nesdev.org

Thanks for the tips, it's much appreciated. I believe I was setting it under the "design goal and strategies", what a crock.

Anything definitive that states that the Sunsoft 5A has audio hardware and access to 512K PRG yet?

B00daW wrote:Anything definitive that states that the Sunsoft 5A has audio hardware and access to 512K PRG yet?

Since there were no games that had 512KB PRG I haven't invested much time in seeing what'd have to be done to make it work. The current version that supports 256KB PRG & CHR (and WRAM) takes up 134Macrocells out of 144 available. So it might fit with some trickery, but when I was initially compiling it I recall that I had issues fitting all the CHR due to routing constraints, not because of available logic. It's possible that some of the same settings that were burning Memblers were burning me back then as well though...

Either way 512KB is directed towards homebrew, and there could be simplifications made to make 512KB fit. One easy choice is to limit the range of some of the CHR banks. Something like that probably wouldn't even limit the homebrew, it'd just have to be considered in the design.

An even better solution would be converting to 32KB CHR-RAM (or ROM). That'd work well for one who was just looking for more PRG for the sole purpose of audio storage. I'd expect that would allow 512KB PRG no problem, and probably even support expansion to 1MB of PRG or more if you wanted it. If you're interested in such a mapper let me know and I'll add it to the list.

As for the audio, it's fully supported on the new revision. All you've got to do is drop in and solder in the AY-3-8910, I put that whole mess of wires into the PCB traces. I also picked up a batch of them so those can be sold along with the board for $8 more, that way people don't have to mess around with the foreign suppliers on ebay...

B00daW wrote:Anything definitive that states that the Sunsoft 5A has audio hardware and access to 512K PRG yet?

There's no way the 5A has both; they use the same pins. People have experimentally determined elsewhere in the forum that the 5A doesn't have audio. I wouldn't be surprised if the 5A had neither, and maybe had just the inverter/amplifier.

Does anyone know how I order these boards?

Nothing on his website, and I've PM'ed him, and get no response.

Thanks

Sorry I can't always respond within 24hrs, I've replied to your PM.

Figured it's about time for an update on these boards since they've come up a few other places, and there's been some newer happenings. I tend to shy away from updates like this, because I always feel like I'm spamming. But oh well, since this thread is devoted to these boards I suppose it's okay. Sorry it's one gigantic post that covers quite a few topics.... When I started writing some of the last couple paragraphs I considered branching it off to another topic, but felt too much like spam. Perhaps I can branch it later if necessary. The 'bigger news' is towards the end, so maybe just skip there if you're not in for some light reading.

First off I'd like to thank everyone in the community for their support for this project. I can say it's been extremely more successful than I would have ever expected. If it wouldn't have been for all the early support in the beginning especially I very well may have never considered the project to be worth the effort. I struggle with the idea of sharing this info with concern of sounding pretentious as if I'm trying to toot my own horn. But really one of the big motivators I had for this was knowing the large number of original boards out there getting sacrificed everyday for repros. I know I'm not the only one here saddened by that, so I can proudly say that there are currently over 1000 of these boards out there in the world today which have saved the lives of many good games. Much to my surprise repro-makers are becoming open to the idea of new boards. While they do cost more, the time savings is great. Additionally they don't have to be as selective since they're using donors for cases only at the moment. It's safe to say I'm starting to put a dent in the number of 'better' MMC3/MMC1/FME-7 games being sacraficed to the repro-man... Because of the success of this project I can say without doubt I will be making the jump to acquiring new cases as well to bundle along with the boards.

Secondly after a year of working on these boards I can officially say many of the popular mapper and board configurations are fully released. No longer are they only available by request. I've got em posted up on my site. The most popular variants are posted up for immediate checkout. I'm trying to ramp up on pre-assembled stock right now, but I'm struggling to keep up with all the different variants and my constant urge to support more mappers, board configs, and features. Currently around half of sales are built to order and end up with a 1-2week lead time.

As for my current status of this board; I'm officially calling this large through hole board "INL-ROM v1" aka "EPROM" or "Through-hole" version. The initial first batch was v1.0 and had support tailored mainly for MMC1,3,FME-7, and discrete mappers. Earlier this year I whipped up v1.1 which added support for the 8910 synth for Sunsoft-5B with full sound, and MMC2&4 as well. Recently I created INL-ROM v2.0 which is directed towards providing a fully assembled board that requires no soldering. This original version1 isn't going anywhere though. It will stick around since it's the only version to have 8910 synth support, and MMC2&4. Additionally this version will remain mostly through hole compatible. Honestly I haven't gotten any requests for an unassembled board, but as a do-it yourself type of guy I want to ensure the option exists. So if someone wanted to produce a discrete mapper board sourcing their own component through-hole components and everything; that option will continue to exist with these boards. Part of this is also due to the uncertain future of retrozone's repropaks, I have a feeling they may become a thing of the past much like their MMC1 repropaks once their shelf is empty. It's well known their focusing their efforts on some other special project over there, so their future uncertain.

I'm about to start making some tweaks to this for v1.3 since it's getting the time it's about time for me to order another batch of this version. Most changes are just component footprints. Some planned changes are removing through hole WRAM. Having it effectively requires a surface mount CPLD/mapper and power supply. That and suppling the entire battery backing circuitry including SRAM ensures proper lower standby component part selection. It's also because I'm try to stop stocking 32KB soic SRAM. I can get 128KB soic SRAM for the same price and it has a wider footprint. CHR-RAM is staying 32KB, but moving to SOJ package since it's a smaller footprint and cheaper. Additionally I'll be adding PLCC flash chip support for PRG and CHR ROMs, this is mainly since MMC2,3,sunsoft5 stay on this version. I'll probably add jumpers to gain support for VRC mappers, trading upper PRG data bits for lower address bits. Maybe a few other minor details will get in there as well.

Lastly, I feel that I owe a great deal to the nesdev community I owe so many people so much. I'm trying to come up with some ways that I can use the success of this project to give back to the community. One of the biggest goals of this project was to try and provide a hardware solution to help people release their own homebrew game/project. There weren't many options in the past especially if you weren't the electrical engineering/hardware type of guy. The large investment is certainly daunting to acquire everything needed to make your own cartridges especially if you don't know how to solder. And if you didn't want to get into all that your only option was to try and sign a deal with retrozone, not sure what that deal is/was exactly but it appears somewhat restrictive. Either that or one may have felt their game/project wasn't 'grand' enough for a retrozone release. I'm not trying to knock retrozone here, I appreciate everything they've done for the community. They've pioneered much of the type of projects I do myself, and bunnyboy has supported me with numerous projects of mine including this one. They too have saved many original cartridges from the repro-man. They're just not everyone's taste when it comes to releasing homebrews as I understand.

I don't have a lot of details of what I'd like to offer exactly at the moment. But the biggest thing I can help share is the power of scale that I've generated. It wouldn't be difficult for me to cover the initial investment in a modest production run of a homebrew title. I know acquiring funds for such an effort are prohibitive expensive for many. I have no interest in gaining 'publishers rights' for your homebrew titles for something like a long term contract. I'd only look to do whatever the artist intended. Just want to make a batch of 10-50 carts and see how it goes to start? Then perhaps consider what other options there are for a second/longer term release after you've built up some funds? Cool with me, I'd love to do what I can to help. If someone wanted to presell carts on their own site/ebay or something and then pay for the hardware after the presale that could work as well. If there's interest I could sell titles on my site as well, but I'd never try to push that option; I'd just be available if the artist chose to for however long fit their fancy. IDK, I'm probably not wording this too well, and perhaps I should be more formal. But I figure I'll just toss it out there and see what your response is. My only real concern at this point is that my gestures will be misconstrued as seeking my own personal gain. I'm trying to just be as open and honest as I can, not sure how else to get a message like this across without sounding like a salesman or something... If it helps I can say that I'll even go as far as to provide my products as close to cost as I can for an 'initial batch' trial run of anyone's game. So that would give decent discount on a batch of boards compared to what's listed on my site at any given time. I can also help you pinch pennies on the hardware design to tailor the board/mapper for your game specifically.

Feel free to chime in on any thoughts you may have on that last part (either publicly or privately). If there's interest for something like this even if it were to be months/years down the road, I suppose it'd be a good idea to try and formalize some of this and post it on my site or something after getting some feedback. If something like this sounds of interest, but you're thinking you may never even end up making the game you've been meaning to for years, I'm still interested in your thoughts on this. I don't want to make this a one time deal or anything. I'd love to offer something like this to the community till the day I die, you guys are the best.

First off new here and got to say THANK YOU! INL. Your flashcart is just what I've been looking for. WaHoo!!
Just a little background: I'm coming from a chiptune point of view. For a while Neil Baldwin has been producing some great homebrews for the chiptune crowd, and a few of his titles are designed for SXROM mapper. So to run on real hardware the choices are: PowerPak/N8 or try to find a FC SXROM cart or try to convert a NES SNROM to SXROM. The success rate has been low for the conversions. There seems to be an issue between the Nec MMC1 and the Sharp MMC1 chips. The problem is compounded by the fact that Neil doesn't have the time or resources to test his code on other people's hacked carts, so there may be a slight issue with the code or with the conversions or the mappers or with the user's NES. It works fine in Nestopia and on the PowerPak or the N8, judging from the user reports.
The PowerPak seems out of production (ATM or forever?) and the cost is not trivial. The cost for the N8 is also a barrier for me. The one point both these carts shine at is the access to save states, this is a major ++ when working on music.
SO when I stumbled on to your work I got really excited! Your V1.X board seems like the ticket. I will be ordering one and a USB dumper very soon!!!
A couple questions:
1. Is it possible to dump/load save states on your V1; would you consider that as a option on the V2 design?
2. Are new cases going to be a reality? Hate killing a cart for the case.
3. After reading through the V2 thread, the inclusion of a uC sounds great. Will it be usable for Exp Audio/Midi? There are allot of people that would like to see a new 'MidiNES' type cart.
Thanks again for your efforts, it really is great having a low cost second source for carts!
Yogi

yogi wrote:The PowerPak seems out of production (ATM or forever?)

On IRC, bunnyboy told me it should be back in a couple weeks.

yogi wrote: 1. Is it possible to dump/load save states on your V1; would you consider that as a option on the V2 design?

Do you mean the SRAM that is battery backed?

tepples wrote:

yogi wrote:The PowerPak seems out of production (ATM or forever?)

On IRC, bunnyboy told me it should be back in a couple weeks.

Thanks for the news, been check'n the site weekly for a while
Though I will be getting one at some point, my hopes are for a multiple NES setup, kind of crazy 'NES band', so more then one PowerPak starts getting costly.
Yogi

MottZilla wrote:

yogi wrote: 1. Is it possible to dump/load save states on your V1; would you consider that as a option on the V2 design?

Do you mean the SRAM that is battery backed?

Yes. Neil's ROMs are native trackers, so song data is saved on the cart. Being able to dump/load the song data allows composing on a PC and/or the NES. The PowerPak or N8 makes this a very painless process, but the cost is a concern.
INL's flash cart doesn't have the flexibility that an SD or CF card based cart does but with the Kazoo/ Usb dumper it comes very close at a far lower cost.
Yogi

yogi wrote:A couple questions:
1. Is it possible to dump/load save states on your V1; would you consider that as a option on the V2 design?
2. Are new cases going to be a reality? Hate killing a cart for the case.
3. After reading through the V2 thread, the inclusion of a uC sounds great. Will it be usable for Exp Audio/Midi? There are allot of people that would like to see a new 'MidiNES' type cart.
Thanks again for your efforts, it really is great having a low cost second source for carts!
Yogi

Thanks for the kind words Yogi, here's answers to your questions.

1. If I understand you're question, you're asking if you can use the kazzo to load/dump save files to and from SRAM on the cart. That is independent of what version of my boards you're using. Both would support reading and writing to SRAM. The real question is whether the firmware of the dumper/programmer supports reading/writing to SRAM. The kazzo's original firmware already supports this to my knowledge. I haven't spent any time adding this feature to my version of the firmware, but have intent to soon.

2. Yes, I am in the process of getting cases. I'm officially pulling the trigger this week and cutting a check for the initial mold cost. I can't be 100% certain when I'll have cases available, but you can expect early next year. Details on this are still to come, but I can say I plan to be a cost effective option especially when paired with the purchase of a board.

3. There are lots of possible capabilities with the inclusion of a mcu on a cart. I've yet to actually start developing things beyond the PCB for this kind of capability. Sound is a goal I plan to develop myself. I don't have plans for MIDI, but it's a possibility that's more likely if developed by someone else.

Thanks for the reply, I went ahead and ordered last night, just too excited!
I been reading all I can find on the forums about the Kazzo and gathered that it could access the Bat backed ram; I guess I wasn't too clear with my thinking, it's not really a factor of the cart but the Kazzo. At any rate, looking forward to updates to your firmware/app, but it seems easy enough to upload the appreciate AVR firmware and use the orig app.
As to the V2/3, your ideas are great. As I mentioned before, there is allot of interest in a modern 'MidiNES' which your design would make a great platform. Will keep watching your progress.
Yogi

Yogi,

Using the original Kazzo board with the original firmware and client software, you could read and write SRAM on unmodified NES carts. Based on those reports, and the assumption that INL's programmer is 100% backwards-compatible with the Kazzo, you should be able to buy one of his programmers and boards and do the following:

1. Flash the programmer with INL-Retro firmware
2. Use the INL-Retro software (or the inlprog Linux utility) to flash the program and / or character ROM area(s)
3. Flash the programmer with Kazzo firmware
4. Use the Anago software (or the Linux port) to read or write the SRAM area

I will try to confirm this tonight if I have time.