• Faster upload because of IRQ driven communication between SNES and AVR
• Progressbar while uploading
• Display Rom infos
• ASCII and Katakana font support
• Eyecandy: new logo design with sine wave effect and bassdrum synced background effects..

Due to these features the loader blew up to more than 55kb, too much for our limited space in the AVR progmem (64kb – 4kb bootloader). Our main firmware is between 8kb and 24kb, depends on the debug-features that you compile in. So the recent task is to either reduce the loader size by skipping eyecandy, finding a better compression routine to compress it in the progmem or build a minimal firmware and put parts of the loader into the surplus 4kb eeprom on the AVR. Probably we will have to combine the different approaches.

One reason why the firmware is that big these days is the new “minimal debug terminal”, a serial command line where you can maintain the Quickdev system status. You can dump memory regions from sram, switch between the busses, write to the shared memory section, show the status of the hardware ports and use several other usefull commands. Check the project page for more details on the commands.

Feel free to order at david @ optixx.org.

We gonna build the first batch of 10 cartridges this week. So stay tuned.

Why inoffical pre-orders list? A fews points are unclear right now. I don’t know the final price since this will depend on the assembling costs which are not setteld yet. I can’t say if the the new PCB are working 100% since we didn’t test it yet. Also we didn’t figured out if we gonna ship the cartidge with a CIC chip or not. The client software is tested and developed under Linux and OS X. Can’t say much about windows. But if you can compile ucon64 with libusb support in windows you should be fine. I will give this a shot soon.

These points will clear up within the next 2-3 weeks. But expect an sale price around 100 USD or 80 Euros. I gonna use paypal for international shipping and direct debit in Germany and even Europe. Will provide an an IBAN and paypal account later.

I don’t take any money before everything has clear up. So the pre-order is not binding as long as you are not happy with the final outcome of the project. I just started this pre-order list, since a few people start asking for it and they don’t want to miss the opportunity to get one.

Just a quick preview of up coming features.

• up to 16Mbit Roms supported
• Ucon64 upload via USB
• Lo/Hi Rom
• Serial Debug Console
• SNES Boot Loader
• SDcard Daughter Board planed

Confirmed Features:

• 16 MBit Sram for Rom storage
• ATmega644 MCU for housekeeping
• USB connection for ROM upload
• ucon64 software compatibel
• PAL/NTSC CICs are supported
• Lo/Hirom support
• Reset trigger from cartridge possible
• AVR USB Bootloader for quick firmware uploads
• Snes bootloader intro
• Snes powered, no power source needed

Stay tuned for more features, especially debugging helpers

Can confirm that US/JAP roms are working.Only tested EU roms before. Used my japanese Nintendo junior and a japanese CIC to confirm that the snesram is working with that setup too.

Max and i added an bootloader to the AVR software toolchain. Now its possible to flash the AVR firmware via the same USB cable as for the normal bulk transfer. So no extra ISP programmer is needed to change the AVR firmware. This is super fast, can flash the 16kb client side firmware in like 3 secs.

Added a reset line trigger to the snes bus. Now the client software can reset the snes after uploading the software. So its possbile to push a rom via ucon64 from the pc and then reset is done by ucon64 and the firmware. No interaction needed from there.

Max is refactoring the schematics so that we can send them over to the pcb fab soon. Stay tuned.

Changes in Detail:

* Add AVR reset button
* Fix CS bug and add additional gate
* Reduce to 2 Mbytes for 16 Mbits games
* Snes reset line trigger
* No FTDI for the serial line
* Add RX/TX to pin header
* Model Snes connector header
* 1,2 mm PCB for direct plug
* Blacksolder Mask
* White silk screen

Preview:

Front

Back

This hardware revision has 2 bugs which doesn’t make it possible to print pcbs now. There is additional OR gate needed to drive the CS line properly and an AVR reset switch is missing too. I guess when Max is back from his holiday he wants to fix this in the pcb layout. I think it would be smart to only use 4 sram chips and to have 2mb and not 4mb. Just to reduce the cost and get some more space on the pcb. If there is an interest from the community to support this hardware revision we gonna print some pcbs and sell them. Otherwise we gonna start working on a enhanced version soon.

A video showing the hardware with ucon64 in action…

Link: www.youtube.com