Anyone interested in some ZIF Dev Carts?

[R-T-B]

This is sort of an ad, but just as much I consider this a community service for newbies. I'm not in this for a profit but if anyone thinks this violates forum rules please don't hesitate to take it down.

I have quite a few dev carts laying around for my own use I basically don't need anywhere near as many as I have, but find I kind of enjoy making them... I've gotten to the point where I almost never even burn myself on the NES boards (the PCBs never really got burned, just me. )

I'd be willing to cook some up for some forum members not so skilled at soldering and have an ample supply of donor carts and/or third party boards plus associated EPROM/EEPROMS and other chips to make them in the following configurations:

NROM
CNROM
UOROM
AOROM
MMC1 (pretty much whatever you want).

Turn around is probably about 1-3 business days (depending on whether I need to make it or have it), and I'd ask for a price of $45 to cover build time/labor, parts, and shipping to most of the world. I can work with people who are strapped for cash though, just that's my asking price.

I can also do special order boards, including MMC5, whatever. Just understand it will be a special order and I'll probably ask for more (think like $70 for MMC5). I also might have to refund your money if I simply can't find the parts, but I'll do that promptly in most cases.

All boards feature a nicely cut "perfect fit" hole for the ZIF sockets easy access, and for those with board controlled mapping, a toggle switch that toggles between H and V mirroring with labels. The carts are stripped of labels and will ship to you with nothing minus my own little logo that can easily be removed. Your free to customize.

Hope someone takes me up on this, as I'm actually finding myself enjoying the hardware part more than the software part. Guess that makes me weird?

Thanks for reading, PM me if interested.

[Banshaku]

Hmmm... It could be considered advertisement but it's a service to the community in a way (with the recent surge in repro, this service could help).

I guess only Memblers, Koitsu and Tepples can decide if it does break the Parodius policy about advertising.

[R-T-B]

Yeah, if it does no hard feelings just take it down. I saw the SNES PowerPak thread though and figured I'd see.

[Banshaku]

I'm just the admin of the wiki so the forum is not my jurisdiction

[Memblers]

Yeah it's advertising, but it's far from being spam. There's no way around hardware costing money, and if it's potentially beneficial to NES developers, then it seems fine to me.

Though I can see why it'd be kind of hazy to draw the line, if someone registered entirely to come in here and sell something like a service (cart modding) or commodity (tools, chips), even that was relevant, they'd be seen as an "outsider" and probably met with a high degree of suspicion unless they were reputable and also had unbeatable prices.

But yeah speaking of prices, I think they are a little high, but it's totally within reason (if that makes any sense). For comparison, for a short time several years ago I was offering built UNROM carts with a FlashROM + case (not cut ones like yours tho) for $22 (CopyNES compatible for writing, or could be socketed). With a new PCB and all. Demand was so low (probably since I'm averse to doing "reproductions/bootlegs"), that it was nearly a waste of time if it wasn't so fun and educational to do for myself. I sold 2 or 3 of them. Not that I advertised it much. I'm sure by now there's more hardware-averse people that may be interested in a service like this. Though using socketed EPROMs for development is pretty unfriendly, I'd definitely say to wire them up for flash chips.

Hope someone takes me up on this, as I'm actually finding myself enjoying the hardware part more than the software part. Guess that makes me weird?

Yeah, it was the same thing for me here too. I pretty much dived right into the hardware thing as a newb, after a little coding burnout. I soon found out that I could combine those 2 things together in new and exciting ways by putting a PIC MCU on an NES cart (Squeedo project), heheh.

[R-T-B]

Though using socketed EPROMs for development is pretty unfriendly, I'd definitely say to wire them up for flash chips.

Actually, some of my stuff is parallel EEPROMs, which should be a little better (got sick of erasing). Just nothing above CNROM capacity. I could aquire a flash inventory, just need to be sure there's an interest first. If no ones adverse to drop ordering parts, I'll do flashrom as well.

And the prices are pretty negotiable, esspecially to those living in the US and/or wanting multiple carts. I just wanted to set a baseline so it's worth my time at least, but it's hardly fixed. As I said, I'll ship just about anywhere with that price provided the customs don't eat NES carts.

[koitsu]

Nope, doesn't violate any server/network policies. If everyone's cool with it on the forum then let it stay. :-)

[R-T-B]

Awesome, thanks for the permission guys.

Just thought I would add, I also can offer a Copy-NES installation service. Price would be similar to that of the dev cart, however you would supply the NES and CopyNES boards.

[mrmark0673]

PM sent for one board, though I could probably use 2 more in the future.

[R-T-B]

Recieved. Unfortunately I am away from the house for the moment and any orders will have to wait for quotation until Monday, but I'll get back to you guys!