How do you burn ROMs to carts?

[nintendodork]

Farts to be more precise, anyone know how to do this?

[son_ov_hades]

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. 

[nintendodork]

I'm talking about putting an EPROM onto a cart

[son_ov_hades]

I'm sure 133Mhz or Walky(if he shows up) can help you.

[nintendodork]

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

[133MHz]

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

[nintendodork]

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

[nurd]

How does one switch mirroring? 

[133MHz]

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.

And..what's a vanilla SMB cart? lol sorry if I'm an uber-n00b

Here, pick your favorite:

How does one switch mirroring? 

On an emulator, just search for the option to switch mirroring.
On a real mapperless cart, take a look:


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!

[nintendodork]

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

[133MHz]

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.

[nintendodork]

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?

[133MHz]

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 .

[nintendodork]

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!

Question about the Powerpak...
Does it play hacked/pirated ROMs?  I know it plays all offical NES, Famicom, and FDS ROMs...

[133MHz]

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.