FDSemu - New FDS drive emulator, with menu and large flash

So here lately I've been finishing a project I actually started about two years ago.

I began working on it and learning Atmel AVR microcontrollers in 2013 and since then have done many other microcontroller projects. This project uses a Nuvoton NUC123 microcontroller. I have finalized the hardware design and have sent my board design off to get my first set of boards for this. Very soon I plan to begin selling them (about a month).

All the source code and hardware will be open source.

Here is a list of features I have completed so far.

- 128mbit flash (holds 256 disk sides, bigger is still possible)
- Loading and saving works properly
- USB connectivity for writing and reading flash, writing and reading disks
- Firmware update mode (idiot-proof, special bootloader mode included in case you brick it)
- Built in disk selection menu on power up
- Plugs directly into RAM adaptor
- Console app based on fdsstick console app
- Console app not based on fdsstick app but using loopy's disk manipulation code
- GUI app utilizing Qt library for portability (currently only Windows works with it)
- Button to swap disk sides, stays within currently selected game

Issues:
- Disk writing does not work with the tototek mod. Further investigation is in progress.

Here is a YouTube link to me demoing it with the menu.

http://youtu.be/zxUs1bfGqCo

Photo of first batch of boards, first board assembled.

http://i.imgur.com/JF5myO0.jpg

I am assembling the boards, and selling them. Please see http://fdsemu.com for information and purchasing.

The price is $30 now. But I still have coupon code for you...

Use coupon code for $5 off your purchase, code: nesdev4life
Code valid until 1/31/2016

Looks pretty awesome!

Do you have a ballpark figure as to how much you will be selling them for?

Goodjob.

I also want to make a fds emulator.but not started.

Units will be sold for $50 each.

This is awesome, I'll be looking forward to its release!

What's the deal with your NES? Did you mod it with a Famicom cartridge port? Just curious. Cool project.

Yeah it is a heavily modified NES. Here is an imgur album of some pictures I took while building it, two years ago.

http://imgur.com/a/FAqCr

Thanks for the pictures. I think I have a Famicom edge connector around here still which I intended to do something similar with at some point. With the cartridge slot attached to the lid, is it hard to take apart again?

Nice concept. I once did this with an import adapter but it wasn't the best solution. This looks better to me. Should give it a go again at my NTSC modded NES.

Nice work. Looking forward to it though.

Pretty cool. The menu is a nice touch. That's one thing I wasn't satisfied with in FDSStick -- counting out button clicks can get impractical, it's the main reason I didn't spring for larger flash from the start.

Thanks loopy. You've always been around and I look up to you and the others who have been into nesdev longer than I have, when the irc channel was going strong 15 years ago.

I have finished up some boards that have arrived. My software still needs a little bit more work before it is fully functional but I am providing the source and binary to the modified fdsstick software that I have used during development.

Selling them for $40 for all flash sizes, three different sizes are available... 32mbit, 64mbit, and 128 mbit, each holds 63, 127, and 255 disks respectively.

I just finished this semester so I have some free time between semesters, I will be completing (hopefully) the Qt GUI version and the command line programs.

The firmware is completed, just cleaning up the code before it goes onto github too.

Please see http://fdsemu.com for information and purchasing.

Thanks for all your support! I have discontinued the smaller variations and only selling the ones with 128mbit flash, which hold a total of 256 disk sides.

A shipment of them has arrived here in Nashville, so I am updating my inventory and shipping will resume Monday, December 28th!

Also I have decided to keep them on sale for $40 each.

Firmware to be open sourced shortly, still cleaning up the code a bit.

Just went and bought one, looking forward to trying it out.

Mine just arrived. Once I have a Famicom set up, or I've re-shaped the FDS RAM cart into an NES cart shape, I'll let you know how it is.

I've had mine about a week now. The updated gui is working fine, and the device is working perfectly. My only gripe is that the program doesn't register input from a 15 pin controller on a Famicom, but I was told this would be looked into for a future release. Good solid product, works as advertised with any FDS game I've thrown at it.

I think I might try to mod it into my RAM Adapter case at some point and do away with the cable.

Added support for using famicom expansion controllers to the menu. Check the main page (http://fdsemu.com) for the updated loader.fds image.

Let me know what you think of FDSemu if you have bought one, always open to comments and suggestions.

Thanks!

I'm very appreciative of devices like this and loopy's FDSstick. I enjoy them both, but I wonder if it's possibly to implement auto-disk swapping like flashcarts do.

Now I don't know the low level behind the scenes workings of the FDS and its bios so I guess I can only speculate ways I'd imagine for this to be theoretically possible.

1.) Does the RAM adapter send some sort of "hey, I need a different disk side" message to the FDS that FDSemu could intercept and auto-swap the side with an appropriate firmware update?

2.) I don't know how the flashcarts do the auto-swap. Do some of them modify the FDS bios for additional functionality? If that is the case, could na eprom or whatever kind of chip is needed be burned with a hacked FDS bios that could be installed in the RAM adapter to added needed features for auto-disk swapping? (I'd assume FDSemu firmware would also need to be updated). I'm unaware if the FDS bios is on its own chip in the RAM adapter, or if it's implemented in one of the custom chips that would make replacing it nearly impossible.

If either of these are possible, is there any down side to implementing it? Is there some oddball game that it would break compatibility with?

Please, no. Auto disk swapping means, for example, you can't view the intros to Zelda, Doki Doki Panic, and others. It makes loading actually longer in games that load multiple files in sequence, as they pause for several seconds and show the "SET DISK B" message each time rather than keep a blank screen. On the Everdrive, at least, Kinnikuman fails to load with the autoswapping feature of the ED. There are bound to be more.

I'd like to keep full control over disk sides, even if it means the occasional total exertion of reaching over to push a button.

I would be interested in seeing auto swapping as well, though with a toggle to turn it on or off, if that is indeed possible.

Edit: Just tested expansion/15 pin controller on the new loader, works great! Thanks deadbody!

What is the compatibility on this device? Any fds games which do not work?

I just got mine today and I haven't gotten a single game to work, they keep giving me either an error 24 or 27 depending on the game. Is it really picky about what dumps you're using or could this be an issue with my FDSemu?

EDIT: Just tried the No-Intro dumps and still nothing. I'm thinking mine is somehow defective...

I am working with ApolloBoy to sort this out. Each one is tested very well before I ship it.

The Windows programs are currently the only ones working properly. The OS X and Linux programs need some more work to properly write disk images to flash. This is known and now that I have many of these assembled and tested and ready to ship I can resume coding on these as well as getting the rest of my code ready for open source and updating my user manual.

Having said that, I am offering a New Years special for the entire month of January. They are priced at $40 each but with this exclusive nesdev coupon code you can have $5 off your order, to make it cost you only $35.

I am only making the 128mbit version which holds 256 disk sides.

The loader has been made internal to the firmware to free up the disk slot that the loader was using.

The coupon code for the discount is: nesdev4life

Thanks for supporting this and please keep feature requests coming. I am happy to work out any problems you may have.

Thanks again,

James

http://fdsemu.com/store/

Thanks to deadbody's help, I eventually determined that my laptop was at fault and the FDSemu was working perfectly fine. For some reason, my laptop doesn't flash games to the FDSemu properly and that's why it was throwing up errors every time I tried to load a game.

I've just discovered that Silviana doesn't detect a disk switch on this FDSEmu. Probably, some games wait for an unspecified time between disk ejection and insertion, so I expect to encounter some more that are blind to "pseudo-sudden" disk switches.

Thanks Chris! All fixed, and new firmware update was released on the main site.

New firmware now contains the loader. So firmware/loader updates are bundled together, no more updating just the loader.

Also fixed disk writing issue I had overlooked, tested on a 7201 drive and a 3206 drive with my Write Mod board I am selling in the store.

Impressive work. Still, it's frustrating that one needs a FDS RAM adapter to use it. The RAM adapter alone is ~$16 these days on eBay, so I guess that's not so bad.

The only other option would be a flash cart like the PowerPak. Are there issues with the fidelity of the FDS implementation in the flash carts?

As I understand it, FDS support in the PowerPak is HLE (high level emulation), with a modified BIOS that interacts with a different set of disk I/O ports. There might be issues with copy protected games.

Aren't audio expansions in general troublesome on flash carts?

Powerpak does have to cheat with the disk I/O but I'm not aware of any games that don't work. Apparently they all use BIOS routines for disk access, because they wouldn't work otherwise.

Audio isn't 100% correct either. No reason it can't be, I just didn't have the hardware to compare it to when I worked on it. I need to go back and fix it sometime...

I've changed the coupon code to give $10 off instead of $5, for a total cost of $30.

Use coupon code "nesdev4life" at checkout.

Thanks.

Just ordered one! Thanks for the great product.

Hi James,

Can you provide the pinout of the cable for read/write fds disk ?
Is it same as fdsstick one ?

Thanks

Yes sir. Same cable. I have been installing fdsemu into a few ram adapters and I used the ram adapter cable. Just match the wire colors

Not trying to beat a dead horse here, but here is a cut-and-paste from the fds tech reference document of the connector.


On the cable you assemble, ensure pin 1 connects to pin 1 on the other end, 2 connects to 2, etc. Pin 8 is not connected so you can omit wiring that pin up.

What a fantastic project, really thank you.

I'm very interested in this project especially for writing on real Disk.
I recently bought Kid Icarus, and once loaded found it was SD Gundam game...
I would like to write Kid Icarus on it and enjoy some translated games on real hardware.

Building cable and modding FDS unit with your "FD3206 Write Mod Board" seems pretty easy.
I would like to know what is the method to write FDS image on real FDS disk?

Sorry if this question has been asked before, I carefully read this topic and your instruction, but nothing found.
(And sorry for my bad English, Frenchy here ^^)

Just build the cable mentioned in the above post, and use the command line client program.

Example command line:

Will write a disk image to disk. Ensure cable orientation is same as if it was hooked up to the ram adapter. See the manual on my site for photos.

I have edited the coupon code to give $5 off. And I have lowered the base price of the 128mbit version to $30. After the coupon it costs $25.

Thanks.

Fantastic!
Ordering right away.
And again, thank you very much, seriously.

I have been working Game Doctor support for some time, and here it is.

To load the game doctor images, just specify the first file of the set (the .A file) and the client software will pick up the other images if thier files are named properly in sequence, for example: file.A file.B file.C. Just specify the first one is all you need to do, it will load it to the flash.

Next up is the menu. I have some suggestions from users and I will be releasing the next update containing the menu update. The most important feature will be easier navigation and remembering the previous game selected before you turned the power off.

The January New Years Special is still happening, use coupon code nesdev4life and you get the 128mbit (256 disk sides) model for only $25. I am selling the 256mbit (512 disk sides) model too, it is easy to load it up with disks with the new game doctor support.

The site has been redesigned, please let me know if any more information or resources is necessary.

Thanks,

James

Thanks for Doctor format support !
The main different between normal *.fds and Doctor format :

As I remember,
1) Format is different.
2) Size different. Doctor format will store $8000 x 2 files = 64K.
Disk A is most large size which included :
$200 + $8 + $8000 + $8000, it is bigger than 64K.

So, I don't know if fdsemu will have bigger bank size for it.
If bank size same as before, then it will not work for all games.

Also, another problem is Doctor 4+/6+ have save button.
So, each game have save disk. You need to add 1 bank for the save disk.
The save disk use to backup sram to disk. So, you can continue play game for the RPG.

Ahh! Thanks for the additional information!

I only have a Venus Game Converter 1M, and I did not know about the save function. I can confirm operation with the disks that will work with it (yes they are bigger than $10000 bytes). I have some of the hacked NROM and GNROM games and all of them work (20 or so disks).

Doctor 6M is coming (thanks, Tomy) and as soon as it arrives I will add support for that disk format.

I would like to say thanks to Kaz for helping to get to these Game Doctor disks working.

Just putting in a good word here. Bought one a week or so ago and arrived today. I'm exceptionally happy with the product. Any technical issues I had were quickly eliminated by deadbody who was invaluable in getting the FDSEmu such that it it now works happily on my desktop, as opposed to a single USB port on my laptop.

I just got my unit today and I'm receiving the same error message that Apolloboy got, error 27. The first thing I did was flash it with the new firmware. I did manage to get Metroid to load, but it refuses to change discs. I'm running Windows 8.1 for this. Will update tomorrow when I try a different computer.

Update mine with XP, not possible on my win10.
Since update works perfectly, thanks again James for your help.

Next step, write on real Disk. ^^
This device rocks, thanks again.

I tested it this morning, but I used the motherboard's USB ports, not the front ones. Metroid 1.1, SMB, SMB2 worked fine. Metroid 1.2 loaded to the menu screen but the whole screen was yellow. Will continue testing it a bit more. This is definitely one of those devices that gets touchy over USB ports, kinda like my Kindle2.

Just wanted to say deadbody is a standup guy. Accidentally threw the adapter he sent away and he voluntarily replaced it, despite it not even being his fault. Thanks again!

Integrated FDSEmu into a ram adapter with help from a friend. Disk change button is in the "o" for nintendo, and a USB extension cable can be used to connect it to the PC.

Nice Arasoi!

Any inside pics?

No inside pics, nothing too special in there though. Just some carefully routed wires from the solder pads to the FDSEmu's pins, and an additional button wired up.

Only tricky thing was working with the full size FDSEmu board and positioning it correctly in there, one filter cap had to be moved to the other side of the board. I think deadbody made a handful of slimmed down pcbs for those wanting to do this, it would have been easier with one of those but this works just fine.

For connection to a twin famicom, I have been working on it with fdsemu lately.

Here is a little diagram to get started with:



It should be noted that pin 1 of the twin port C is the pin closest to the middle of the twin.

Once you have all that wired up, you will need some pull-ups. The only thru-hole resistors I had laying around to test this with was some 1k-ohm resistors. I would use something higher than that, probably 10k. You will need four of these.

Connect one to twin famicom pin 2, one for pin 6, one for pin 7, and finally one on pin 8. Tie the other end of the resistor to VCC (pin 10).

To easily connect the fdsemu I used an old card-edge connector from a floppy cable.

I have sent off some board design for some prototype adapter cables. You will be able to connect one side to the twin, the other side to the fdsemu.

And lastly, a customer who bought the fdsemu has provided the design files for a 3D printed case. Here is the link:

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1301401

Thanks,

James

Hey just got around to playing with this and it's fantastic! Incredibly easy to use, and will actually get me playing my FDS again

Awesome work!

just wanted to say thanks for this awesome bit of kit - great fun

Hey, man! There's been some talk over in "NES Music" about proper FDS sound emulation. Since you've been interested in adding different formats to FDSemu's capabilities, I believe others may find it useful for NSF support as well; possibly a player hooked into the menu?

Keep up the progress!

Playing NSFs on an FDS is decidedly non-trivial because of the BIOS region.

Most homebrew NSFs for FDS audio don't bother to avoid this region at all, so it's not going to be very useful for those. (Let alone the whole banking issue, which is an even worse problem.)

Original FDS game rips will avoid it, of course, but depends on whether the ripper decided to use the BIOS area for some stub code or not, so even for those it's a crapshoot.

Like, basically NSF is not designed to be played on FDS, I don't think there's much point in trying.


What would be a lot more helpful is FDS image export from Famitracker, but that doesn't require any effort on the FDSemu side. That would just run properly.

Does FT's FDS NSF export use bank switching or the BIOS area? Because if not, .nsf to .fds conversion would be straightforward.

It will do either or both depending on the contents/size of the music.

Semi-on-topic: Anybody remember where the Xilinx sources are for the PowerPak mappers?

Edit: Got them.

New firmware has been released, with disk flashing time per side to be around 1 second.

Also, alphabatized menu, better menu controls, and code updated for command line client on github.

I've merged my stores together with the new product, the old store is there just in case someone wants to use it.

website is http://fdsemu.com
github source for client is https://github.com/holodnak/fdsemu-client

I had surgery this week so I haven't done much since school was out, I will devote some time to it until the summer semester begin.

Thanks.

I dug out this old purple OSHPark FDSEmu stick. The images it came with worked great on the FDS RAM adapter. However, it is having trouble writing to SRAM, and I can't write anything to it. I successfully erased it, but in neither the Windows GUI nor the Linux CLI client can I get it to do anything.

Sorry! I had surgery recently and I was between releasing some updates. The new firmware was completed but I hadn't uploaded the latest and greatest client. The client on the website is now version 0.8.4 and fixed the SRAM issue.

And I now have some new gums installed and I'm feeling better so I want to catch up the command line client shortly.

Thanks.

Your website is down. Are you OK?

Site seems to be down, everything ok? Was about to order one