Last night I cut up a couple PCI slots to make NGP cart sockets. The process of making multiple at a time is a bit easier than making one, because I can mark a couple at a time. After one is made, it’s much easier to use that as a guide to make others. The
This one is a bit trickier. It’s a bit more involved to actually take a .NGF save-game file and write it to an official cart. Nonetheless, I did it. I had issues, and I left out any real error checking (like to make sure the .NGF is valid for the cart). It works, though. So,
Today I had a new idea. I can take an official cart and scan it to see which blocks are unprotected. That means they’re writable. The save-game data will always be stored in one or more of the writable blocks. I worked on the RACE NGPC emulator’s flash memory emulation enough to know how it
Well, there wasn’t much for new development over the weekend. I don’t have any new pictures or videos to show off, because the things I did weren’t very showy. On the USB Pocket Linker front, I wrestled with optimizing the cartridge dump/backup process. I put a little work into making the command-line application a bit
Over lunch, I added the rest of the address lines. I was then able to read the entire cart. I was also able to send commands to it. I got some good data back, but I was unable to write to the cart. Hmm. I tracked down the problem. Stupid me. The last thing I
Well, here it is. After I had a brilliant idea followed by an epiphany about how to breadboard the cartridge slot, I started wiring it up. I had to install a voltage regulator to drop the USB 5V down to 3.3V that the NGPC cart could handle. I didn’t wire up all the lines yet,
I’ve got a little video of my own, tonight. Watch as I magically transform a simple PCI slot into a socket of awesomeness.
This guy is on the right track! I don’t know what his plans are, but I know he’s doing some impressive things!
I need some ideas for how I’m going to insert my NGP cart into this “linker” device. The pin spacing is the same as PCI, so I got some PCI slots to use in my prototype. The problems are… The edge connector needs only be on one side. There’s a key in the middle. The
I had planned to be playing Pokemon TCG with my homies tonight. That fell through, so I got the evening to play with my new toys. I probably should have been doing some real work, but I got caught up trying to write this flash chip, instead. I just got it working. I can read
