I just stumbled upon this last week and was surprised nobody posted about it. Some guy took the NES schematic and made his own NES better hardware revision. You need to salvage the CPU and PPU obviously but the end result is pretty impressive. I wouldn't mind getting one if it wasn't so expensive. 100$ just for the pcb. He has 2 version, one for regular composite PPU and one for RGB PPU (salvaged from arcade board). He was selling fully assembled console on ebay but apparently that ebay started closing his auction. He was selling them for crazy amount, close to 500$.
http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/203257-nes-super-8-project/
I'm disappointed he didn't find the problem to the graphics corruption. I myself wouldn't ever trust it, as if it doesn't work with a little different tech like Punch Out!! an SMB3, something bigger is wrong with it...
I'm sure he'll figure it out, it's only his 2nd board revision but it make you wonder how he could sell them as is for 500$ on ebay! Still,!I like where it's going and might consider buying a pcb at a later point in time once all the issues are ironed out.
There is a thread in nintendoage brewery with more details.
The reason no one posted anything is probably because it's pointless. You're stealing the CPU and PPU from a working NES console and those are pretty much the only two components that matter anyway. It would be different if we were talking about a new board with the CPU and PPU cloned in a FPGA or something.
What advantages does this have over the original console? A better cartridge connector? Better sound? Definitely not worth all this money, since you can get new 72-pin connectors and mod the audio of a regular front loader for much less.
tokumaru wrote:
What advantages does this have over the original console? A better cartridge connector? Better sound? Definitely not worth all this money, since you can get new 72-pin connectors and mod the audio of a regular front loader for much less.
This. And considering the proposed price, it's not worth it. Hmm, let's see, US$500 for this nonsense vs. US$135 for a PowerPak. The US economy is booming, as you know, lots of people have all sorts of cash just falling out of their pockets, we all have so much money we don't know what to do with it... *blink blink*
I disagree that it is ''pointless''. You might not be interested in it but I find it shortsighted to say it's pointless. Other people might be interested in hearing about it.
Let's see:
1: Top loader system with av-out without jail-bar
2: Small form factor
3: Lower power consumption (for people making portable system)
4: Better picture quality (even composite version)
Now I do not think it's worth 500$ but if he was to sell a PCB for less than 75$ I would be really happy to have one.
Oh, and you could possibly add a build in copynes and ENIO on future revision. There's plenty of possibility.
MottZilla wrote:
The reason no one posted anything is probably because it's pointless. You're stealing the CPU and PPU from a working NES console and those are pretty much the only two components that matter anyway. It would be different if we were talking about a new board with the CPU and PPU cloned in a FPGA or something.
What I was going to say exactly.
I think designing a "new" NES that is smaller is a nice idea (despite the fact it has been done several times), however it would have to use a modern FPGA instead of the old PPU/CPU, this way the new console can be build from new components exclusively without scarifying parts of an existing NES. This could also make the system even smaller (considering you could squeeze the PPU and CPU on a single FPGA).
One problem with putting an entire NES on an FPGA is voltage. The ROMs, external SRAMs, and mapper still have to be run at 5.0 V. That's why the Kevtendo implements mappers and ROM access itself.
Many FPGA comes with about 16k of internal SRAM, while only 2k + 2k is needed.
Then, level shifting must be done for CPU and PPU control, data and address lines. For single directional signals, this is not a very complex thing to do, and just requires a +5V supply and a couple of transistors per line. For the data lines, which are bi-directional, it could be a potential problem though. Fortunately we have access to the R/W signal (CPU) or /RD and /WR signal (PPU), and then it is possible to have two level shifters (one for each direction) and only activate the necessarily one.
There are single chip bidirectional level shifters around. I cannot recall any part numbers on top of my head though. They also cost a lot less than a bunch of transistors and/or resistors.
SkinnyV wrote:
I disagree that it is ''pointless''. You might not be interested in it but I find it shortsighted to say it's pointless. Other people might be interested in hearing about it.
Let's see:
1: Top loader system with av-out without jail-bar
2: Small form factor
3: Lower power consumption (for people making portable system)
4: Better picture quality (even composite version)
Now I do not think it's worth 500$ but if he was to sell a PCB for less than 75$ I would be really happy to have one.
Oh, and you could possibly add a build in copynes and ENIO on future revision. There's plenty of possibility.
1. Don't care. Could modify a top loader if you wanted. Or buy an AV Famicom.
2. See above.
3. How is it lower considering it uses the original chips? A modern power supply? You could mod your existing system to use a modern power supply if you just can't live with the massive 10 watts of power your standard NES-001 unit draws. To compare my SNES also draws 10 watts. My Xbox 360 draws around 100 watts. So how many watts does this use? Is it could to cut it down from 10 to... what? I can't say I care about 10 watts already.
4. Better picture quality... how? It's the same PPU which is generating the video signal. Is he claiming his supporting circuitry, an amplifier or whatever gives better picture quality? I have no complaints about my picture quality on my NES-001 unit. And salvaging RGB PPUs results in wrong colors.
So I see no gains. I suppose it might have both 72 and 60 pin connectors right? That would be a plus. Though it would have an incorrect 2.54mm pitch 72 pin connector I believe. I'm not trying to be mean, I just really don't see the point. What would be amazing is an accurate recreation of the NES (CPU and PPU) in a modern well produced FPGA and a board/console of that produced.
For the guy that designed it, it's a neat project. But from the point of view of making a bunch of these, that's where I don't see the point.
It's clearly worth it to him. I've experienced itches like this where it seems minor, but I'll go to great lengths to fix it.
As for the selling price of early revisions, some people might really value having one-of-a-kind prototypes like this, perhaps seeing hardware hackers as celebrities of sorts. If someone wants to pay that much more power to them and this guy who's selling it.
As for money raining from the sky, Ben Bernanke would like that, and the Fed is pouring lots of money into some place, which some people have a connection to. There seems no deficit in Earthbound SNES sales for crazy prices, for example.
Quote:
Though it would have an incorrect 2.54mm pitch 72 pin connector I believe.
I don't think it could work if such a connector is used. This would make more than half of a pin of difference with the error accumulating through all the connector.
Yeah nintendo, non-standard PCB width, non-standard pin pitch. They are total assholes for this kind of stuff.
Bregalad wrote:
This would make more than half of a pin of difference with the error accumulating through all the connector.
The math is a bit more complicated than this I think. There are 36 pins on each side of the board, if you insert the cart perfectly centered, the error will accumulate from the center outwards, so only 18 pins. This means that the last pin will be misaligned by 18 * 0.04 = 0.72mm, which is much less than half a pin. I'm not sure if even that's a safe distance though.
Quote:
Yeah nintendo, non-standard PCB width, non-standard pin pitch. They are total assholes for this kind of stuff.
They were just trying to make their stuff harder to copy and force you to use their customer service for repairs, that's understandable.
If an NES clone doesn't connect the expansion pins, can it use two 2.54 mm pitch connectors with a gap between them, one for the PRG side and one for the CHR and CIC side?
That's an interesting idea!
tepples wrote:
If an NES clone doesn't connect the expansion pins, can it use two 2.54 mm pitch connectors with a gap between them, one for the PRG side and one for the CHR and CIC side?
A familiar strategy!
Bregalad wrote:
Quote:
Though it would have an incorrect 2.54mm pitch 72 pin connector I believe.
I don't think it could work if such a connector is used. This would make more than half of a pin of difference with the error accumulating through all the connector.
Yeah nintendo, non-standard PCB width, non-standard pin pitch. They are total assholes for this kind of stuff.
I've used the wrong pitched 72 pin connector from Digikey going on two years now with heavy use and I love it. Most people still don't believe me but It's works flawlessly. The cart doesn't have enough clearance to slide back and forth enough to cause shorts/opens. I've even tested a large number or unlicensed manufactures games and have yet to find an issue.
I used inifiniteneslives's connector previously on his kazzo and didn't have any issue either.
infiniteneslives wrote:
I've used the wrong pitched 72 pin connector from Digikey going on two years now with heavy use and I love it. Most people still don't believe me but It's works flawlessly. The cart doesn't have enough clearance to slide back and forth enough to cause shorts/opens. I've even tested a large number or unlicensed manufactures games and have yet to find an issue.
Good to know. Did you also find ones that don't perform a death grip on the cartridges?
No death grips, just awesomeness. I posted details
here.
I was even using excessively thick PCBs back in the days before I found a good supplier of PCBs with proper thickness. So the game genie should be fine as well, I haven't bothered to test mine out now that I think about it I should.
It's especially nice for hardware development because I leave the top shell of my NES off. I can slide PCBs in without needing to 'press down' which is next to impossible without a cart case. Also gives me easy access for probing signals and stuff which is a necessity for a lot of my projects. Shock protection is also a huge benefit when you've got small children who like to pull cords in the middle of your game
I support all hardware efforts of this sort. More working knowledge of hardware can NOT be a bad thing!
I placed my order today for the RGB version.