8bitcollective

Hurray, glad to see you're making progress This is potentially the thing that will make chipchunz easily available for everyone to create!


Thought of a name for it yet?

Go JOSE!

I ordered a couple of carts flashed by lameboy and will probably pick up USB carts once they become available. Props once again to Bleep for all his hard work!

Sparkyboy wrote:

I'm still troubled. Should I get the normal flash gear or wait for the USB project? It looks so awesome!

Get both! Awww yeah.

If you urgently need a transferrer, buy a regular one - but if not, just chillax and wait for a USB one, should r0xx0r

herr_proff wrote:

Forgive me for being daft, but will this work on regular flashcarts too?

No worries, ask as specific and as many questions you like.

The USB Transferer software will eventually be compatible with all existing flash cartridge models. I'll list a matrix on the wiki when things settle down towards the end of the week. Initial cartridge programming capabilities will be the blue typical LSDJ and yellow emerger cartridges. If you have a different cartridge type, I made need volunteers willing to loan their cartridge so I can write software for that specific one.

This is all done through the use of a very capable microcontroller ( AT90USB ) that controls all cartridge data lines.

Ok, I'm totally confused here. Or I am missing things!? Can you explain the project in n00b terms? You said this will work with normal flash carts, is that the 32m smart cart? What is this microcontroller? How much will the project cost?

I just bought my first parallel transferrer because I need it for a show next week. I don't think, though, that this will stop me from getting one of these when they become available. I've been waiting for more news, thread delivers. Thanks, can't wait.

Sounds amazing!

BleepBloop wrote:

1x500K Xilinx FPGA - Available Later -- Free CoProcessor Modules ( C64, Atari, NES, Gameboy CoProcessors. Really excited about developing this feature further at a later time. )

Err... for us n00bs: What exactly is a "1x500K Xilinx FPGA" and a "Free CoProcessor Module" and why should I be really excited about them? You make it sound super cool, but I have no clue what it does.

how might this be distributed once created?

Grey_and_Purple wrote:

Sounds amazing!

BleepBloop wrote:

1x500K Xilinx FPGA - Available Later -- Free CoProcessor Modules ( C64, Atari, NES, Gameboy CoProcessors. Really excited about developing this feature further at a later time. )

Err... for us n00bs: What exactly is a "1x500K Xilinx FPGA" and a "Free CoProcessor Module" and why should I be really excited about them? You make it sound super cool, but I have no clue what it does.

Warning: All this technology is really cool and has a lot of Technojargon. But it's all related. Any idea can be put to the test and developed further.

I'm just having fun learning, doing, and sharing.

The size of the FPGA is 500,000 logic gates. Every CPU in each console, NES (6502 & 2A03), Gameboy (Z80 Deriv.), etc. are made up of logic gates. You can hypothetically load an interconnected mesh of C64 CPUs, and SIDs, Atari 2600 CPU, and 6502 NES CPU in one single FPGA device.

Your DMG Gameboy, Pocket, Color, DS is now everything that it isn't with an FPGA.

In addition the microSD drive, a 6GB microSD card is $64 / 2GB $13. ( Price on Amazon.com)
You can save configurations, chip ROMs, processor modules, tracker software, MP3s, XMs, the list goes on. 

FPGAs (Field Programmable Gate Arrays) are reconfigurable computer chips.

An example new application of this technology is in software defined CPU Modules (Cores). Depending on how many logic gates are consumed you can add additional modules or peripherals. Any microcontroller or device can be built from the tools supported by the product manufacturers.

There is now another on going project that uses an FPGA as a software defined radio. This means that whenever they change the standard, from CDMA, TDMI, GSM cell phone tower or satellite signals like GPS, your cellphone can simply update to use these services with a simple software package.

I hope that gives some insight into why that particular part should be exciting.


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jesus christ man

im a total n00b at hardware and yet you are causing me to nearly shit my self with excitement

BleepBloop wrote:

They can link together and with your Windows PC (Vista, XP, Windows 9X,NT,2003) / Mac OSX (Tiger 10.4, Leopard 10.5) / Linux (Ubuntu,Fedora,Gentoo) computer.

If I am reading this right, it looks like you connect your cart to your USB transferrer, connect it you your mac/pc/linux box and it appears like any other USB hard disk and you can drag and drop roms on to it?

Thats simply wonderful!