Being not good at soldering and all, i was wondering if someone is ready to sell me a homemade flashcart or throught a trade of items, there are some homebrews that I would like to try on the real console…

Yeah, I’d first learn the fundamentals of programming, then just start looking at well commented C/C++ code and of course sample Virtual Boy code (which isn’t usually very well commented 😉 ). Get your VB compiling environment set up, compile a sample, start making simple modifications, and eventually you’ll pick it up… and have your own game 🙂 . Once you understand programming, languages are pretty easy to pick up.

DogP

Hi, before you blame me because of my post (and my poor enlish), I must admit that I am in the programming side of the force, so I hardly understand anything you’ve said about all the electronic stuff, but I ve’been programming for the vb for a while. So I would like… and really need to know wich is the best (and easier) way to get my own creation over a functionally cart. I will apreciate any direction about which original cart (i.e baseball, mario tennis, etc) I should destroy doing it, wich eprom programmer and chips to pick up.

Thanks a lot.

Jorgeche

Depending how you are at soldering, you could make one by hand, but I should have the PCBs for sale shortly, which would save a lot of trouble. If you really want SRAM, you’ll have to build your own though. For an SRAM cart, I’d recommend using either Wario Land, Galactic Pinball, or Teleroboxer. They’re all pretty cheap, and all SRAM carts are identical, just like all non-SRAM carts are identical (so just destroy whichever is cheapest/easiest to get).

For programming it, I’d personally get a Willem programmer (like the one from: http://www.sivava.com/ ) and program the chips using the Willem. It’s the way that’s known to work well, and doesn’t require a hacked up system or link cable. I’d recommend using PLCC 29F040’s.

What kind of stuff have you been programming? Working on any games, or just getting the feel for the system?

DogP

So you are making carts? 😀

Any idea of a price range for them yet?

Wow that PCB looks awesome DogP. I was about to finally break down and make my own flash cart, I just bought a some of the stuff I needed to build it but I geuss I’ll wait til you start selling these. It looks like so much less work and well made. Again, Nice. Maybe I’ll use my dead vb and stuff I bought for another project later.

Well, I haven’t really started “making” carts, but yeah… I’m trying to contact a few people that I’ve already promised carts to so I can see how many I’ll have left over. Of course I should have at least a few extras left over.

DogP

I am trying to build some kind of 2d/3d engine and a game by the way, i submited a demo that is published on the homebrew section, check it out.

Ah… cool… I didn’t see that demo in the homebrew section… I’ll try it out when I get home 🙂 .

DogP

Cool,
lets get some code out on the net so we can all start hacking a in system programable flash cart. I’ll try and unpack my VB and wire up /WE this weekend and see if I can replicate your work. I relay want a link port programmer going soon, I think it is the only way to realy make this work on a large scale.

On a Side note I moved to Tucosn, AZ so if any of you are down hear let me know. (sory Parasite, had to leave you)

David

Cool… making a cable for the link port itself IMO is going to be the hardest part of this whole thing. When you’re ready to mess with it, drop me an email (virtual.boy – comcast.net) and I’ll send you some code that I’ve been working on.

Also, I was able to directly port: http://www.st.com/stonline/books/pdf/docs/6887.pdf , and it works great (just have to change the ID since I’m using AMD instead of ST) and write a small driver main(), but I’m rewriting just the useful stuff in macros and in the main program since this is going to have to run in RAM, and I don’t feel like keeping track of seperate functions in RAM 😛 . Plus there’s extra stuff just wasting space.

DogP

Wow.

I should just give up on making one myself. Looks like you’re doing all the hard work. 😛

VirtualE’s link port hack works like a dream. I cut up two N64 AV cables and wired them into the VB in about a hour. (of cource I had a box of old AV cables laying around). Once we stabalizze the code you can put the program logic in the boot block and lock it down, that way a chip erase should leave it untouched.

David

Yeah, I don’t have any extras of those AV cables, and last time I looked for them (locally) I couldn’t find any for under $15 🙁 . I could probably order them, but I’m not too worried about it ATM since I’ve already hacked my personal one w/ an RJ45 connector.

I was thinking about the sector protection (mine don’t have the “boot block”), but then you’d have to do a sector by sector erase, not a chip erase (which AFAIK will abort if all blocks aren’t unprotected)… and if you want to upgrade it later, you wouldn’t be able to do it from the VB, since that requires Vid=12V. I haven’t looked into this for all chips, so it may be different for some of the x16 chips…

DogP

The problem with chopping a piece out of AV cables is putting them back together afterwards.

That, and not everyone has access to mass piles of cables to hack.

I got my cables from a used videogame shop. (I use to repair videogames in another life) Usualy they have boxes of the things laying around in the back. Especialy concidering that the same AV cable worked for the SNES and N64 (and game cube?)

Boot block is usualy found in the 16 bit chips, but future designes should use theas anyway to save cost. You would only use the boot block feature once the code was stable enough to make permanent (aka when you ufinaly decide to make 50 carts and sell them) Once the boot block is set yo ucan do a whole chip erase. Also block by block is not bad, since in the future you will be stuffing multiple games in one cart (boot loader anyone) and block by block would program faster.

David

But theres still the problem of sticking the cables back together after you have chopped the middle out of the plug (and its casing).

RunnerPack mentioned a while ago that he managed to chop an old 5.25″ FDD plug to fit the link port, and I was thinking that since they hae similar spacings you could also try an old ISA connector or even some IDC plugs chopped correctly to fit the port.

Yeah, 5 1/4″ cables should work, but they’re a lot thicker, so you wouldn’t really be able to have any plastic on the outside. I’ve been able to make one out of two female USB connectors (epoxied together), but with those there’s no sides, and I’m not really sure of the best way to add sides that will actually stay on :P.

DogP

Just bought one of these.
I snapped it into a set of 6×2, trimmed the front corners slightly, and bent the (long) pins inwards.

It fits perfect! All the connections line up and it stays in all by itself.

…And best of all I can get 3(.333) connectors for $1.44AUD. 😀

No chopping AV/FDD/ISA plugs/sockets for me… 😉

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6×2? How does that work?

DogP

4×2 for the link port, and a row each side to fit the port.