WedNESday wrote:
I don't want to spend $90, but $5 is fine by me.
Then it'll be hard, pal.
Quote:
How would I connect my PC up to the PCB? Do I need any special hardware to burn the EEPROM?
Of course you do. The (E)EPROM programmer. The easiest way to run software on the NES is not by directly connecting your PC to a cart, but by programming a chip with the programmer, at the PC side, and then placing that chip on the board.
Depending on how often you want to change the thing you are testing, an EPROM emulator, as Memblers said, might be a good choice. The bad part is that they're expensive (more than the programmer), and you'll need two: one for PRG and for CHR, if not using CHR-RAM. If your "rewrite rate" is something more modest, you should go with the EPROM programmer. I use mine with Flash ROMs, not EPROMs. Flash ROMs don't need to be erased, you can just rewrite them (as opposed to EPROMs, that need 20+ minutes of direct UV light to erase), and the writing only takes a few seconds, so rewriting them is pretty quick. It seems that they can be rewritten about 10000 times, wich means that even if you rewrite them several times a day they're likely to last a few years.
I decided to get the programmer instead of the emulator(s), mainly because it's cheaper and it's more versatile (can program many different types of chips, even permanently if you wish - the emulator will always be temporary).