Farts to be more precise, anyone know how to do this?
Do you me like burning an EPROM onto a cartridge, or dumping a cart and creating a rom file?
Either way I can't help you. :P
I'm talking about putting an EPROM onto a cart
I'm sure 133Mhz or Walky(if he shows up) can help you.
I hope so, there are a few hacks that I REALLY want to put on carts. I have a multi ROM that has SMW and Dream Mary (Called Mario Visionary on the multi), Twinbee, and quite a few others that I like.
And Super Mario Frustration :P
Dream Mary: VERY easy, just switch the mirroring on a plain vanilla SMB cart. No EPROMs needed!
Super Mario Frustration: Easy, just burn a new PRG EPROM for a plain vanilla SMB cart.
Twinbee: Why bother? It's included in most multicarts. Anyway it's probably a mapperless game so you can burn EPROMs for it if you like (use any other 1st-gen NES/FC game as a donor).
SMW for the Famicom: Outright IMPOSSIBLE. HK originals use crazy weird-ass mappers. To build a repro of that game, you need its mapper. Where do you get the mapper? From a SMW pirate cart! That kinda defeats the whole purpose doesn't it?
...and that's why you don't see Kart Fighter, MK3, Somari or SMW repros
Okay, explain to me a little simpler about SMBF...
I didn't quite understand that..
Also, how do I do that in the first place?
Also...what if I have a ROM of a multicart on my computer that I want to transfer over to a cart?
And..what's a vanilla SMB cart? How does it differ from a regular yellow one? lol sorry if I'm an uber-n00b
How does one switch mirroring? :o
Quote from: nintendodork on January 30, 2009, 08:41:22 pm
Okay, explain to me a little simpler about SMBF...
I didn't quite understand that..
Also, how do I do that in the first place?
The basics: NES/FC carts contain two memory chips: one is the PRG ROM (stands for Program ROM) and the other is the CHR ROM (stands for Character ROM). The PRG holds the game program itself, and the CHR holds all the graphics.
A something.NES ROM file on your computer contains a 16-byte header, and the PRG data followed by the CHR data.
To transfer a NES ROM to a real cart you need to strip the 16-byte header, and separate the PRG and CHR data into separate files. Then you burn those files into individual EPROMs which will become your new PRG and CHR ROMs. You install these into your donor cart and there you go. But the memory mapper must match! i.e. you can't burn SMB3 (which uses the MMC3 mapper) onto a SMB cart (which has no mapper at all). Unfortunately there are like 200+ different memory mappers for the NES/FC, including variations and weird pirate ones.
Since Super Mario Forever (or Frustration) is not a graphics hack, you can get away with just replacing the PRG ROM (because the CHR ROM would be the same as the original SMB, no gfx changed) and leaving the CHR ROM untouched.
As for the multicart, you need the exact mapper chip from that multicart to make it work, and guess where you'd get said mapper.... yes... from the same multicart you're trying to recreate.
Quote from: nintendodork on January 30, 2009, 08:41:22 pm
And..what's a vanilla SMB cart? lol sorry if I'm an uber-n00b
Here, pick your favorite:
(http://www.nintendocity.com/pictures/nes_cart_scans/SuperMarioBros.jpg)
(http://elblogdemanu.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/SuperMarioBrosFamicom.jpg)
Quote from: nurd on January 30, 2009, 08:42:56 pm
How does one switch mirroring? :o
On an emulator, just search for the option to switch mirroring.
On a real mapperless cart, take a look:
(http://efnes.emu-france.com/dumps/Clu%20Clu%20Land/roms.jpg)
See those little solder pads near the gold pins labeled H and V? Those stand for Horizontal and Vertical mirroring respectively. To turn your SMB cart into a Dream Mary cart, remove the solder from one of the pads and put a blob of solder on the other one, and et voilá! Instant Dream Mary cart!
Quote from: 133MHz on January 30, 2009, 08:57:36 pm
Quote from: nintendodork on January 30, 2009, 08:41:22 pm
Okay, explain to me a little simpler about SMBF...
I didn't quite understand that..
Also, how do I do that in the first place?
The basics: NES/FC carts contain two memory chips: one is the PRG ROM (stands for Program ROM) and the other is the CHR ROM (stands for Character ROM). The PRG holds the game program itself, and the CHR holds all the graphics.
A something.NES ROM file on your computer contains a 16-byte header, and the PRG data followed by the CHR data.
To transfer a NES ROM to a real cart you need to strip the 16-byte header, and separate the PRG and CHR data into separate files. Then you burn those files into individual EPROMs which will become your new PRG and CHR ROMs. You install these into your donor cart and there you go.
How do I do this? I guess what I'm trying to say is..how do I physically get the data from my computer to a cart
Open up your (dad's) wallet and get:
- EPROM programmer (a Willem one with a USB connection and separate power adapter is recommended). Can get expensive though.
- EPROM eraser. Crappy Chinese ones are cheap.
- Some blank EPROMs/EEPROMs/Flash ROMs to burn games onto. Cheap from eBay or free from old junk computer boards.
Then use all this new equipment you've got to get the game data from your computer inside the memory chips.
Remove old memory chips from fart, install the new ones you've just created and there you go.
FINALLY SOMEONE ELSE ON THE FORUM USES FART
So all in all..would it just be cheaper to buy a converter and a PowerPak from Retrozone? Or would this be the way to go?
If you don't tinker around with electronics and you'd have to buy all the necessary equipment from scratch it'd kinda equate the cost of a PowerPak, so I'd say if you just care about playing the damn games then get a PowerPak.
OTOH if you like tinkering around with stuff and you own at least a soldering station I'd say go for it, since you can make carts for other systems, not to mention some pretty awesome projects ;).
I do like to play around with anything that doesn't put my life in danger...
But I will most likely end up getting a PowerPak for now..
That Pong dev. Kit on ThinkGeek always intersted me! :D
Question about the Powerpak...
Does it play hacked/pirated ROMs? I know it plays all offical NES, Famicom, and FDS ROMs...
The PowerPak is software upgradeable (it's an FPGA + firwmare + voltage translation logic) so the mapper support can be expanded by installing 'plugins' into it.
That means, <insert random pirate game here> may not work now, but give it time and the devs will code an update that will make it work.
Quote from: 133MHz on January 30, 2009, 08:38:07 pm
Dream Mary: VERY easy, just switch the mirroring on a plain vanilla SMB cart. No EPROMs needed!
Super Mario Frustration: Easy, just burn a new PRG EPROM for a plain vanilla SMB cart.
Twinbee: Why bother? It's included in most multicarts. Anyway it's probably a mapperless game so you can burn EPROMs for it if you like (use any other 1st-gen NES/FC game as a donor).
SMW for the Famicom: Outright IMPOSSIBLE. HK originals use crazy weird-ass mappers. To build a repro of that game, you need its mapper. Where do you get the mapper? From a SMW pirate cart! That kinda defeats the whole purpose doesn't it?
...and that's why you don't see Kart Fighter, MK3, Somari or SMW repros
Game Reproductions has Kart Fighter, does that mean he uses the pirate cart to get the mapper?
http://www.gamereproductions.com/products/Kart-Fighter.html (http://www.gamereproductions.com/products/Kart-Fighter.html)
http://www.gamereproductions.com/products/Burned-Eprom-w%7B47%7DGame-(2-chips).html
So, when he says game of your choice...does that mean it has to be a game in his store? Or can it be any game? And if it's already loaded to the EPROM, then all I'd have to do is put it in a (Famicom) cart...am I right?
Kart Fighter is a mapper 4 rom, which means the actual cart probably has a clone of MMC3 or MMC6. NES Reproductions lists SMB3 as a possible donor cart for it, which means MMC3 will work.
Quote from: son_ov_hades on January 31, 2009, 08:36:23 am
Game Reproductions has Kart Fighter, does that mean he uses the pirate cart to get the mapper?
http://www.gamereproductions.com/products/Kart-Fighter.html (http://www.gamereproductions.com/products/Kart-Fighter.html)
Quote from: UglyJoe on January 31, 2009, 10:37:24 am
Kart Fighter is a mapper 4 rom, which means the actual cart probably has a clone of MMC3 or MMC6.
Yes. I stand corrected.
If you see any other pirate repros like Somari it's because the game has been hacked to work on a common mapper like MMC3.
My point was that you can't create a repro just from the original ROM image and hope it works with a common cart.
Now if you get a hacked image for a common mapper, please do!
Quote from: nintendodork on January 31, 2009, 09:27:46 am
http://www.gamereproductions.com/products/Burned-Eprom-w%7B47%7DGame-(2-chips).html
So, when he says game of your choice...does that mean it has to be a game in his store? Or can it be any game? And if it's already loaded to the EPROM, then all I'd have to do is put it in a (Famicom) cart...am I right?
It can be any game you provide that doesn't have more than 2 megabits of PRG and CHR data (4 megabits total).
And yup, you only need to solder them into a cart, but the cart needs to have the same mapper than the game you're using.
Also some boards need minor rewiring, but that's pretty well documented on the internets.
...and that's for NES games, you could ask him to burn a game from any other cartridge-based system, like SNES.
You can burn a separate 2 Mb game into each EPROM or piggyback them for a single 4 Mb game.
How much do you think it would be to get him to burn a Famicom game?
This may be kind of a stupid question, but is it possible to fabricate your own board with your own mapper that mimics one of the strange pirate ones? or is this impossible? That guy on retrozone made his own games and I assume use custom mappers. So in theory, couldn't you design a mapper just like the SMW one for example? ???
If you are the CEO of a chip factory in China and have the blueprints to the mapper (or a whole reverse engineering team dedicated to get them for you) of course you can. That leaves us plain mortals out of it. It's like saying 'could you build your own Pentium 3 processor at home?' :-\
The guy from RetroZone hacks the ROM images to use a common mapper, like that SMB2j hack that was done some time ago to make it work on a standard MMC3 cart.
Yeah, that makes sense. I wonder if someone could hack SMW. I know a lot of people (including me) would love to have a repro of it...
Me too, it's an awesome pirate. :)
Just as a tip - the guy at game repros is not familiar with fami carts just yet, he told me he wasn't able to get them to work properly but didn't go more into than that.
Then there's the legal issues. He is ok with burning things to US NES carts as alot are hacks / originals and the rest are retails that weren't released in the US, so according to him there's no legal issues.
However, if i asked him to burn me an EPROM of something that was for sale, like adventure island 2 he may not be cool with that.
Personally, I quite like the idea of just having these on regular NES carts. I'll be making my own labels a-la famicom box / famicom station. Which leads me onto my next suggestion - could you then swap those into an actual famicom box unit?!! I know the carts are NES like but do they use the same pin configuration? Anyone know?
Nope, FamicomBox/FamicomStation carts use a different pinout and CIC chip than their US NES counterparts.
How would you go about makeing repros out of these?
I also wonder then, If you could just house a famicom board in a nes case and stick it in a famicom box / famicom station - would that work??
Quote from: L___E___T on February 05, 2009, 12:49:21 pm
I also wonder then, If you could just house a famicom board in a nes case and stick it in a famicom box / famicom station - would that work??
That would work, ive seen pepole done it.
get in!! Sorry for the off topic post... My aim then is to just make replica famicom station boards in those cases, that'll work for fun.
I'm close to finishing my diy cnc milling machine, so I think I'll be making some nice custom wooden cart cases very soon ;D
I'm planning to use the same machine to make the game pcbs (most of them simple, no-mapper ones), to make some nes carts REALLY from scratch (well... except for the software side by now) ;D
Wouldn't a wooden cart damage the Famicom?
Why? Wood doesn't conduct electricity.
not if it's made well!
I meant the Famicom's shell, unless it was sanded really fine, wouldn't it scratch the part of the shell around the cart slot?
Of course, the cases will be sanded very finely.
I've been doing some tests with the machine, here's the last one I did today (acrylic):
(http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/91/img4431largeiu3.th.jpg) (http://img132.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img4431largeiu3.jpg)
Accuracy FTW!!
(It's 1 cm wide, not 1 inch ;D)
I'll really look forward to seeing those wooden / acrylic cases Walky! If they're nice I'd consider buying some from you - assuming they're easy enough to make? One thing I have noticed is that you can't go sticking any old PCB in a fami cart, as because all the PCBs are different all the carts had different plastic pins and struts to keep the PCB in place. It's not hard to work around, but it is worth bearing in mind.
Yeah, wood cases would be totally awesome.
I'd like Wario's Woods in wooden casing. :D
Quote from: YamiMario on February 04, 2009, 10:03:44 am
How would you go about makeing repros out of these?
Godamnit, i forgot to write Repro Pak.