that in just to send messages back to the computer. An emulator would be great for a debug version tho

I plan on having a linux version of the flashing program, if the FTDI drivers are easy enough to install and use.

cybertron wrote:My first design had a USB port built in, but that caused way too many design problems. Plus you need your computer right next to the TV!

That's not a problem for everyone. For a couple months, I was using a Vizio 32" HDTV as my PC's monitor, sometimes with the picture-in-picture set on side-by-side. Other users have TV tuner cards and can open NES video just as easily as any FCEU-ABCSOUP.

My computer desk is right next to my TV...

BMF54123 wrote:My computer desk is right next to my TV... :P

same here