So one of my early motivations to make a programmable master cart similar to the powerpak was to make a portable NES that wouldn't require cartridges. I was digging through a box the other day and found my old gameboy and couldn't resist tearing it open. I got the idea to put the entire NES and "master cart" inside. My previous plans for a portable were to use a slightly smaller toploader, but the thing would still be unreasonably large IMO.
Now I know there's NOAC's and all but the only hope for a good one is Kevtris' (EDIT and jwdonal's) whenever they get released. But the idea I had was basically to put the NES on a 4 layer board and use surface mount components at a minimum keeping the original CPU/PPU. I think it could be pretty feasible to even put the 5 generic logic chips on a simple CPLD. The WRAM and VRAM could even be rid of if the memory used to hold the rom image had some reserved free space for them. I'd say about 80% of the board is either unused, trace routing, discrete components, or connectors all of which could all be rid of or shrunk to effectively zero real estate.
Toss the RF unit and redo the video output to a small color LCD and I think I'd be in business. There's lots of room to be gained in the gameboy by gutting out the battery compartment and putting in a Li-Ion. You could even permanently attach a gameboy cart and gut out the space if needed.
Anyways just thought I'd share my idea and see what you guy's thought. I did have one question as well. For the CIC onboard, is it needed to prevent resets? Could I just toss it entirely or would have have to have it installed with pin 4 clipped?
Now I know there's NOAC's and all but the only hope for a good one is Kevtris' (EDIT and jwdonal's) whenever they get released. But the idea I had was basically to put the NES on a 4 layer board and use surface mount components at a minimum keeping the original CPU/PPU. I think it could be pretty feasible to even put the 5 generic logic chips on a simple CPLD. The WRAM and VRAM could even be rid of if the memory used to hold the rom image had some reserved free space for them. I'd say about 80% of the board is either unused, trace routing, discrete components, or connectors all of which could all be rid of or shrunk to effectively zero real estate.
Toss the RF unit and redo the video output to a small color LCD and I think I'd be in business. There's lots of room to be gained in the gameboy by gutting out the battery compartment and putting in a Li-Ion. You could even permanently attach a gameboy cart and gut out the space if needed.
Anyways just thought I'd share my idea and see what you guy's thought. I did have one question as well. For the CIC onboard, is it needed to prevent resets? Could I just toss it entirely or would have have to have it installed with pin 4 clipped?