Hmmmm.......?

For hardware talk only (please avoid ROM dumper stuff)
Oerg866
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Hmmmm.......?

Post by Oerg866 » Fri May 22, 2015 6:14 pm

;)

Image
Image
Image[/img]

darknezz19
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Post by darknezz19 » Sat May 23, 2015 4:21 am

Haha, new flash cart?

HardWareMan
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Post by HardWareMan » Sat May 23, 2015 5:47 am

darknezz19 wrote:Haha, new flash cart?
RAM based != Flash. It has more abilities.

But no DTACK, nor TIME. Pity.

PS Selling?

Oerg866
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Post by Oerg866 » Sat May 23, 2015 8:24 pm

HardWareMan wrote: PS Selling?
When it's done, yes :)

doragasu
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Post by doragasu » Tue Jun 02, 2015 8:20 pm

Looks extremely kickass!!!

MrTamk1s
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Post by MrTamk1s » Mon Jun 15, 2015 4:41 pm

Ready? Go!

Image

In all seriousness, please keep this a friendly competition, no :wink:?

Also, out of curiosity, what features will this RAM cart have? All I currently see is a giant PCB with no chips and no evidence if it even works. Pics/videos of operation or it never happened...
SGDK homebrew dev and Unity3D Indie dev.
Sega does what Nintendont!

Oerg866
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Re: Hmmmm.......?

Post by Oerg866 » Sun Jan 17, 2016 4:47 pm

Yes, it does work (there are two working units right now).

But it's not ready for release just yet ;)

BTW: If you build one it has a BOM cost of under 25 EUR.

Imagine the rebates if I approach the fab with a large order :)

EDIT: @Hardwareman: I don't really need DTACK for anything, nor do I need TIME :)

prophet36
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Re: Hmmmm.......?

Post by prophet36 » Wed Jan 27, 2016 8:13 pm

Oerg866 wrote:Yes, it does work (there are two working units right now).
Awesome, well done Oerg!

KanedaFr
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Re: Hmmmm.......?

Post by KanedaFr » Sat Jan 30, 2016 10:05 pm

25€ !!!
I can't wait for the specs !!!

Oerg866
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Re: Hmmmm.......?

Post by Oerg866 » Sun Jan 31, 2016 7:59 am

Well,

I've been a bit busy with school, so I'm just now finishing up the hard and softwarre side as far as the USB interface is concerned.

The specs right now are as follows:

* 6KB of internal firmware memory (it offers some diagnostic features such as mem test, ROM view, booting the Mega CD if you have one, etc.)
* 8 MB of SDRAM (100MHz CL2), the upper 1MB or so will be reserved once I get to implement debugging capabilities.
* USB 2.0 (Mini-B) interface (~4.5 MiB/s actual throughput)
* Fits in regular MD cartridge shell
* Quite a few debugging capabilities if you are developing the binary you are debugging (e.g. hardware ports to transfer arbitrary information to the host and whatnot) - of course you will have regular debugging functionality in any case :P


Here is the BOM as of october 2015:
11.68 Xilinx XC3S50AN Spartan 3AN FPGA
1.36 Alliance Memory, inc. AS4C4M16S-6TCN (4MBit * 16 SDRAM)
0.32 Diodes Incorporated AP2114H-3.3TRG1 3.3V 1A SOT223 regulator
0.32 Diodes Incorporated AP2114H-1.2TRG1 1.2V 1A SOT223 regulator
2.10 3x 74LVC(H)16245A 16-Bit Tri-State Bus Transceivers
3.79 FTDI FT232H 480mbps USB to UART/FIFO interface
0.20 Microchip Technology 93LC56BT-I/OT 2Kbit Config EEPROM for FT232H
1.12 passives (caps/res/etc)
1.53 100MHz Oscillator

= 22.42 EUR
Here are some videos of its current state:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnFkxlQZF8c
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=az5gR-P6wYw

(Excuse my voice and the lackluster presentation. It's 9AM and I haven't slept ...)

Cheers!
Eric

db-electronics
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Re: Hmmmm.......?

Post by db-electronics » Mon Feb 01, 2016 4:19 pm

Very happy to see actual level converters on there...
What does db stand for? Well that's an excellent question...
http://www.db-electronics.ca

MrTamk1s
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Re: Hmmmm.......?

Post by MrTamk1s » Wed Feb 03, 2016 2:07 am

Nice to see it working in the videos, and FAST! Those specs are a beast. I believe in the cart now :wink:.
(And sorry for the somewhat rude post back in June. )
SGDK homebrew dev and Unity3D Indie dev.
Sega does what Nintendont!

Oerg866
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Re: Hmmmm.......?

Post by Oerg866 » Sat Feb 06, 2016 5:10 pm

A few infidelities in the original board layout has made this necessary:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-9fzbxOe18

Switched from LDO to a switched reg for the 3.3, added /Time (For HardWareMan :D), added a failsafe jumper for FPGA core updates via USB (I just learned about multibooting FPGA bitstreams), brought down the BOM cost per unit even further and generally improved the routing of all busses immensely...

Maybe during the summer I am going to be looking for additional beta testers :)

db-electronics
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Re: Hmmmm.......?

Post by db-electronics » Mon Feb 08, 2016 1:39 pm

Very good work! Auto-routers are for wimps! (And blokes who don't care for signal integrity)...
What does db stand for? Well that's an excellent question...
http://www.db-electronics.ca

Oerg866
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Re: Hmmmm.......?

Post by Oerg866 » Wed Feb 24, 2016 3:38 pm

Image

Time has come, my friends :) Time to beta-test the crap out of this.

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