Jaguar Sector II Global Announcement

[ACE]

Here's a neat little site I bump into tonight... It's a series of videos on how to make an NES dev cart. It was meant for the Player Power Computer, but could be something promising. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Of course the computer is another NES on a chip, but it only shows there's a need for a dev cart for NES. Tursi this could be an oportunity to make a Skunkboard for the NES.

http://vimeo.com/playpower/videos/sort:date

This post has been edited by ACE: Jul 30 2010, 09:35 PM

[tomwaits]

There are already a few NES dev cart / flash cart options available. The Powerpak lite is only $38 and seems great for developer use. (the full featured Powerpak is pretty expensive though)

http://www.retrousb.com/index.php?cPath=24

[ACE]

Thanks for the link... I'd forgotten about them. With those PlayPower computers out, the NES might make big comeback. If only we could get some Atari 8s out in the same fashion. Never mind the flashbacks with no cartridge connectors, imagine XL/XE on a chip.

[atarifan49]

Back in the mid-90's a friend of mine found an ad for plans on building a NES dev system using an NES cart, proto board socket and proto circuit card. The plans were designed to use a C-64 as the development platform. I was able to adapt the plans and make a version of the dev board that works on an Atari 8bit computer. I used the two joystick ports as the I/O for the board. Once I built it and got it working though, I didn't have much more interest in doing much more with it - I was more interested in just building it I guess.

It was interesting to learn from the plans that the NES graphic chip was based on the same graphic chip used in the Colecovision which I believe was designed by Texas Instruments. The plans had referred to an issue of Byte magazine from 1982 for learning about the basics of the chip.

Glenn (IMG:style_emoticons/default/glenn.gif)

[Tursi]

hehe.. yeah, there are plenty of NES carts out there. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Nintendo's VDP is a clone of the 9918, yes, but it's unauthorized and although it functions in a very similar manner, and even has some of the same register settings, it's not compatible. Conversely, the Master System and Game Gear use a clone of the 9918 that IS compatible (unsure if it's authorized), adding just one new graphics mode for all the new features. The Genesis VDP is a descendent of that chip, but apparently removes all the 9918 compatible modes, leaving just the one that the Master System used.