131 replies to this topic

[Tom`]

You'd need a lot of very tiny alligator clips to hit all the pins on a game cartridge. And a microcontroller to translate that into actual data, and to send it over USB.

But it's theoretically possible, assuming that the cartridge itself just provides data and doesn't authenticate for the presence of an actual console at any step. That would complicate things a bit.

Couldn't that authentication be done by the microcontroller? I mean, dumping (say) SNES games can't be as simple as buying a connector and an Arduino or something (for someone skilled at working with microcontrollers, I assume this would be simple), or dumpers wouldn't cost hundreds of dollars...

[Matthias_H]

You'd need a lot of very tiny alligator clips to hit all the pins on a game cartridge. And a microcontroller to translate that into actual data, and to send it over USB.

But it's theoretically possible, assuming that the cartridge itself just provides data and doesn't authenticate for the presence of an actual console at any step. That would complicate things a bit.

As far as I understand,
(1) SNES cartridges should fit into any standard 2-row, 1/10" pitch, 23- or 35-position card edge connector (Digikey/Farnell/etc.). The original SNES did not use alligator clips to hit all the pins ;-).
(2) the data is stored on a standard ROM chip which one should be able to read out without trouble. Pinouts can be found on the web.
(3) SNES emulators should take care of "hardware check" code bits anyway.

I just ordered a few parts, let's see how it turns out

[lulzfish]

Yes, but the post I was replying to said something about alligator clips, which is frankly ridiculous.
And I would have expected Nintendo to put some sort of authentication in the cartridge, like:

"Hey, what's at address 0?"
"Who wants to know?"
"Uh, a SNES!"
"Really?"
"Sure, why not."
"Screw off!"

But maybe they didn't, and all that data is just chilling on the ROM unencrypted.

[Matthias_H]

Yes, but the post I was replying to said something about alligator clips, which is frankly ridiculous.

Okay, I see and agree :-)

And I would have expected Nintendo to put some sort of authentication in the cartridge, like:

"Hey, what's at address 0?"
"Who wants to know?"
"Uh, a SNES!"
"Really?"
"Sure, why not."
"Screw off!"

But maybe they didn't, and all that data is just chilling on the ROM unencrypted.

Well, after skipping through a bunch of specification pages, I am pretty sure most game manufacturers didn't. (They were more concerned about game cartridges to be copied, and invented things like SuperFX to keep people from doing that. Also, some games have code that checks ROM/RAM access times, but handling that is definitely the emulator's business). So in principle, a relatively simple memorychip-to-USB-wrapper (with USB Mass Storage, a hard-coded read-only FAT16, and conversion to SMC/SWC file format added on top) should do. Atmel even provides a USB Mass Storage example app for their AT90USB uC series, so (theoretically) all that remains to do is mostly about hooking up the cartridge and diverting part of the SCSI read commands to the ROM.

Edited by Matthias_H, 29 May 2009 - 12:15 PM.

[urjaman]

Well, after skipping through a bunch of specification pages, I am pretty sure most game manufacturers didn't.

specifications ... where?

(They were more concerned about game cartridges to be copied, and
invented things like SuperFX to keep people from doing that. Also, some games have code that checks ROM/RAM access times, but handling that is definitely the emulator's business). So in principle, a relatively simple memorychip-to-USB-wrapper (with USB Mass Storage, a hard-coded read-only FAT16, and conversion to SMC/SWC file format added on top) should do. Atmel even provides a USB Mass Storage example app for their AT90USB uC series, so (theoretically) all that remains to do is mostly about hooking up the cartridge and diverting part of the SCSI read commands to the ROM.

I just checked out a few docs i could find and it seems that the cartridge has a simple 24-bit address bus + 8-bit data bus + bus control signals that would need to be connected (+ ofcourse GND,VCC (5V)) -- and do check you have the necessary amount of pins on your µC before you try to connect it
For that usb wrapper, it would need logic to detect the rom mapper used by the cartridge -- or you could just read out the full 24-bit address space (16 MiB - wikipedia says that the biggest games ever were 6MiB (48 Mbit) ) and work from there...

I actually happen to have a device that could be modified to dump SNES cartridges - it's current job is a DIL32 bios flasher --- it has 24 address lines of which 18 are connected to the DIL32 -- one would "just" need to connect all it's pins to a cartridge connector + reprogram the device.
The device is essentially an ATmega88 + 3 74HC164N's (shift registers) (the output-only address bus) + a serial port level translator.
I wont be doing the mod -- i dont have any SNES cartridges -- but just a note on what is a pretty much minimum configuration of a rom dumper device, i think. And dumping 16MiB over serial at 115200 would take over 24 minutes -- less with the software on this thing that can compress emptyness (one single value repeating for 256 bytes) - but as reading 256k without sending it out takes 15s -- 16MiB = 16 minutes.

[Matthias_H]

For that usb wrapper, it would need logic to detect the rom mapper used by the cartridge -- or you could just read out the full 24-bit address space (16 MiB - wikipedia says that the biggest games ever were 6MiB (48 Mbit) ) and work from there...

On this page, they do not only explain how to detect whether a cart is LoRom or HiRom, but also that the ROM has a reserved range where information about memory size and chip configuration is stored. So it should be possible to read out just as many data as needed.

I wont be doing the mod -- i dont have any SNES cartridges -- but just a note on what is a pretty much minimum configuration of a rom dumper device, i think. And dumping 16MiB over serial at 115200 would take over 24 minutes -- less with the software on this thing that can compress emptyness (one single value repeating for 256 bytes) - but as reading 256k without sending it out takes 15s -- 16MiB = 16 minutes.

As I said, Atmel offers the AT90USB series (including the dev kit AT90USBKey which comes with plenty of free i/o lines), which should allow for considerably higher data rates than your standard serial port.

I used to have a documentation file about the SMC or SWC rom file format on the screen, but now I can't find it anymore.

[VRAndy]

I'm absolutely thinking about getting a GPS for use with some sort of open source mapping software.

I still think you could mod a built-in one. Some GPS modules are REALLY small. I don't know if I'll be brave enough to mod my Pandora, though.

[Elwing]

I'm absolutely thinking about getting a GPS for use with some sort of open source mapping software.

even better, use it with something like net stumbler and a wardriving software...

[VRAndy]

I'm absolutely thinking about getting a GPS for use with some sort of open source mapping software.

even better, use it with something like net stumbler and a wardriving software...

I may also do that. But GPS first. I don't want to get lost while war driving.

[jormajoo]

I'm absolutely thinking about getting a GPS for use with some sort of open source mapping software.

I still think you could mod a built-in one. Some GPS modules are REALLY small. I don't know if I'll be brave enough to mod my Pandora, though.

Almost all new mobile phones have GPS and bluetooth, so I'm not going to buy anything separate to plug into usb-port. The idea of modding a GPS module into Pandora is quite nice though. I believe there is some empty space near the speakers.

[Matthias_H]

As I said, Atmel offers the AT90USB series (including the dev kit AT90USBKey which comes with plenty of free i/o lines), which should allow for considerably higher data rates than your standard serial port.

Well, here's a first success: I got the dev kit this morning, and after a few hours of fiddling with soft- and hardware, I have now a USB device that appears to the operating system as read-only Mass Storage, hallucinating a FAT16 file system with the skeleton of a SNES ROM file. Now, all that remains to do is to hook up a real cartridge and to pipe the ROM data through the USB.... Does anyone happen to have a cartridge of your least favorite game which you would donate for this noble cause? :-)

Edited by Matthias_H, 06 June 2009 - 08:21 PM.

[may88]

I'm absolutely thinking about getting a GPS for use with some sort of open source mapping software.

I still think you could mod a built-in one. Some GPS modules are REALLY small. I don't know if I'll be brave enough to mod my Pandora, though.

Long wait for the 2nd batch if you get it wrong.

I voted GPS. I'd want it more for walking. I wonder what the Pandora total solution would be. Hardware and software.
Found this which is a list of thing that someone may be able to understand.

[Wojtek Kanalia]

There's tons of free Linux GPS software around, that's for sure. So anybody picks what suits them best with their GPS accessory

[Nation.A.List]

But very little 'TomTom' like software with route planning and turn by turn instructions.

[jb0yx]

i actually voted "A simtray for bothering people with prankcalls " as ackward as it might seem, my buddy uses his clamshell verizon phone as like a netbook and talks to people on his BT headset, how this would actually all work out??? no clue, but would be neat plus the possibility of wwan.... dude... no brainer oh and +1 for gps also