nesdev.org

Hi all,

I found a patch that changes the PAL 50hz version of the Terranigma rom into a NTSC 60hz rom. I'm very interesting in having an actual cart of this. No offense to emulators, but I just seem to enjoy a game much more if I'm playing it with accurate graphics, sound, controls, and with no chance of me save state cheating.

However, I have no way of doing this myself. I know there are people on this board that are capable of doing it. I'm sure this gets asked all the time, but I'll ask it again; will anyone here make me a US Terranigma cart? I'm willing to pay well for such a service.

If no one can do it, or if no one wants to do it, I understand.

Thanks for reading.

It would be easier for you to buy a Flash Cartridge from Tototek.com or buy a Copier device like the Game Doctor SF series of copiers to play SNES roms on the actual SNES.

Otherwise you need to get an EPROM/FlashROM programmer, writable rom chips like eprom or flash, a suitable donor cartridge, and soldering skills. People do build SNES reproduction carts like this but it's not that common and I've never found anyone doing it for other people. I recommend you buy the flash cart or copier. It's more cost effective when you decide to play other SNES games.

All I can say is that Terranigma uses a SHVC-1J3M board. It shouldn't be very usefull. If you can get such a board and change the mask ROM (and maybe change the pinouts as well) you should be done, but unfortuantely it's probably impossible to find 4MBx8 EPROMs. You'll have to deal with a stack of smaller EPROMs and a '138/'139 decoder.

MottZilla wrote:It would be easier for you to buy a Flash Cartridge from Tototek.com or buy a Copier device like the Game Doctor SF series of copiers to play SNES roms on the actual SNES.

Otherwise you need to get an EPROM/FlashROM programmer, writable rom chips like eprom or flash, a suitable donor cartridge, and soldering skills. People do build SNES reproduction carts like this but it's not that common and I've never found anyone doing it for other people. I recommend you buy the flash cart or copier. It's more cost effective when you decide to play other SNES games.

I looked into the Tototek cart, but since I only really want to play this and maybe Seiken Densetsu 3 I didn't think it justified getting an entire flash cart setup. Plus they are sold out...

I've heard of the Game Doctor but I'm not sure how it works. Could you explain it a little?

Thanks for the responses.

ainge wrote: I've heard of the Game Doctor but I'm not sure how it works. Could you explain it a little?

You need to use 3.5" floppy disks. You plug it into your SNES, load the game from your disk(s), and it stays loaded as long as the power adapter is still plugged in.

Also, if you have a PC or laptop with a parallel port, you could configure it so you can upload roms from your PC directly to the game doctor sf (version SF6 and SF7 only) which is what I do. I have a 6 foot or so parallel 25 pin straight thru cable that goes from my PC to my Game Doctor SF7 so I can quickly upload roms and avoid the need for floppy disks. Like Memblers said though, you could use 3.5" Floppy disks and only have to load a game whenever you change it as it will retain it's memory as long as the Game Doctor device is plugged into the electrical power.

They aren't overly expensive or anything. Since you just want to play those few games you could get a cheaper GD SF3 or a GD SF6. I have a spare GD SF3 but the floppy drive for it is dead so it'd need to be replaced. But Tototek probably has the GD SF3 in stock. Just make sure it has 32 megabits of memory. That what you need for both those games.

MottZilla wrote:Also, if you have a PC or laptop with a parallel port, you could configure it so you can upload roms from your PC directly to the game doctor sf (version SF6 and SF7 only) which is what I do. I have a 6 foot or so parallel 25 pin straight thru cable that goes from my PC to my Game Doctor SF7 so I can quickly upload roms and avoid the need for floppy disks. Like Memblers said though, you could use 3.5" Floppy disks and only have to load a game whenever you change it as it will retain it's memory as long as the Game Doctor device is plugged into the electrical power.

They aren't overly expensive or anything. Since you just want to play those few games you could get a cheaper GD SF3 or a GD SF6. I have a spare GD SF3 but the floppy drive for it is dead so it'd need to be replaced. But Tototek probably has the GD SF3 in stock. Just make sure it has 32 megabits of memory. That what you need for both those games.

Hello MottZilla
How to configure parallel port work with game doctor? require some software?
Thx.

i think ucon should be enough ?

When your PC is first turned on you need to hit the key it tells you to hit to enter the BIOS setup. Then you need to find the section that sets the mode of your parallel port. I believe that EPP+ECP 1.7 mode will work but I'm not 100% sure. Other than that you need to have UCon64 and you need to follow the install instructions for the driver to use the parallel port with Ucon64. Ask at the ucon64 forums if you need help.

Bregalad wrote:All I can say is that Terranigma uses a SHVC-1J3M board. It shouldn't be very usefull. If you can get such a board and change the mask ROM (and maybe change the pinouts as well) you should be done, but unfortuantely it's probably impossible to find 4MBx8 EPROMs. You'll have to deal with a stack of smaller EPROMs and a '138/'139 decoder.

Actually I personally use 29f032 with a tsop to dip circuit board. Works really well.

I don't get why someone hasn't made any ReproPak-style cart boards for the SNES yet. Something like that would really make things a hell of a lot easier.

Maybe someday it will happen. The SNES is probably easier to handle the memory layout than the NES which has mappers that need emulating. The SNES just has various bank layouts depending on the game I believe. Ofcourse if you wanted to get crafty you could try to do something to support chips like DSP, C4, SFX, etc.

I'm not sure, but I don't think any FPGA capable of emulating most of the special chips can be made 5V tolerant within reason like the PowerPak. If you're going to use such a big FPGA anyway, it'd be cooler to clone the whole thing.

Bregalad wrote:All I can say is that Terranigma uses a SHVC-1J3M board. It shouldn't be very usefull. If you can get such a board and change the mask ROM (and maybe change the pinouts as well) you should be done, but unfortuantely it's probably impossible to find 4MBx8 EPROMs. You'll have to deal with a stack of smaller EPROMs and a '138/'139 decoder.

i've found 4Mb eproms at a lot of places, for more reasonable prices than 8s (i'm actually planning on doing this project, with an ntsc patch on the terranigma rom). 27C040 is the IBM one. is there a reason you think they're hard to find? i believe i'm looking at the right ones, but you have me second guessing myself

The 2XY040 is a 4Mbit chip not 4MByte. You will need to get 32Mbits/4Mbytes in total, so you'd need 8 of those buggers
I'd locate a 29F032 chip and a TSOP adaptor, much less hassling.