grrr, I moved last xmas from a full blown desktop machine to a thin laptop with win10.
You're lucky ! My dev laptop was manufactured in 2010 ^^;
he modded the driver for large transfer to get higher speeds.
his tool is running in the shell and looks like norton commander 25 years ago ;-)
I don't think it is worth to port it, but I will send it to you via PM for acadmic reasons w/ source.
Thank you. I you like tools full of keyboard shortcuts, I can adapt it for USB dev cart.
I feel a bit nostalgic to see Visual Studio version 6 project ... I made my first C projects on that compiler
🙂
yeah sure I forgot the central pillar, but if you move the sd-slot to the left or right it should be possible and not so bad with the maybe missing symmetric optic if the SD-card is fully inserted.
I'm not sure it's possible, because this would require to remove a part that keep the shell closed.
I have no clue about 3D-printing, but Darius sounded like 3D-printing would be to expensive, at least for now where so much defective old carts are out there.
Well, I actually would be OK to pay
a bit more than Action Replay shells in order to get custom shells for my cartridges
🙂
The lack of people motived to design and print custom shells is the most important bottleneck I think. And yes, it's easy to find Action Replay shells, so this breaks motivation to do something different.
(Are you French ? I though you used Darius forums for SGC purchase only, but it seems you are following his forums too.)
so for programming the CPLD not to flash a SGC over this JTAG outside a saturn ?
Yes : CPLD is programmed via JTAG, and SH-2 firmware is flashed directly from Saturn.
but there are some unused pins left ?
even a slow serial link option with those 1-2 buck$ usb-com-converters will do ?
That's a very small CPLD (EPM3064, Altera MAX3000 series), so I'm not even sure serializer/deserializer logic (in order to interface between USB dev cart registers and serial communication port) would fit.
But if you're OK to break compatibility with USB dev cart (= do the serialize/deserialize job on SH-2 side), remaining glue logic should fit in CPLD.
so hitomi2500's approach with a FPGA with RAM on chip or emulated RAM in the gates is the easier solution for this problem ?
Yes : it's flexible, and hitomi2500's FPGA (MAX10) has by far more horsepower than my poor EPM3064
🙂
The demerit is that it's more difficult to solder than SGC, a bit more expensive too, and still WIP too.
this will do for now, so to speak I will take the just "USB Dev cart" you have in stock (more via PM).
Thank you ! I keep it for you.
in general I looking for the ultimate cart (in 3-4 years), "one for all" pcb but modular (not fully populated) to save costs ?
I prefer to design one PCB per cartridge type :
- It allows to use CPLD/FPGA suited for cartridge, rather than one common CPLD/FPGA for each cartridges.
- I prefer to order PCBs little by little, in order to avoid manufacturing problems on large batchs, and because I do this as an hobby. So ordering different PCBs for each cartridge type is not a problem.
- so a pure gamer buys only e.g. the SGC-version.
- a homebrewer buys the usb-dev-version
- the collector the ultimate-version
This is my way of doing/thinking things too
🙂
There are still many things to do on Saturn cartridge : RAM, modem, ODE, homebrew, etc ... but doing such ultimate cartridge would take decades, and cost (both development and manufacturing) a lot.
So I decided to focus on SGC first, which would satisfy a majority of "casual" users.
but all have at least 3 function:
- import adapter
- pseudo saturn
- 1m/4m ram
Yes, but games requiring RAM can work with Action Replay cartridge, and in this case backup memory feature is useless, so that I didn't added RAM in SGC.
and one of the obligated options:
- SD-Card (with a better CPLD are higher speeds than 40 kb/s possible ?)
- USB
so we could get a broad base (worldwide) to load homebrew (and later semi-commercial releases like on dreamcast) from CD-R or SD or USB.
Yes : SD card is good for homebrew programs, since it allows to update program, add levels, etc easily.
but all depends an jhl's mpeg-slot-cart (price point, features), it maybe cheaper to have 2 carts in different slots, and you or somebody have not to invent the wheel again for usb-loading (maybe only from USB-device instead from USB-PC-Server).
VCD port and cartridge port have both strong and weak points :
VCD port is best located for CD-ROM, audio, video related things, while cartridge port is the only solution to add RAM and boot code, so both will be required I think.
for realtime cheat hunting like with AR / Commslink or ODE-feature (like jhl's mpeg-slot-cart) ?
Yes : USB dev cart is not designed to do ODE things.
what hidden gems you have in the pipeline ?
Long time I was waiting a context in order to show
that gif 😀
More seriously, I don't plan a lot of new hardware releases in near future, and plan to focus on software (cheat codes addition, homebrew applications) instead.
In the same time of SGC development, I made a
USB dev cart + SD card cartridge. It works, but it is still in "messy prototype" stage and even doesn't fits in Action Replay shell.
If you're interested in developing games for SGC, I can make such cartridge for you
😉
maybe you've got a bad iso? does the burned disk work on emulators such as SSF?
