There have been a massive influx of people posting about assisting with repro carts. I know historically (and it's understandable) these have been shunned because one of the main reasons people are doing them is to sell the results on eBay or their own site to make money. I'm politely asking folks put their ethical/moral/legal quandaries aside for a moment and instead think about this: do you think it would be worthwhile to have a separate board/forum/section here for those sorts of posts could go?
Yes, in a lot of cases they relate directly to the NES Hardware and Flash Equipment or SNESdev forums, which makes perfect sense since repro carts involve a bit of hardware familiarity (including finding donor carts). But links to relevant technical tips about address/data line remappings when making a PCB could be used (ex. "Yeah, for the issue with /ROMSEL or A14, check out this thread for details").
Please don't reply with a post here unless you've voted for the "Other" option (in which case feel free to propose an idea/recommendation).
Thanks!
Edit: And for those who are legally-conscious and are curious about what sorts of games can be legally repro'd and sold, tepples has
compiled a nice list.
Personally I'd vote for other, and such posts being deleted by mods. I understand they don't want to because it's so much work, though.
I can't stand this kind of posts, and I've already made it know a couple of times. The hardware section is basically the "90% garbage" section of these forums.
I'm particularly annoyed by the amount of repro discussion in the SNESdev forum. Even though I don't make much use of that forum, I find it terrible how there's so little actual development discussion in there. Most topics are about hardware, and out of those, many are about making repros.
EDIT: I am, however, against having too many forums/sections, so I think we'd benefit from merging the least used ones. Since there's hardly any development talk in the GB and SNES sections, I don't see why they can't be merged with the "other retro dev" forum (aside from these consoles being close relatives to the NES, but what's the point in having these forums if they're not used?). The same goes for the FCdev forum. It's supposed to be for discussions in japanese, but people end up using it to talk about japanese hardware more than anything, with the occasional software translated japanese text. I see no reason to have more than one international language forum, since no language other than english is used often enough here.
A quick classification of the first page of posts in the SNES forum yielded this breakdown:
1111111111111111111 programming
1111111 reproduction
1111111111 flash cart
1111111111111 hardware
I'd like the extra forum section, it'd keep 99% of the crap out of the other sections weather most educated respond or not...there'll be a new breed of nesdev guys made....good or not. It's good for the forums neatness, and it's gonna happen anyway...so I'm cool with it.
hello friends, I think it is good idea to separate this issue, because there are a lot of important information about the programming for snes, which is very difficult to find in the forum, the same applies when looking for important threads of cartridge reproduction
mmm, now I understand that when I ask things about reproduction in cartridges, never are answered with the exception of some people.
on the other hand, I think we came here with questions and doubts, because the information that exists, is very confusing and unclear, some things I learned taking approaches, however, sorry for asking so much, thought that the forums are for that,
but I am supporter that the information is for everyone, no one is born knowing and I think sharing is a double triumph...
if there some types of manuals, tutorials, like Bazz, would be another story.
I think we should talk about hardware and game programming information that could be used that way, but not assist people who ask for help destroying games.
Segregation is good, because it's the first step towards banning it.
Perhaps if there were some compelling homebrew Super NES games, there would be people trying to reproduce those, and the discussion might be more civil.
Banning it is not a good idea, but maybe you can make subsections? Would that help? (I think phpBB supports that.)
Maybe we need to make a 100% correct guide, with all logically needed information....ban the talk, but make a wiki page on to do it clear. If they're not smart enough to understand, too bad. We get too many "REPRO DOESN'T WORK!" posts in general.
Here's what I'd recommend:
- Find a worthwhile from-scratch homebrew game (not a translation, not a SMW hack) whose author is fine with third parties making and selling carts. I could probably provide examples for most of the discrete NES mappers; I'll need help with Super NES however.
- Make a 100% correct guide for reproducing that game.
- Allow talk of reproducing that game and other homebrews, but not of reproducing commercial games or hacks of commercial games. If someone asks about a game, ask "Have you tried reproing (homebrew game on the same board) first?".
I originally voted yes, but now that I think about it I really don't think it'd accomplish anything...
Is there someway to block the subsection so you don't see it in 'unread posts' and such? If not, I don't see the point really. Only a change in the small font that is rarely read anyways. Maybe I just don't get it, but what's the point of any subsection really? Do people really browse the sections? Isn't the norm to just view unread posts? I find the separate subsections a hindrance to searching for old threads, it only helps when you know for certain which subsection it's in which is rare in my case at least.
If there is no feature like that it's about as worthless as blocking a person you're trying to ignore. Only to still get email notifications when they post in your threads of interest. You come all the way to view the topic only to find it's that freak you've been trying to ignore, but you get suckered into clicking to look at their comment now that you're there, only to immediately regret it...
The only thing I see it accomplishing is starting arguments as to where the topic belongs. "I'm developing something new with old hardware", "no you're making repros", "move the thread", "this repro has some new hardware", etc... If we don't like them, then don't reply to them offering help. Or just crush em every time to try and scare them away. Unless there is some sort of real obstacle, people will post about their broken repros if they believe they can get answers here.
blargg wrote:
A quick classification of the first page of posts in the SNES forum yielded this breakdown:
1111111111111111111 programming
1111111 reproduction
1111111111 flash cart
1111111111111 hardware
I played the same game as you for the 1st 2 pages and ended up with the following results :
Code:
Programming : |||||||||||||
Hardware : |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Repro : ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Emulation : |||||||
Sound / SPC : ||||||
Spam : |
Now, I'd have to say it really varies a lot. A guy asked a long series of questions about sound, another guy is trying to make a flash card asking quite a few questions in a row, and all this biases the forums towards a particular subject.
The first half of the first page is currently almost exclusively reproduction stuff more or less directly.
Sometime it's more subtle like questions about the MAD-1 chip but in the end I'm sure it's for reproduction.
PS : What pisses me off the most about these guys is not only the fact they illegally create carts and sometimes sells them for very expensive, but that their questions are often tremedously stupid like :
"How do I wire A14 to MAD-1 pin 7".
As if it was normal for us to know such things by heart and to answer them.
And generally their post count is < 10.
infiniteneslives wrote:
I originally voted yes, but now that I think about it I really don't think it'd accomplish anything... Is there someway to block the subsection so you don't see it in 'unread posts' and such? If not, I don't see the point really.
1. The point is to have a board specific to repro questions, rather than have the posts scattered all over 4 or 5 separate boards. The proposed board would be placed under the "Other" forum, and probably named "Reproduction Carts" or something along those lines.
2.
With stock phpBB there is no way to "hide" a board on a per-account basis. -- Edit #2: Nope, I'm wrong. It's very much possible, just not something the user can do in the User Control Panel. It is something we forum admins can adjust on a per-account basis.
This post is what made me go poke about and look.
I spent the past 5-10 minutes inside of phpBB's admin section and found that it's possible to accomplish. You wouldn't see the board itself, nor any of its posts in any way. The amount of administration work on our part to accomplish this is minimal -- no phpBB "mods" needed, it's all possible with stock/built-in features. You'd just have to ask one of us to stick you in the "no-repros" group and voilà. I did test it too, and it does work.
Regardless of #2, I'd like folks to stay focused on the matter at hand -- it's one of organisation. I made this indirectly clear in my initial post, quoting:
koitsu wrote:
... I'm politely asking folks put their ethical/moral/legal quandaries aside for a moment ...
Once they're segregated, you can just not click through unread posts if they say "in Reproduction Carts". That's why I'm voting yes. What INL appears to want is a feature to allow a user to put a particular forum on ignore, which would appear to require development of a new phpBB 3 MOD.
koitsu wrote:
Please don't reply with a post here unless you've voted for the "Other" option (in which case feel free to propose an idea/recommendation).
Only 3 votes for "Other", but 10 unique posters (now 11) in this thread, so that didn't work out.
Personally I voted "no" because I don't want it to seem like this forum explicitly encourages reproductions. I also largely agree with Bregalad on this topic. Here are some random reasons (I understand some of these are not valid grounds for removing all repro discussion and/or not creating a subforum for it):
1) I don't like people making money off of other people's copyrighted work
2) The repro threads tend to be boring (to me) because reproing is mostly monotone, simple work (and most people seem to do it by reading step-by-step guides written by more knowledgeable people)
3) People making repros don't seem to be contributing much to the community knowledge-wise
(Sorry, this turned more into an argument against repros rather than for/against any forum structure changes.)
I don't know why but something tells me that they'll keep posting in other forums asking repros question thinking that making Earthbound cartridge and selling them for $100 is cool and that this is all that NESdev is about.
I completely understand the points you and Bregalad have made. The "problem" is that they're of a
subjective (referring to (4a) in that definition list) or ethical nature. I shouldn't need to mention the ramifications of forcing opinions or ethics upon another individual.
The reason for the poll is to find out what the majority would feel is beneficial. And while I agree "what the majority wants" is not always what's ideally best for mankind as a whole, this forum poll isn't something that's going to affect the human race or something of a similarly large scale; it's not like the poll will result in the death of a thousand people or something. :-)
Anyway, my point is that if a board was created for repro-oriented talk and all the talk took place there (including threads started in other boards/sections, which we mods/admins would move to the repro forum as needed), in effect those who do not agree with the reproduction cart subject wouldn't need to participate in that board. Please be sure to see
my updated post where I mention I've found it is possible to "hide" a board entirely on a per-user basis so that folks who feel very strongly wouldn't have to sift through or micro-manage posts shown via "View unanswered posts" and similar features.
We (forum admins/mods) can't make every single person happy, and I'm sure those opposed to the separate board concept know that. However...
Say the entire forum suddenly instilled a strict "no reproduction cart discussions/topics" policy -- something you and Bregalad, for example, would endorse fully -- we both know exactly what would happen: the "repro cart people" would still show up and still ask questions, just in shady/sneaky/roundabout ways. In fact, I can think of 2 situations in the past where this has happened (the one I remember specifically is where a user asked "carefully-phrased" questions, prompting myself and some others to enquiry as to the motive/purpose, and the user admitted they were attempting to make reproduction carts).
At least with how things are
right now, the majority of the time they state up front they're trying to make reproduction carts. Whether they're doing it for fun or profit is really besides the point -- people who do things that are shady/questionable are going to do those things no matter what. It makes me think of locks on doors -- generally pointless because a dedicated thief will find an alternate way into your home to get what they want.
I'm trying very hard to keep my own personal opinion/view out of it (you might be surprised what side of the fence I'm on), but I will state that I actually find the repro cart threads somewhat interesting because they usually result in thorough discussions of how to do things like wire a flash chip to an existing cart PCB (which requires a bunch of rewiring, i.e. pin X on the PCB goes to pin Y on the flash chip), which is something
nobody has documented concisely/fully. In fact, I remember asking how to accomplish this task for a devcart in #nesdev some years ago, and the response I got was literally, quote verbatim, "you just connect A10 to A10, D2 to D2, etc.". Sorry for cursing, but that's utter bullshit -- it's
way more involved than that.
If people like cutting traces and soldering wires so much and have so much fun doing this, then they should become EE engineers like me (personally this is my least beloved part of my work but hey to each their own...). They can also move to China and work in gloomy dark factories where they would be able to fully express their passion 24/7.
I wouldn't care about a hidden forum, but the problem is that Nintendo COULD do something about it and shut this forum if people are encouraged to make repros.
I just realized that another way of looking at the repro issue is that it's basically a bunch of newbies trying to do things somewhat outside their skill level. Since newbies usually don't take on ambitious hardware projects, the hardware section doesn't have a newbie division (unlike the programming one which does, and would have had similar problems when there wasn't one). So in a way this is just adding that needed division along skill level.
It would be nice to have a section to toss all this stuff. I know there are a lot of legitimate reasons to make repro carts. Generally, and unfortunately so, it's about holding someone's hand through the production process of making a cart that contains someone else's work to be sold to collectors or enthusiasts, which is very ethically questionable. We also have a no commercial ROM distribution or linking policy here. Destroying limited production carts to reproduce and SELL pirated and/or unauthorized copies of previously unavailable software and homebrew is a little more shady that posting a binary file.
If this is to be allowed at all, it should be heavily moderated with expected guidelines and separated from the usual hardware discussions. Obviously you cannot advertise on the forum, and if you are going to be reproducing unauthorized or copyrighted material, have the sense to not incriminate yourself with details. The fifth amendment can't help you if you rat on yourself.
I wouldn't want us getting blocked by the UK anti-piracy/porn/terrorism/drug/esoteric knowledge wall.
I'll throw in my two cents, since I'm one who has come here recently asking questions about reproductions.
I totally get why people wouldn't want to help others basically cheat their way into the bank with ebay. I have found that that has been a huge hindrance on being able to get reliable help (not talking about here, just in general). Alot of sites post conflicting and at times wrong information that is hard to discern to someone who is lacking of knowledge.
There also seems (to me anyways) that some people have an attitude of "If you don't know how to do this, you shouldn't be doing this." I must have missed the nes pin mapping diagrams from 1st grade. Trust me, i know first hand working desktop support that there are many things which seem like they should be intuitive that some people just will not be able to grasp until it is laid out for them. I recently had to explain to someone what the "PrtScn" button did because they got loaded with maleware after dl'ing a program to take screenshots.
Personally, i learn by doing. I like to read how-to's because they have pictures and that's easy for me to understand, but most are so poorly written. I don't want to know just WHAT to do, but WHY. Why am I connecting this pin to that hole? Oh, it's because that trace runs to the battery for saves. This information is almost always left out.
For instance. Going by this guide from this website :
http://nesdev.com/NES%20EPROM%20Conversions.txtIt will tell you to bend up 5 pins, but then only where to solder 3. Asking about it, people say to leave them alone if they aren't being soldered anywhere else. I've heard some people say to ground them, and others to leave them floating. So which is it? it really shouldn't be that hard to get an answer on something this simple.
I would love to make a nes or snes game, but I'm not a programer. I'm a hardware guy. I loved reading all 7+ pages of comments about the Component upgrade to the SNES. That stuff tickles my feathers. I've always loved taking things apart and seeing how they work. When i took apart my sports game and stuck in a socket, i can't recall the last time i had so much fun, when all i was doing was sticking in different maskroms to play madden 96 on a cart with a NHL label. I'm weird.
I do plan on making reproductions. And yes, unfortunately this will cause me to "destroy" games. I'm being as good about it as i can. I cut traces once, no more. From now on just running wires. I keep the original maskrom in tact and tape it inside the cart, just in case i ever want to turn it back. While i have attempted some nes games, my driving force is to do Snes games, where i am just going to buy the SFC version and swap out the maskrom for an english version on a tsop adapter so again, if i ever felt inclined, it would simply be a matter of de-soldering the new and re-soldering the old.
So why do i ask questions? Mainly because i DON'T want to cause permanent damage to a game. I wanna get my first attempt at a cart to ultimately work, and not have to take apart another game.
I even asked about the blank PCB boards, in terms of what chips do i need to get to replicate a game, so i wouldn't have to use an existing one, and again. No definitive answer was given. I'll probably break down and buy some boards from nesinfintelives if I want to do more, but having to use their proprietary programmer makes me weary. I already have a programmer, i would be happy to buy the chips and put them in myself, but what i don't want is to buy a bunch of stuff and never make it work because there is no definitive manual, or guide.
So what's the point of this post? I don't even remember exactly. Just laying out my intentions i guess. I'm not trying to make a bunch of money, or get this site in legal trouble. I'm just trying to play Final Fantasy III (the only one i haven't beat) on an actual cartridge that will sit proudly next to my other games in my collection.
I wish I inherently knew everything I needed to know, but i wasn't born that way. I'm just trying to learn to do what, as I've gathered from reading posts on this site, alot of you guys have already done. I thought i could benefit from the community knowledge. If you guys institute a ban against asking about reproductions, then no hard feelings, I'll just try to find somewhere else to ask.
If we make a new subforum, then i would contribute. Personally, i think the best way to combat people selling repros for $100 is to make it plainly easy on how to make them (or perhaps start reporting them to ebay). This stuff doesn't seem to hard (despite me not yet being able to make one work). I've learned a ton in the last few weeks, and I'm excited to learn more!
revfds wrote:
There also seems (to me anyways) that some people have an attitude of "If you don't know how to do this, you shouldn't be doing this."
If you've developed your own NES game, as a programmer or artist, then sure, we'll help you learn to put it on a cartridge.
Quote:
I must have missed the nes pin mapping diagrams from 1st grade.
The pinouts for the mask ROMs (and thus for the holes on the PCB) are on the NESdev wiki, and the pinouts for your EPROM are on the datasheet. From there, it's just connect-the-dots,
la la la la la, matching up the address pins and the enables. That'll help with your "why" curiosity too.
Quote:
Trust me, i know first hand working desktop support that there are many things which seem like they should be intuitive that some people just will not be able to grasp until it is laid out for them. I recently had to explain to someone what the "PrtScn" button did
It's in a part of the keyboard that people gloss over. A when the "print screen" key was originally added to the PC keyboard, it sent the contents of a text-mode screen to an actual printer.
Quote:
I would love to make a nes or snes game, but I'm not a programer. I'm a hardware guy.
Are you also an artist? Or a musician? If so, you could team up with a programmer like me and make an NES game.
Quote:
Why am I connecting this pin to that hole? Oh, it's because that trace runs to the battery for saves.
In that case, I agree with you that there needs to be more documentation on the wiki of traces on the popular PCBs (such as SNROM) other than the ones that go to the ROM.
Quote:
I'm just trying to play Final Fantasy III (the only one i haven't beat) on an actual cartridge
I thought that one was ported to the DS and OUYA consoles.
@revfds -- I am in full/complete agreement with you, especially WRT the "pinout conversion" documents/etc. scattered all over the place and their complete/total unreliability.
This is exactly why I think if the wiki (the one here on nesdev.com) had this kind of information in it -- ACCURATE information showing exactly what to wire to what, the chips used, etc. with proper diagrams -- the number of "help requests" here on the forum would greatly diminish.
Additionally, it would make those wanting to make their own devcart feel a lot more comfortable. Most of the people here who've known me for many years know that for, oh I dunno, the past 15 years?, I've been bitching about the fact that there's really no decent explanation anywhere on how to make (using donor carts) a devboard for MMC3A/MMC3B that has battery-backed SRAM on it (i.e. TNROM, TKROM, or TKSROM), with a flash (or even EEPROM (not EPROM!)).
As I said earlier in this thread, the response I've gotten from hardware people in the past is "it's not hard, you just connect all the pins up", which is total horseshit. I am not an EE-savvy person, but I am more intelligent than the "hi i want to make repro cart for Surep Marcho Bors 3 w/ Penis Hack" folks, and know how to solder properly. Yet, because this information is "hoarded" in some particular way by the hardware folks -- maybe not hoarding, but presenting more of a "if you can't figure this out then sod off" attitude -- people keep asking the same questions over and over. Gee, I'm sorry that I don't know as much as you guys, but to tell me "just map X to X" when you know it's a lot more involved is dismissive and rude.
I've given up entirely on making a devboard this way, and instead have chosen to wait for the INL-ROM v2.0. It just isn't worth my time screwing around with all this unreliable documentation -- people think my NESTECH stuff is outdated/wrong? Ha, try the pinout conversion docs. @infiniteneslives is a godsend, I just wish he'd been around doing all this 10-12 years ago, but that's me whinging.
B00daW wrote:
We also have a no commercial ROM distribution or linking policy here.
OT: I just want to point out that those were the policies of the old host (Parodius, RIP). It might be worthwhile to discuss the policies again, or at least to
post them somewhere (in a sticky?) if they're inherited from the Parodius days.
thefox wrote:
B00daW wrote:
We also have a no commercial ROM distribution or linking policy here.
OT: I just want to point out that those were the policies of the old host (Parodius, RIP). It might be worthwhile to discuss the policies again, or at least to
post them somewhere (in a sticky?) if they're inherited from the Parodius days.
As of this writing, they
are not inherited from the Parodius days. WhoaMan is the hosting provider at this point, so the responsibility of defining policies would fall onto him (as I see it).
@tepples
I'm not sure why you felt the need to mock and speak down to me because i shared my feelings using brief generalized examples. (the post was already long enough without me going into the detailed issues i am having right now.) But this is exactly the kind of attitude i was referring to.
I've seen the data sheets, and pin mapping in the wiki, and all of that along with your lalalala video doesn't solve my question about why am i bending up 5 pins, soldering 3, and not able to get a straight answer as to what to do with the other 2.
I am not a mucisian or artist, i have friends that are who would work on it with me, but lack of a programmer and knowledge as kept things in the "what if" stages. I want to be able to bring something to the table outside of "let's do this". I'm the story guy, the technical one of the group. I literally need everyone else to do my bidding in order to create something, i figured it would be best to know what it is i need done, and to learn the parts that i can do.
As for FF3 i don't have an ouya, haven't heard good things about it. I also don't own a DS, and for me it just isn't the same. I realize is said "cart" but i pretty much meant the console experience.
Aside from tepples' 2nd paragraph which I agree is a bit belittling (but his lalala link is in jest, I'll explain this below), the rest of his comments are just general observations/statements (tepples I'm fairly certain has Asperger's *grin* ;-) ). With regards to lack of documentations/diagrams/etc., he's in agreement with you (see his 2nd-to-last paragraph), and that's the important part (IMO).
As for the semi-jestful part of the 2nd paragraph -- those of us who have been in the community here for some time have gotten somewhat familiar with each other's personalities and their quirks/nuances/behaviours (For example my own comment pokes fun at Tepples in a jestful way, not really all that serious). I'm not defending his words/actions, but I am saying the more you talk with the older folks who reside around here the more you figure out/get used to everyone's different personalities. Eventually (hopefully) things get to a point where there's a harmonious balance of everything, like one of those self-sustaining ecosystem fish tanks.
If you want a really great thread to read -- and participate in! -- that can greatly help break some of the ice (if you will), see this:
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=10286
I now realize that I may have appeared abrasive. I don't want to hide behind my condition too much, but sometimes it keeps me from correctly guessing how someone else is going to take something.
And the legalities and moralities certainly affect the tone: too many repro topics mention specific fan translations, and I don't want to be seen as publicly aiding and abetting commercial copyright infringement. That's why I started that
topic about games that are clear to reproduce, so that we all can eventually discuss repros with a clean conscience, at least having a
substantial noninfringing use excuse to be more open with people who come here just to learn to build a repro. But the known clear games listed as of today are all NROM, likely because
a homebrew game that uses more space takes a lot of work to make especially when one isn't getting paid to do it, and rewiring is very different for the 1 Mbit and larger mask ROMs compared to the 64-256 kbit ROMs needed to build an NROM game.
oh it's cool, i learned a long time ago not to take internet comments personally. it's far too easy to misinterpret their meaning. i simply saw it as an example of my point about attitudes towards novices. i work in IT and know how disgustingly hostile some people can be to those without the same knowledge. no sour feelings
Quote:
@revfds -- I am in full/complete agreement with you, especially WRT the "pinout conversion" documents/etc. scattered all over the place and their complete/total unreliability.
Back when the power pak wasn't released, I had no problem following those pinout conversions. Also, I was 15/16 ish, and I'm definitely not an "hardware guy".
Quote:
Personally, i learn by doing
My point is that, since the PowerPak and other similar flashcarts are out, there is NO POINT in learning how to mod NES / SNES carts, because there is no reason for doing so. So the "I just want to learn" argument is plain false.
That would be like learning how to use a typewriter in 2013 when you could just use a compuer to type your letters.
The only valid reason I see why you'll learn to mod carts is if you want to sell them, because you can't sell a powerpak as game.
Quote:
And yes, unfortunately this will cause me to "destroy" games. I'm being as good about it as i can.
There is plenty of horrible sport games to destroy so this is not a problem. When you start to destroy MMC5 games or Super FX games for the SNES then yes that becomes a problem.
However the destruction of carts is not a problem for me, it's not the reason why I oppose repros, as in general they will put a better game in place of a bad game (else they wouldn't be doing this in the 1st place).
Bregalad wrote:
My point is that, since the PowerPak and other similar flashcarts are out, there is NO POINT in learning how to mod NES / SNES carts
A lot of clones can't run PowerPak, especially those sold in countries where an authentic NTSC NES and/or PAL NES is hard to get. Some mappers are still unsupported, especially those used by productions with 1 MB or larger PRG ROM.
1) Noone is going to make games that requires > 1MB of storage
2) I agree about clones, so people from Russia or other countries where clones are more common than the real thing have an excuse. However, people making repros are not all from such countries.
Even then, I'm sure an official NES is much cheaper than an eprom programmer over all.
The Everdrive N8 works on clones, AFAIK.
Trying to refrain from making a Herman's Hermits joke:
Bregalad wrote:
1) Noone is going to make games that requires > 1MB of storage
Action 52 has 1.5 MiB PRG ROM and 512 KiB CHR ROM. Action 53 initially comes in 512 KiB volumes, but once all volumes are assembled, the final version is expected to have 2 MiB PRG ROM and 32 KiB CHR RAM. But I'll grant that most multicart mappers are one-offs and thus harder to find a donor for than games sharing a mapper with some common donor.
3gen: Even if you have an official PAL NES or NTSC NES, it won't always run software meant for the other TV system. Demoscene productions, for instance, tend to need a PAL NES. One would need to either buy two NES consoles or buy a clone supporting the appropriate TV system.
tokumaru: EverDrive N8 solves the clone problem but has the same 512 KiB limit as PowerPak. (Interestingly enough it claims to support the Action 53 mapper #28 but not the Action 52/Cheetahmen II mapper #228, despite Cheetahmen II being small enough.)
Yes, I think this is a good idea.
Having been out of town, and now having read this thread, I think the right solution is 1- calling the section as for "EE newbies" by parallel to the programming newbies forum and 2- a sticky in that forum to the effect of 'would they pretty please buy a powerpak or everdrive or invitenes or inl board instead of building a reproduction from old stock'
Do you feel a separate "Reproduction carts" board/forum would be beneficial?I wouldn't use the term "Repro" there, that would actually sound like a platform explicitely for pirate carts. Better call it "Homebrew Cartridge Hardware" or the like. From what I've seen the "repro" questions are about things like how to connect an eprom to an address decoder, or a sram with battery. That isn't any secret or illegal information, if somebody wants to learn about hardware then it's just fine. That approach can be much more interesting than buying a flashcart.
In worst case it will end up with a messy thread that doesn't solve the problem. Ideally this may end up with useful schematics that could be also used by other people; be it for illegal repros, for legit homebrew games, or just for learning about electronics. And well, if somebody is using that knowledge to create & sell mass-produced pirate-carts then the copyright holder or possibly fooled customers may jump in, but that's a different thing (as long as the repros aren't sold by nesdev.com).
I've noticed that the "repro" question is asked twice, once for NES, and once for SNES:
NES Hardware and Flash Equipment forum:
viewforum.php?f=9SNESdev forum:
viewforum.php?f=12I think that should be kept separated!
For NES, the current "NES Hardware and Flash Equipment" board looks just fine to me.
It is marked "Discuss hardware-related topics, such as development cartridges, CopyNES, PowerPak, EPROMs, or whatever."
Looks like the right place to me for people who want to make, modify, or totally destroy cartridges.
If necessary you could make some important dev-cart threads sticky (in case they get lost among the repro hardware hacks).
And for SNES, there isn't
too much activity in that board. I don't think that it's necessary to add a separate SNES Cartridge board there at the moment.
I want to help people out in learning electronics.
I don't want people to feel ashamed for asking simple electronics questions, but kind of wish people would back out a bit and see the overall view instead of demanding an answer to a specific goal, getting that answer, then just disappearing (made their money or whatever).
On the SNES the address mapping thing is often fun to work through, because it's just combinatorial logic and we can talk in simple terms of digital logic gates and simplifying equations to reduce or substitute parts, and can talk about the hardware, and talk about simple electronics that work at low, forgiving speeds.
But I cringe about MacGyver questions where it's how do I connect this exact part to this exact not-quite-fitting part on this exact board that is missing a trace for A15... and then throw in an oh btw I can't solder. I'm not specifically pointing a finger at anyone. Really I'm not, it's just a contrived example.
So a separate forum for homebrew carts, or remix carts, transplant carts, or whatever one would call them, would be welcome to cut down on repeat questions, to try and throw a sticky in there for "how to get started" and "reference information".
Then the development section can become more focused again on the software side of things, or discoveries about the hardware, etc.
I completely disagree about the precept that there's flash carts out there, go buy them-- I hate that attitude, and hate how much they cost, and how it's kind of a grey market. Please, please do tear apart your childhood toys responsibly to see how they work. That is learning by doing.
I think it would be great to get these threads into their own section. I don't know much about hardware, and quite little about specific boards, so I really can't contribute to these discussions. I usually browse through everything except the hardware and emulation sections, and I still run into a lot of these threads. Sectioning them off would be great.
It's not like it makes me super mad to see them; my emotional sine wave is not of great enough amplitude. I'll just continue to ignore them if nothing else.
Creating a section for repros is something I've thought much about in the past. I've got mixed feelings on it.. It's relevant enough that I wouldn't want to complain about it. In some cases it's quite interesting. But in my mind it just doesn't fit under the term 'development'. Whether it's putting an old game onto a cartridge, or cloning old mappers (or the CPU/PPU for that matter), to me it seems more a way of experiencing history by reenacting it. Can it be educational & fun & worthwhile - absolutely. Is it development - I'd argue that it's not. I'm not trying to be overly pretentious about it, I'm sure semantically that can be argued in all sorts of directions, but I think it's a different animal. Much like when I do cover songs in a tracker, no matter how many technical tricks are involved with adapting it to the NES, I wouldn't call it songwriting.
That being said, I'm voting yes because it would make the other forums more interesting to read. IIRC, I'm pretty sure that's why the NESemdev section came about - all those damn ass posts about emulator programming were going to clog up the NES programming section.
I don't normally read NESemdev either, there's some brilliant stuff in there, but 95% of the time it's just not what I'm looking for.
This thread makes me want to vote no.
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=10480Now I"m ok with people asking occasional hardware questions, but can we make it an unwritten rule that the person has to at least do other stuff on the forum and not just join to ask about pirating games? (Say if someone has 200 posts, all related to nesdev...then its fine. But when someone just comes in here for pirating games it's not. Rule enforced at mod's discretion (Sorry Tepples) )
Jeroen wrote:
This thread makes me want to vote no.
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=10480Now I"m ok with people asking occasional hardware questions, but can we make it an unwritten rule that the person has to at least do other stuff on the forum and not just join to ask about pirating games? (Say if someone has 200 posts, all related to nesdev...then its fine. But when someone just comes in here for pirating games it's not. Rule enforced at mod's discretion (Sorry Tepples) )
That thread/user proved to me that it doesn't even matter. I intentionally ignored that ridiculousness only to receive two PM's asking for explicit detail on how to complete their repro. There is no avoiding the absurdity. Somehow a crazy ass story of how you broke something that is coincidentally also your hobby to create is supposed to motivate us to write you a detailed instruction on how to make yet another repro. Unfortunately the few give a bad rap for those who are more tactful.
infiniteneslives wrote:
Jeroen wrote:
This thread makes me want to vote no.
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=10480Now I"m ok with people asking occasional hardware questions, but can we make it an unwritten rule that the person has to at least do other stuff on the forum and not just join to ask about pirating games? (Say if someone has 200 posts, all related to nesdev...then its fine. But when someone just comes in here for pirating games it's not. Rule enforced at mod's discretion (Sorry Tepples) )
That thread/user proved to me that it doesn't even matter. I intentionally ignored that ridiculousness only to receive two PM's asking for explicit detail on how to complete their repro. There is no avoiding the absurdity. Somehow a crazy ass story of how you broke something that is coincidentally also your hobby to create is supposed to motivate us to write you a detailed instruction on how to make yet another repro. Unfortunately the few give a bad rap for those who are more tactful.
Even if us not helping doensn't actually matter. I feel we still shouldn't be HELPING them. The good o'll "but if I don't do it someone else will" argument.
I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this. But I voted other, just so I could drop in my two bits here.
The assumption that all questions about rewiring donor carts are about making reproductions and piracy is false. One project I'm working on right now is an MMC3 dev cart. I don't actually have any specific use for it, I just made it for the hell of it. I've got some sort of problem with it and was hoping to get some help debugging it. Reading this thread made me realize that a lot of people will write me off as just another repro maker. (On the other tentacle, I don't know of any MMC3 game with 32K PRG and no CHR. Do you?)
Karatorian wrote:
The assumption that all questions about rewiring donor carts are about making reproductions and piracy is false.
I agree. There can be a lot of possible reasons for such things, even such as making up a new game, wiring things differently just to see how certain features are working in other cases better, debugging a cartridge, game, or Famiclone hardware, and so on.
Quote:
One project I'm working on right now is an MMC3 dev cart. I don't actually have any specific use for it, I just made it for the hell of it. I've got some sort of problem with it and was hoping to get some help debugging it. Reading this thread made me realize that a lot of people will write me off as just another repro maker.
I don't (mainly because I do not believe it implies that), and don't know how to debug it (especially without a specific question), but if it was posted I would look at it anyways; maybe I do have some idea even though I don't really know about it.
Quote:
(On the other tentacle, I don't know of any MMC3 game with 32K PRG and no CHR. Do you?)
I don't know of any (although I am not familiar with most existing games anyways), but I do think it can be useful to support that kind of things too, in case of making a MMC3 homebrew game at least, even if no existing games use it.
I can't believe I didn't notice this thread sooner. These repro questions are really getting on my nerves. I want to read some discussion where I can actually learn programming techniques from.
I voted yes for different reasons.
1) It would be good to have a section of the forum for "noobie", "learning" and\ or straight up "I wanna pirate this game an profit" users which will keep such threads from clogging up sections of the forums where much more versed programmers and engineers don't want to see such types of talk.
2) It's a good idea to group threads like that for those various users with whatever type of reproduction intentions
to have like minded people to talk with and not get in the way or piss off others that are offended by such. Any of
the more versed programmers and engineers who like holding peoples hands through experiments can drop in and do
so without annoying the ones that don't want to.
3) There could be more but I'll just go with 1 & 2 for now.
Myself I fall in the middle, I know a little about programming, a little more than that about electronics in general with
a real habbit of making odd carts of weird games and yep I've sold some of them I'm not gonna say I haven't. Mind you
most things I need help with are for my own uses. I've wrote guides before for noobs and some of the more seasoned vets
asked me not to post them as they just end up in the hands of those that are only looking to sell repro's for $100 a pop.
I'm not one of those guys, I've actually learned alot from this forum and I do like to share what I know when I can with
folks that at least seem genuinely intrested in the same vein I am (mind you I have given pointers in the past only to see
the user disapear 2 posts later and the same user name be on ebay with said info put to use for profit.)
It's an odd topic and a sensitive one for alot of people. Some far to one side, some far to the other and some in the middle.
End of the day a sub-section as questioned in the OP I think would be a positive thing all around for everyone no matter what part of the argument they are from.
nintendo2600 wrote:
It's a good idea to group threads like that for those various users with whatever type of reproduction intentionsto have like minded people to talk with and not get in the way or piss off others that are offended by such.
That's fine and good until "others that are offended by such" start to include video game publishers with lawyers. I'm thinking of it more in terms of what could get nesdev.com shut down. That's one of the reasons why I made
Holy Diver Batman, so that people could practice making repros without openly inducing each other to commit copyright infringement. I want to keep it implicit: if you can reproduce a mapper test ROM, you can reproduce anything else on that board.
Quote:
I've wrote guides before for noobs and some of the more seasoned vets
asked me not to post them as they just end up in the hands of those that are only looking to sell repro's for $100 a pop.
So start by making a bunch of "How to make Holy Diver Batman on XYZROM" guides, putting them on the wiki, and linking to them in a sticky topic here.
Quote:
Quote:
I've wrote guides before for noobs and some of the more seasoned vets
asked me not to post them as they just end up in the hands of those that are only looking to sell repro's for $100 a pop.
So start by making a bunch of "How to make Holy Diver Batman on XYZROM" guides, putting them on the wiki, and linking to them in a sticky topic here.
Good idea. I'm so on the fence about all this as I totally get where people are coming from on both sides of this topic and it's only a few people who "ruin" it for everyone and the ones who "ruin" it are not the people from either side of the topic they are just greedy fools who want to exploit the hobby.
So when will this new reproduction board open ? The vote has clearly yielded a "yes", and even though I initially voted "no" I'm so pissed of question in regards to repros that I really can't wait for this section to open so I'll be able to ignore those messages completely. I has been like half year this poll has been made, and the demand for help on repros has even more increased.
I'm ready to open it after someone drafts a charter and we discuss it. A
charter includes the title of the forum, the strapline for the index (like "You can talk about almost anything that you want to on this board." for General Stuff), a summary of the kind of topics expected in the forum, what's allowed and what isn't, what people are expected to have read before posting, etc. Usually I wouldn't expect a formal charter, but this topic has historically been so sensitive that I feel like coming to a consensus about what's a repro topic and what isn't, as well as how proactive the moderators are expected to be against suspected infringements that could get WhoaMan in trouble.
tepples wrote:
I'm ready to open it after someone drafts a charter and we discuss it. A
charter includes the title of the forum, the strapline for the index (like "You can talk about almost anything that you want to on this board." for General Stuff), a summary of the kind of topics expected in the forum, what's allowed and what isn't, what people are expected to have read before posting, etc. Usually I wouldn't expect a formal charter, but this topic has historically been so sensitive that I feel like coming to a consensus about what's a repro topic and what isn't, as well as how proactive the moderators are expected to be against suspected infringements that could get WhoaMan in trouble.
On the NES side, I'd say split the current "NES Hardware and Flash Equipment" into two separate sections, one for commercial hardware such as the PowerPak, and then a "DIY Hardware and Flash Equipment/Mods/Repros". Figure out a "charter" for each in order to distinguish between them, then make a boilerplate copy of each to the SNES side. That way, anyone wanting to ignore repro discussions would be able to hide the DIY forums, but still have access to the discussions on the commercial carts if they wanted to do so. I feel like repro threads are as dissimilar to commercial carts in their discussions as they are to software development. As to a formal charter, I feel like that's a good idea, but I don't have time to draft one myself, though I'll definitely weigh in on any discussion once somebody drafts one.
I think that plenty of regulars here are interested in hardware development discussions that are rewarding to follow, and have found that most discussions about making reproductions lack this quality. These tend to involve "drive-by" postings or people who don't get involved much outside the thread, so they don't contribute to the community. Short of banning these discussions, these regulars would like them in their own section so they can be easily ignored and don't clutter the active topics page.
blargg wrote:
I think that plenty of regulars here are interested in hardware development discussions that are rewarding to follow, and have found that most discussions about making reproductions lack this quality. These tend to involve "drive-by" postings or people who don't get involved much outside the thread, so they don't contribute to the community. Short of banning these discussions, these regulars would like them in their own section so they can be easily ignored and don't clutter the active topics page.
If this is the case, I agree to put a separate section would be a sensible way.
Since it's been roughly nine months since the last reply of this thread and the majority agrees on creation of a Repro subforum, have we decided to take action and make it and slowly flag and move over threads now since the reproduction threads have increased and nearly taken over the HardwareDev subforum?
I agree. Once someone writes a draft charter, I'll open the ACP, make the new forum, and move it there.
I figure the only "gimme" that the forum should have is posts that blatantly pirate homebrew games or duplicate homebrew circuitry less than 10 years old should be removed and the user warned. If it happens a second time then the moderators should have a discussion about that individual. Everything else should be fair game. As for a general guideline there isn't a lot of "hand-holding" for "n00bs" and Reproduction discussion isn't something that we'd like to see pop up in the newbie forum either; since it sort of infests and takes over.
1.) "Don't be a dick."
2.) Don't undermine your peers.
Created. Let the flagfest begin. I wonder if giving you probationary moderator privileges on just those two forums will let you do the moves.
In the forum description, I don't believe that ones own work, or homebrew at all should be categorized with reproductions. Discussion about production of original stuff surely is better served in NES hardware section. We all know that "repro" is simply copying something, taken literally, that was produced in the past. Not like developing something. I guess it kinda bugs me too, that recently I've noticed more people referring to repro carts as "homebrew".
Thanks for taking initiative, tepples.
The "Rules" box is utterly unreadable in the "old nesdev" theme (which happens to be the default theme), being light gray text on a light yellow background. I can only assume that it's more readable in Subsilver.
Yeah. I don't have privileges at the moment to edit the Reproductions forums or the stuff tepples has made yet. As for rules and the description of the subforum: It appears that most threads have to do with reproduction of others' work; namely unreleased and imported titles on other mapping configurations. The rules should be: Do not reproduce modern homebrew less than 10 years old. And do not advertise or market your reproductions on the forum. As for the subforum description: A place that you can discuss reproduction of classic titles or "licensed-for-reproduction" homebrew for personal use.
I'll post in phpBB Issues later about the rules being unreadable.
A big THANK YOU for the moderators.
Now all this s**t will be congestionned in this forum alone and I'll be able to finally completely ignore it without being bothered.
Just wanted to thank the mods too. Repro talk is IMO the most annoying thing in the retro gaming scene, so I'm really glad it's all been isolated in its own section.
Took care of the forum rules CSS/visual issues when using the default "old nesdev (wwwthreads)" style.
Rules colors still look really awful.
White and yellow on peach is what I see with latest Mac Firefox. Perhaps if the background color is peach we can use black text and blue links?
Also the Hardware subforums will need a rule to refer those used to posting reproduction questions/concerns into the Reproduction subforum. I can make a sticky post if y'all want; or do you want to make another color-schemed rules bulletin?
You might need to do a hard refresh if you've loaded the repro forum beforehand; I had to do that in order for the new style to show up.
phpBB has some ridiculously stupid "caching" mechanism combined with bizarre (i.e. stupid) design choices when it comes to "themes" (a fancy word for CSS) (note I did not say "styles", I said "themes"). A simple page reload in a browser should pick up the changed CSS (when viewing the board in question), but obviously that's not ideal for everyone.
I've gone ahead and "purged the phpBB cache", which is about as vague as it gets. Whether or not it fixes things so people don't have to reload I don't know; the docs are not clear on what this actually does. I can experiment further if needed (I have no problem busting out curl and/or other tools to look at cached content vs. uncached content).
Those who are curious can Google and find references to using a "Refresh" button within phpBB's ACP when tinkering with themes, but what isn't made clear is that the "Refresh" button actually throws away changes you've made. You see, changes are stored in MySQL, not as a flat files, and the "Refresh" button resorts back to whatever the flat file version was (and which is apparently gone in newer versions anyway), so there's no chance in hell I'm using that button. :P
OK. Finished. I moved all the obvious and not-so-obvious repro threads over. There may be a few stragglers but I believe I'm done for the moment. If you deem my services completed you can remove the hat.
Edit: Kind of funny that the most common repro threads are related to SMB2J, and the post count of repros exceeds both Graphics and Homebrew subforums.
All the moved posts ended up on my unread posts page. Over the next week or so I'll gradually be going through them to make sure there are no blatant rule violations.
Edge/missed Cases:
How about SNES repros? Are they
(ex 1) (ex 2) (ex 3) (ex 4) (ex 5) supposed to be in this new forum? (only first 5 pages of SNESdev checked)
What about creating carts of ROM-hacks? There are a number of threads of that that seem to have been left out as well.
(Apparently, they go in.)Should
discussing the
workings/failings of reproduction carts made by others be in there?
Should creation of
fan-compiled multicarts of official games be there?
Should
hacking games to work on other mappers be there? (Probably not?)
Should
dumping of reprocarts be there? (Probably not?)
One wonders about the difference between reproductions and
"replacement carts."The following thread(s) were simply missed:
one two three four five (Hmm, coinheaven seems to have a lot of these.)
sixWhy did I do this? --all pages of HW/Flash forum skimmed
I think all that you listed belong to Repro section, because it's not relevant for any other purpose than repro.
Hello there.
Yes, I think if we had 4 separate ares it'd be better.
Like, example.
snesdev>>
Cart Repros
Game Developing
Rom Modding
It'd take less time to find with out using the search feature.
Thanks for caring about our thoughts.
Right now the SNES forum is still completely flooded with repro stuff.
This is a scandal.
Four is flooded? I moved four topics to Reproduction. Which did I miss?
Quote:
Four is flooded?
Yes. The problem is that it was 4 in a row, not 4 in total. Oh thank you by the way.