so. ive decided to get into it. i got my nintendo, some go-to games, and the crazy idea that im smart/patient enough to figure all this out. ive started reading the e-zine. from the beginning. as well as stumbled and scanned my way thru most of the nerdy nights series. i got my soldering iron and some donor carts and a dream. i feel like ive got a pretty good grip on most of the concepts. but i need some reccomendations on hardware.

should i go buy a different computer to run it all on? i have yet to run across an EPROM programmer that says it comes with anything but XP software, plus all the tools in the tutorials seem to be windows only... im on a mac. getting some old computer is no trouble, i kinda just need to confirm, that's the easier thing to do right?

anybody got an EPROM proggrammer reccomendation? i see em on ebay a lot. but they all seem to come from china with few instructions. no idea where im going there.

also, about the EPROMS themselves, should i just buy a bunch of 27c256's (512s?) and double copy the data for smaller games? should i buy different sizes? do i need different types for CHR or PRG? they're all just EPROMs right? just checking.

do i need a copynes? im starting by just learning about repros for fun for myself, but love the idea of someday making my own game. what about the other software? ive got an emulator, and a sprite changer, but what do i need if i wanted to start by picking apart some SMB1 or something, you know move around the holes and the mushrooms, put hammer bros everywhere, etc. where do i "read the code" so to speak?

i guess thats it...maybe these are dumb questions. dont be to harsh on me ok?

For your first game (Most say I'm wrong, but) you will need only one development cart. 99% of my development is done with an emulator. With major builds only being put on carts. You don't need anything but an Emulator and a assembler. That's it. CopyNES to me is the most useless piece of equipment out there, I see no purpose for it myself. You should probably pick up a copy of Super Mario Bros. and a copy of Duck Hunt, make two development carts (NROM-128 and NROM-256), and that will hold you over for a LONG time.

But first of all, I wouldn't even worry about getting anything on a cart until you can program the NES. Don't get ahead of yourself. You need to learn how the NES works, 6502 assembly, make graphics, make an engine, then you test on a cart. You don't just click the screen and go "Hammer brother here!" Building a game will take months on end of work. It will be tedious. It will be long. But if you keep to it and learn how the NES works and 6502 (The easy part.), working on programming a game will become fun, despite making not so much progress, you will enjoy it.

I'd probably buy a Powerpak before I buy all that other nonsense.

But a powerpak can't be used for repros and doing a run of your own games. It is still sometimes not 100% accurate with mappers like MMC3, although it might been fixed by Loopys mapper set. But still, maybe you should consider this. It'll be faster for real hardware testing, but on weird mappers might not be 100%.

I agree with 3GenGames about when you actually need dev carts.
I also just started getting into NES game development and so far I mostly used emulators to test my assembled roms.
I'm into NES development for a couple of months now and I only tried one of my roms once on real hardware to see if my RESET and NMI code works properly. Other than that...well, most of the time you will not need real hardware to test your game. Most emulators are pretty accurate today and it's way easier and faster to handle than dev carts and flash programmers.

I don't think you'll need to  get a different computer just for NES development. I was able to set up anything I needed on Ubuntu Linux without any major problems. You could use a windows emulator (like wine for Linux) or a virtual machine for anything that just won't run on your system.

I would recommend getting an emulator that has a debugger in it and maybe some other tools.
FCEUX always worked great for me, since it has all kinds of tools, a debugger of course and even LUA scripts for further modifications of the game (I'd recommend to take a look into that).
You could use this to "read the code"(and modify it as well) of the games.
Personally, I'd say you start writing something on your own, though.

If you're just after highly accurate emulation then there is Nintendulator which to my knwoledge is the most accurate emulator to date.

Agree 100%

I think cramming all the information about creating repro's or a batch of your own game while learning how to program might be a bit overwhelming. Take it slow and take your time

If, for some reason, you need to run it on the real hardware and the PowerPak won't suffice, I'm sure there are plenty of people who would be willing to do the grunt work for you to get it on a cart, or at the very least, burn the EPROM's for you for a relatively low price.

If you need to test something right away before continuing with your project, you're looking at close to an hour or longer for burning the eprom and soldering it in and all that jazz. Much simpler to copy it to a flash card/sd card and pop in the PowerPak.

To burn an eprom will take a couple minutes, and to erase takes about 5-6 minutes. It's not that big of a deal, but the powerpak will make it a tad faster.

In my computer I have a folder for Programs and one with NES and then that branches into emulators, games, programs, documents, and more. I'd advise doing this. Just keep it organized in your computer and you'll be fine.

FCEUX is the emulator I use for testing. Easiest to use and okay in the accuracy department for me. But as for the best emulators for accuracy Nintendulator and NESTopia are the best to test on. But if you're not doing extreme CPU usage, you'll probably find FCEUX the best choice. It's also the only emulator that works 100% on my Windows 7. NEStopia never can detect directories at all and IIRC has wrong/bad paddle support. Nintedulator is nice, but when using the paddle it takes away the mouse, making me remember the function key uses.

How far along are you in understanding 6502 and the NES's architecture? And if you are far along, got anything to show at all?

And if you are impatient like most, then the copyNES is even faster.  The copyNES also has other reverse engineering tools to help figure out the different mappers (aka not a useless piece of hardware).  It does still have it's uses.

But all mappers have been found. [nearly] And the only real way to interface with mappers is to look at the code. -points to camerica games and their way of writing to the registers-

And the copyNES can't be used for much else besides NES game dumping. It's a unneeded piece of equipment for a homebrewer. Sure a Retropak lite and a CopyNES can do a lot, but to me it's still no competition for an EPROM programmer and a donor. [ETA: A donor specifically for development. Cut a hole into it and make it socketed! Don't solder EPROMS to a board.]

Plus, the powerpak is for pirates. Right dr600n?

Can the powerpak be used for piracy? Of course. Can it be used as a great development tool? Absolutely. Choose your poison.

USB CopyNES + PowerPak Lite = fastest development cycle right now. 5-6 minutes to erase + a couple minutes to program EPROMs, or 10 seconds to push the ROM over USB without even needing to touch the system. Add the downloading to your build script and have it automatically play every time you compile. Someone could mod any other donor board (MMC3, MMC5, whatever) to be a RAM cart and do the same thing.

Its also a great way to tell what is wrong if you make a repro and it fails. Dump it, step through the code, or view graphics to see if something is wired wrong.

Writing a game that uses battery RAM? Use the CopyNES to upload or download save images for testing. Or change the data on the cart directly.

Almost all hardware is unneeded for a homebrewer, but its certainly not useless.

wow guys thanks for all the great advice. its definetly tough not to get too far ahead of myself. i dont have programs to put up for show and tell, but hope to once i get my head wrapped around it all some more.

i do have an earthbound chipset allegedly on the way and an appropriate donor at home to test my soldering skills out. i figure if i can do that without screwing up, a programmer is the next purchase. then ill start focusing a bit more all the coding stuff. my brother and another buddy of mine are kinda into the idea as well, so i figure once a week three people with a 12 pack and all the great tutorials and explinations on here we should be able to at least get something simple going.

thank you for helping me understand a bit more about my needs to get started in all this. hopefully this helps some other people as well.

-phil

If nobody has programming experience, they won't help. Trust me. Programming is one of those things that is simple, but some people just can't click with it. You might want to learn by yourself. You guys will be as strong as your weakest link, and taking 3 people and having them all being able to understand to program is slim to none.

Huh, hadnt thought of it that way. but makes total sense. I know weve all at least had some kinda 'computer programming basics' in high school, but thats at least ten years ago for everybody. so it likely will not help. in that case, y'all got any other reccomended reading outside of whats here?

i feel like i saw a big list of 6502 commands and explinations or something somewhere, but i couldve dreamed that. its been a long week and im low on sleep.

Read the first few nerdy nights that do over the 6502 in the NES. Then extend your readings to this to get a better and more clear understanding:

http://www.obelisk.demon.co.uk/65...

Then read on the next few lessons about the NES PPU and making a program and search here for more in-depth information about them:

http://wiki.nesdev.com/w/index.ph...

Cool thanks! I just ran across some of the Nesdev while at work. the extra resources are much appreciated.

To Echo what others have said, the PowerPak is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Get one and you won't be disapointed. And even if you don't get around to programming, you have something pretty useful.

Thanks to your post, I finally placed my order for one.

does anybody have a working assembler for mac osx? i cant seem to find anything. ive tried stuff like WINE and Crossover, but compatibility is so hit or miss with all that stuff that im not messing with it. im on 10.4.11 if anyone has suggestions. if not no worries. got a lead on a cheap xp laptop.

ASM6, NESASM, and Nesicide have all been compiled for MacOS X. However so many of the other tools like debuggers are Windows only that getting it set up (I use Parallels to run XP) is really the best way.