USB dev cart project

cafe-alpha said:
Thank you very much
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I plan to order PCB and ICs, so it is possible to provide you parts for building one dev cart.

Also, I can solder ICs if you want, so please let me know if you are interested.
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Yes, I'd be very interested in purchasing one.

I can deal with the soldering the chips, but the capacitors are too small for me.
 
mrkotfw said:
Yes, I'd be very interested in purchasing one.

I can deal with the soldering the chips, but the capacitors are too small for me.
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I just sent you an e-mail (to whatever e-mail you used to register with SegaXtreme).
 
I could solder some dev cart, and they work
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I currently got 3 spare carts, and can mount other if needed.

Any people interested ?

Price (without shipping) is 33 Euros ($42) per cart.

Shipping price is described here in "Up to 300g" row : http://www.post.japanpost.jp/int/charge/list/ems_all_en.html

Examples :

To USA is JPY1200, which is $15

To Europe is JPY1200, which is 15 Euros

Extra item :

3m USB extender cable to connect between to mini B USB cable and PC : JPY315 ($4 or 3.5 Euros)

Adding extender cable won't change shipping costs.

Notes:

- I don't provide case, so you should re-use case from Action Replay or memory cart.

- I don't provide mini B USB cable too.

- For Windows users : I can provide transfer tool to communicate with USB dev cart.

It works fine on Windows XP. I couldn't test on Windows 7, but it should work.

- All carts are tested, and (of course) I don't ship deffective carts.

However, if your cart doesn't work, please contact me in order to track and fix problems.

- In the case your cart need to be sent back to me for repairing, all shipping fees are at your charge.
 
Do the boards fit in the case with straight header pins? I used angled pins and cut a larger opening in the case so I could short them without having to open the cartridge. Also, just out of curiosity, what PCB house did you use?
 
antime said:
Do the boards fit in the case with straight header pins? I used angled pins and cut a larger opening in the case so I could short them without having to open the cartridge. Also, just out of curiosity, what PCB house did you use?
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I use the same PCB house as mentioned on your homepage (Seeed Studio).

The reason I used Seeed Studio was low cost, and fast shipping, because PCB are sent from Hong Kong to Japan.

And the jumper fit in the memory cart case
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However, I didn't verified if it is OK with an Action Replay case.

If it doesn't fit, I will probably cut the jumper by half.
 
antime said:
Do the boards fit in the case with straight header pins? I used angled pins and cut a larger opening in the case so I could short them without having to open the cartridge. Also, just out of curiosity, what PCB house did you use?
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I tried to put a dev cart into my Action Replay case, but jumper pins were too long. After cutting pins by around 2~3 mm, everything was OK
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I don't plan to allow to short jumper when a case is used, because jumper is only for maintenance purpose.

Chilly Willy said:
I'm interested in one. How do I go about getting one?
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Please send me an email from here (mail via segaxtreme) or here (formmail).

If you don't get reply after several days (because email is lost, etc), please add a reply to this topic.

You need to specify :

- Where the dev cart need to be sent, in order to calculate shipping fees.

- If you want to purchase extra item (3m USB extension cable).

After that, I will transmit you the total price and when I can ship your cart it to you. <- If I got cart in stock, I can ship it without delay.

When your cart is ready to be shipped, I will send you a paypal address where you need to send the money to.

After receiving the money, I will send you your dev cart by EMS and your postal tracking number by email.

Thanks in advance
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Edit : English corrections
 
My cart came in! That was fast!
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I put it in my 8Mbit DRAM cart case... I get a green screen - I suppose it's waiting for communication across the USB? Or does it need that CD image to program it? Not sure what to do at this point.

The USB cable you included was the wrong type - it had the big end, not the small end. Not a problem - I have plenty of USB cables of the proper type. This gives me an extra of a type I don't have many of, so I can still make use of it.
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Chilly Willy said:
My cart came in! That was fast!
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I put it in my 8Mbit DRAM cart case... I get a green screen - I suppose it's waiting for communication across the USB? Or does it need that CD image to program it? Not sure what to do at this point.

The USB cable you included was the wrong type - it had the big end, not the small end. Not a problem - I have plenty of USB cables of the proper type. This gives me an extra of a type I don't have many of, so I can still make use of it.
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Good you could receive it
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Please let me know if it works correctly !

The green screen means that USB dev cart is waiting for communication from PC. The screen would become orange when some data is transferred between Saturn and PC.

I'm preparing a firmware update that doesn't run from RAM. This update should be ready this week-end.

About the cable : USB dev cart needs a cable with a mini B male USB connector. Since this kind of cable is very common (it can be found with external hard disk drives, USB hubs, etc), I don't provide it with USB dev cart.

However, as typical mini B USB cable is short (50 cm or so), I provide an extension cable so that you don't need to put your Saturn in the neighboring of your PC.

Also, as I fear that USB dev cart + extension cable + mini B USB cable weight would be over than maximum weight for EMS cheapest shipping price, it is not included with USB dev cart.

Note : 2 dev cart are still remaining for sale
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Selling details can be found here.
 
cafe-alpha said:
Good you could receive it
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Please let me know if it works correctly !
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Well, I get the green screen, so that much is working. I'll get the PC connection going and let you know how it goes.

The green screen means that USB dev cart is waiting for communication from PC. The screen would become orange when some data is transferred between Saturn and PC.

I'm preparing a firmware update that doesn't run from RAM. This update should be ready this week-end.
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Nifty!

About the cable : USB dev cart needs a cable with a mini B male USB connector. Since this kind of cable is very common (it can be found with external hard disk drives, USB hubs, etc), I don't provide it with USB dev cart.

However, as typical mini B USB cable is short (50 cm or so), I provide an extension cable so that you don't need to put your Saturn in the neighboring of your PC.
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Oh! You're right - it IS an extension cable. Don't know how I missed that. I have a couple of those as well, but they're in use so I'd have to disconnect one, so this cable will come in handy.

Also, as I fear that USB dev cart + extension cable + mini B USB cable weight would be over than maximum weight for EMS cheapest shipping price, it is not included with USB dev cart.
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It's fine - I prefer the great ship time + low cost.
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I've already compiled the PC side code for transfers. Just need to string this across the room and try it. I'll post back with the result (hopefully a speed for transfer).

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Okay! Works great!
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I get 377KB/sec reading, and 413KB/sec writing. I dumped the hi-ram for the read test, and executed the nbg0 example from libyaul for the write test.

Awesome cart! Thanks!
 
In the client, green means waiting for commands, orange means transferring, and if there's a transfer error the screen will turn red for about two seconds before returning to green.

Transferring to workram-H gives highest achievable speed. Eg. transferring to workram-L is already noticeably slower.
 
Chilly Willy said:
Okay! Works great!
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I get 377KB/sec reading, and 413KB/sec writing. I dumped the hi-ram for the read test, and executed the nbg0 example from libyaul for the write test.

Awesome cart! Thanks!
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I feel relieved it worked !

You should thank antime first
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I just connected some ICs on a PCB ^^
 
cafe-alpha said:
I feel relieved it worked !

You should thank antime first
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I just connected some ICs on a PCB ^^
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Thanks, antime! But I do thank you, too, for doing a good job on assembling the boards - I know exactly how tough that can be having assembled many by hand myself. I don't do as much of that anymore - arthritis is starting to give me troubles. These days, I'm more likely to pay someone else to put something together for me... like I just did!
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Hi, is this USB dev cart available for sale somewhere ? Or can anyone point me in some
direction of a Saturn/USB to PC device.
We have done some games in the past, for example Sturmwind for Dreamcast and Native for the good old
Atari Jag, Saturn seems such a nice machine to do some stuff.
So if anyone can give some hints for good Dev stuff (especially the hardware needed to transfer from PC
to Saturn), would be much appreciated
 
vbt said:
And don't miss SatCom, a really great tool !
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Anyone care to elaborate the USB cart a bit ?
I know the answer is certainly here in the board but its a lot
of threads so forgive my ignorance.

The thing i would like to know is how do you get the "receiver program"
running in the saturn, do you need a "modchiped" saturn which is able
to boot not so original saturn cds and boot a loader disc?
Or is there some kind of program started directly from the cartridge which would be to good to be true 😉
 
The cartridge will boot from onboard flash. If you're building the cartridge yourself you'll still need to program the flash, either using an eprommer before soldering, or by running a flasher tool on the Saturn if you have a modchip.
 
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