Hi there, some time ago I was over here asking for some instructions to start NES developing activities. I'm very thankful about that. Now, a friend of mine and me bougth some NES clones and we was thinking on the possibility of making some carts for our consoles (Everdrive, Powerpak and those devices have unaceptable prices that we cant afford). My interest in this topic is about create some kind of flashcart to play games and in the future test my own software.
I know, It would not be easy as "copy ROM in the SD and play" but I cant pay 120€ 90€ 80€ or whatever it costs.
I've seen the INL store and some interesting PCBs but Im so lost in this topic.
So, there is some kind of instructions, planning or something like that about making a NES cart?
And how can It work?
As always, thank you very much, I admire so much this community.
All told, you're probably going to spend as much on an EPROM burner and soldering supplies than you would for a PowerPak or Everdrive. An EPROM burner isn't really worth the cost until you need to make many cartridges, and at that point you've spent a whole lot more than you would for a PowerPak. If you already have an Ardiuno, though, or something similar, you may be able to use it as an EPROM burner at very low additonal cost (probably the only think you wouldn't have is a ZIF socket for the EPROMs).
An NES cartridge consists of:
1. Plastic case
2. PCB
3. PRG-ROM chip (EPROM)
4. CHR-ROM or CHR-RAM chip (EPROM or SRAM)
5. Bypass capacitors to improve power stability
6. Additional chips for special mappers (if needed)
7. Lockout chip (if for use with an unmodified front-loading NES)
If you harvest a suitable donor cartridge, all you have to do is replace the PRG-ROM and CHR-ROM. If you're building from scratch, you'll need all of these things.
If you're building a development cartridge, you can put a socket where the PRG-ROM and CHR-ROM go, and swap in EPROMs to try. As a warning, though, the sockets will usually make the cartridge a little too tall to fit well in a front-loading NES.
Oh, though a Kazoo flash programmer from INL, combined with a suitable board might be fairly cheap to get. I don't have any experiences with those, but I think it's considerably cheaper than most EPROM burners, plus it's probably more convenient to reprogram a flash ROM than an EPROM.
A very important thing to consider is the variety of mappers used in NES games. The PowerPak and the Everdrive are able to reconfigure themselves and simulate a multitude of mappers, allowing you to play a wide range of games. Cheaper solutions, on the other hand, use hardwired (or slightly configurable) mappers, meaning that you'll need a different cart for each mapper (i.e. you can't play Mega Man 2 and SMB3 with the same cart). So keep that in mind if you decide to buy INL's boards.
Another important point is that, should you ever buy a flash cart, the PowerPak doesn't work on most clones (it does on some really old ones), but the Everdrive does.
My honest opinion is that if all you want is to play games, a good flash cart is worth all the cash. Being able to select any ROM in your collection from a menu surely beats having to use different boards, soldering/desoldering chips, installing software drivers, bringing carts from the console to the computer and vice-versa, dumping/restoring saves... and even if you go through all this trouble you won't be able to play as many games as a flash cart would allow you to because of the mapper issue.
Much cheaper in the end to buy one of those devices you can afford, that is about the price of 1 programmer, and 10 NES games are at least $30 so I mean even to make carts each and swap eproms, it's pain staking, difficult, and you'll need 4-5 different pairs of ROM, at $2+ each per ROM...this just makes no sense.
I'm just finishing up making an EPROM (and EEPROM I guess) programmer that uses an arduino mega. Seems pretty reliable so far. Couldn't find any reasonably priced EPROM/EEPROM programmers and people seem to always have problems with the software.
These guys are right though. I had the arduino already and it still hasn't been that cheap. I have a powerpak, this is definitely just for fun.
I wouldn't suggest it since it won't save you money but if you had an arduino mega and a breadboard already you would just need the EPROM chips you want to program, a couple transistors, and a variable voltage regulator. The regulator is because UV EPROMs need to be given a strange voltage of 13V to program them unlike EEPROMs. That's the first pain in the ass. The second pain in the ass is that you need a UV light to erase them which can be not cheap somehow. I only went with EPROMs because I couldn't find any EEPROMs.
And I bet the problem with programming an EPROM with a kazzo would be that the kazzo can't supply 13V.
I ordered a kazzo the other day. I think. If it comes I'll see if it's possible to program an EEPROM. Since I'm in so deep already.
I've used a parallel port Willem EPROM programmer from sivava.com for 10+ years, and despite what detractors like to say about it, I've had zero issues with it. It even works in Win7 64-bit. I'd guess they sell for $30-$35. I don't know if there's anything cheaper. I've heard of other cheap programmers, that I have no experience with.
Any decent programmer would also support Flash memory, and that's what I would advise using over EPROM. They cost the same, or less, than EPROMs, and don't need anything special to erase. Hell, the NES itself can program/erase them (when there aren't mapper registers overlapping it).
Over the years I've kept telling myself I should create a decent dev kit that could sell for under $30, but I never really got around to it. I imagine this as using a communication cable, because when testing software, swapping a chip or a CF card for every test is extremely annoying. It's much nicer to just hit upload, then reset. In the past I always used a ROM emulator, which gave me a similar experience, but I spent almost $200 on it.