Hey id like to get into making repros mainly for personal use. but the only way iv been able to find information on is using donor carts and id hate to destroy an original Nintendo game (even if the one I chose was crappy.) is there another affordable way? I see flashcarts but those are pretty expensive..
It's not going to get a lot cheaper than the flashcarts you see unless you get into designing and soldering your own PCBs. And this is entirely ignoring cartridge shells, where the only remotely cheap design seems to be CNC.
So for the sake of argument, let's assume you ARE going to design and solder your own PCBs:
Assuming Famicom (not NES; I'll get to that) for the moment:
The cheapest Famicom cartridge you could make is NROM. It's just two ROMs, on a PCB. The PCB is just about 80mm x 35mm.
The cheapest way to get a small number of small PCBs is to use either ITEAD or Seeed and put multiple designs in a single 10cm x 10cm plot. If we fit 3 copies of an 80mm x 33mm design into 10cm x 10cm, then that'll work out to about $20+≈$10S&H for 30 copies, so: 100¢/@30.
The cheapest 5V ROM right now is the PLCC version of Microchip's SST39SF010A; right now you can buy it from microchipdirect for about 86¢/@(25 to 99). (You'll need 60 to fill 30 PCBs) ... plus S&H, that's probably another $10.
So: to make 30 NROM games, it'll cost you $3/ (≈$90 total): this does not include any up-front costs such as soldering equipment or programming equipment.
To make it for the NES, you need to add a CIC. This adds the cost of an attiny13a to the project; not much, but it's an additional 80¢ (65¢/IC+S&H) per board: ≈$3.80.
To swap one ROM for a RAM, it'll be an extra 40¢, give or take. To increase the amount of data you could address, it's another 10-40¢.
NES GNROM/ColorDreams/NROM-368 would be ≈$4.20/.
NES ANROM/BNROM would be ≈$4.60/. UNROM's closer to $4.80/. Mapper 70 would be somewhere around $4.40/.
If you increase the number you make, the prices drop a little... but not a lot.
thanks for the info. although that's probably above my skill level. maybe making repro's isn't for me then. Id feel guilty tearing apart donor carts. back to learning c..
If you plan to make more than like... three a flashcart is indeed a cheaper option. But just for completeness, are the boards on infiniteneslives.com too expensive? You avoid having to buy in bulk, but probably end up with a similar price and fewer carts, I guess. But if for personal use, that may be what you want. If they are too expensive, what might you consider affordable?
those are really affordable thanks for that link!
I have assumed you know based on reading about other kinds of repros, but just in case: You still need to know how to solder and buy eproms and have something to program those eproms. Or buy the Kazzo as well and specify the appropriate things at purchase time when you buy the boards so you can flash the cartridges. Also, you need a cart shell, but they sell those.
Bottom line: I'm not sure if you're looking to get into this as a hardware project or if you just want to play the games. If you're looking to solder a bit and at the end of the day have something you can play, the cost of an eprom programmer or whatever might be worth it to you. If you're just looking to play, it's probably wise to just get a flash cart. They're not cheap, but it's a one time cost to play almost any game. I mentioned infiniteneslives.com in case you are into the hardware aspect, but if you're not absolutely just get a flash cart.
(Silly me. I assumed by "flashcart" you meant something like INL's offerings, not a powerpak)
yeah I'm interested in the soldering part (so I can have a full experience) I can already do what a flash cart does with my retron5. is there anything special I have to know about rom hacks? if I were ever interested in putting one of those to cart? or can I just use a board that works with the original game and it should work as is?
same question for homebrew. after I learn up a bit on C I want to make some homebrew of my own.. I know nes games aren't traditionally written in C but I read early in my time here that it's possible.
Some rom hacks are hacked to different mappers and wouldn't work on the board the original game ran on. Some rom hacks don't properly initialize things and so don't work on real hardware without further hacking them to fix that. You have to tread with caution. It's case by case.
Edit: Ah. And as for your own homebrew, you're in charge of what board is being used. If you want to put it on the right one, it will work if you initialize things properly. (Flash carts change the startup state from the state your cartridge would encounter if inserted alone. Working on a flash cart is a good sign your own ROM will work solo, but it's not a guarantee.)
I can't help much with getting started in C for NES in general, though.
ceriux wrote:
I can already do what a flash cart does with my retron5.
Actually, the Retron5 is much more similar to a PC running an emulator than to an original console with a flash cart.
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same question for homebrew. after I learn up a bit on C I want to make some homebrew of my own.. I know nes games aren't traditionally written in C but I read early in my time here that it's possible.
AFAIK, C can speed up development, because logic in that language is more concise and more maintainable than in assembly, but it's not like you can do everything in C. Even if you're not proficient in ASM, you still have to understand enough of it in order to verify if everything is working as intended. There's also the occasional task that must be optimized beyond what C can do, such as PPU updates.
Good thing I have both a retron and original hardware
also couldn't I learn the asm I need here ?
ceriux wrote:
Good thing I have both a retron and original hardware
The Retron 5 seems OK for playing games, but it's useless as a development tool, so it's good that you have the real deal too if you want to go that route.
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also couldn't I learn the asm I need here ?
Sure, I just wanted to make sure you understand that C can only take you so far, and that you still need a basic understanding of the system and how things work under the hood in order to be able to make good use of the language.
So far I've been learning c using codeblocks. It also has an asm project setup , will it be possible for me to continue to use codeblocks?
I do not know anything about codeblocks, but cc65 does (in a vague sense) resemble the same compilation flow that e.g. gcc does, so it seems likely one ought to be able to make it fit.
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The Retron 5 seems OK for playing games, but it's useless as a development tool
I know, this is why I don't have one and see no point in getting one.
ceriux wrote:
yeah I'm interested in the soldering part (so I can have a full experience)
If you're interested in boards that still require soldering without using donors you could try Retrostage's boards from here
http://www.retrostage.net. They are blank boards that you add your chips onto, so you can make a repro and get the soldering experience in. The pricing is cheaper than INL, but you need to supply the parts.