Comments by "" (@Ancyker) on "Open Source Cartridge Reader: ROMs and saves from real hardware!" video.

  1. Hey, I know you! :P
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  2. If you didn't know, some of the Retrode adapters work with the OSCR. :3
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  3. The MCU controlling the chip is also powered by it, so delaying turn on isn't all that helpful. Your proposed solution isn't wrong, but the time difference would be measured in nanoseconds if not microseconds. The latency for the toggling of 3.3V comes from the time it takes the MCU to boot and set the pin state. HW7 resolves the issue entirely by not powering the cartridge slots and processor with the same power rail. Instead, the slots get their own rail which can be toggled on and off and adjusted as needed by the firmware. It also monitors this rail to make sure the voltage is within bounds so it can cut the power to the slots if it isn't.
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  4. Kits are about $100 if you want to DIY it. The soldering is pretty easy if you get the SMT components preassembled, which adds about $10-20 to the cost depending on if you want RTC or not (most people do not need RTC). It does take a few hours to do it all though. Also, assembled prices will be dropping soonish as well, likely to around $130-150.
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  5. > Would have been nice if the new firmware could just be copied onto the SD card and be loaded from the OSCR menu. The ATmega line does not support this. It has to be programmed by another device. The only way to implement this with the current architecture (the ATmega/Arduino Mega) would be to have another device boot first and look at the SD card for an update, and if found update the main device before booting it. I am currently working on an updater to make updating easier, but it will still require a computer. > how you knew that for N64 cartridges it might be better to turn it on in 3.3V mode before inserting the cartridge to avoid the possibility of the 5V spike The wiki page on Automatic Voltage Select.
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  6. It can do many of the multicarts. If you can take it apart, you can send pictures of the internal PCB and one of the NES devs will likely be able to either tell you what settings to use to make it work or add support for it if it can't already. If the pictures aren't enough you'll probably need to send it to someone unless it's easy and cheap to get. NES is the hardest one to support because the ROMs do not have headers and thus there is no way to automatically determine how the cartridge is laid out. There is some automatic detection which works by reading the first few bytes of the ROM, hashing it, and then seeing if it's a known ROM. If it is, it can suggest settings that should work. But, if it isn't, then you need to tell it how to dump it.
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  7. Why? It can dump like 2 dozen+ different systems now. There are only a few I know of that are still missing and they are being worked on.
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  8. Pre-built or kit?
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  9. That's not what OSHW is. OS chips exist yes, but that's a different level. To be OSHW it just needs to be made using off the shelf components with all the files and info needed to build it being open source. Using your strict definition of hardware almost nothing would be open source hardware. Not only that, but the term would be meaningless. Open source ICs don't really matter to prosumers or most DIYers, let alone consumers. Your average person isn't going to drop half a million dollars to pay a fab to make their own custom silicon.
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  10.  @AndersHass  According to OSHWA, it's open source hardware: > Open source hardware is hardware whose design is made publicly available so that anyone can study, modify, distribute, make, and sell the design or hardware based on that design. The hardware’s source, the design from which it is made, is available in the preferred format for making modifications to it. ... and ... > As described in the Open Source Hardware definition and statement principles, the essence of open-source hardware (OSHW) is sharing the design files for a piece of hardware for others to modify or make hardware from (including for commercial purposes). > > Original Design Files > These are the original source files that you would use to make modifications to the hardware’s design. The act of sharing these files is the core practice of Open Source Hardware. ... which is further defined to include: > Circuit board CAD files such as capture files (schematics) and printed-circuit board (layout) design files. > Example formats: Native files saved by Eagle, Altium, KiCad, gEDA, etc. OSCR PCBs are made with KiCad. Additionally, the OSHW logo is literally in the README, and the OSHW gear logo is on the back of the main PCB as part of the OSCR logo. The OSCR is open source hardware. You are talking about open source components and architectures. While nice, their use is not required for open-source hardware. Again, by your definition many things considered open source hardware by basically literally everyone except you would not be considered as such. Your definition is not the definition used by the industry -- the Arduino line of products is literally talked about as being open-source hardware, as are most of Adafruit's products.
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  11. Soon™
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  12. There are still undumped cartridges out there. Some we know exist, but there are ones we don't even know about. Even for the ones that have been dumped many are not verified on no-intro even now. This project uncovered a few ROMs of which the common downloaded version did not match the cartridges. So we thought they were preserved but they were in fact not.
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  13. The only mainstream publisher I know of who lets people purchase ROM files without forcing a specific method of play is Sega. If you buy the Genesis/Mega Drive collection on Steam and open the folder it's installed in there is a folder named uncompressed ROMs which contains all the ROM files for the games you bought. These ROM files are not used by the software which uses a modified version of the ROMs for achievements. Rather, these unmodified ROMs were included specifically for people who wanted to use their own emulation software of choice. :)
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  14. Soon™ 🙃🙃
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  15.  @Shocker99  I think you misunderstood what I was saying. Your proposed solution was not a hardware solution because it was not a solution at all. It was not the TPS2113 causing the issue, it was the microcontroller. Your proposed hardware solution would not have fixed this because the MCU is powered by the TPS2113, so your solution would have made the problem worse by delaying the MCU booting and changing the pin state even later. Also, this problem was actually recently solved via a firmware update that moved the pin state update to even earlier in the code.
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  16. Even as a prebuilt it's far cheaper to get an OSCR than one-trick pony dumpers. For a GBx-only dumper you'd pay $50. Prebuilt OSCRs cost about $200. So for the cost of 4 single-system dumpers you can get this all-in-one dumper. It sounds expensive until you really think about it.
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