Flash chip HuCard design

[Paisa49]

So, is anything going to come of this? Can flash carts be made? 

[nodtveidt]

They can indeed. I've just had zero time as of late to pursue it, and no money to burn due to wifey's pregnancy.

[Paisa49]

Congrats to you and your wife, Nod. I'm sure you'll keep the board in the loop when you do get rolling on this project. I think it's great that you're even contemplating something like this.

[Charlie]

Well, this is quite a coincidence:

New guy here, and this is a cool site.  I'm into the Turbo Express myself, and just this past week, have done the electronic and physical analysis (translation:  a lot of GOOGLE) to make myself a HUCard to DIP ram chip (using a socket, of course).  I just today finished a tedious measurement of the HUCard's physical attributes (that is, I've documented the physical aspect of the pins), so I can make myself a PC board.  And, to my pleasant surprise, you have already done that.  I have not examined your circuit in detail, so I don't know if it is compatible with the Turbo Express console pinout (but I guess it has to be, since I believe the Turbo Express uses the same cards that your system does --- can you tell me?), and if it is compatible with my ROM emulator pinouts.

So, I humbly beg, is it possible to get your pcb file?  And could you tell me what design system you used?  I have access to about five, so I probably have the one you used.

I am also trying to decipher the HU -vs - Magic compiler thingy.  All I need is a way to get a "hex" file (or equivalent) of a few demo programs that seem to be very available here.  Any hints?  FYI, I speak 6502 fluently.

As an aside, I noticed someplace on this forum, someone asked about a broken component, and had published a picture of it, asking what it is.  I am pretty sure it is the flyback coil for the LCD backlight, as the backlight needs a "high voltage" source  (20-25VAC or so).  So, as long as the backlight is working, the coil must be ok.  If it's desired, I can check the circuit to be sure.

As another aside, I don't generally see too much homebrew for the Turbo Express; have I missed it someplace?  I also don't see too much on the hardware "secrets" of the Turbo Express...would it make sense to assume it is the pretty much the same as the PCEngine?  Or are we talking just the same components?  Just how much of the Turbo Express truly is based on the PC Engine?

I have more, but this post is long enough.

Keep up the good work!
Charlie

[Tom]

AFAIK, the core of the Turbo Express is identical to the TG16, which is identical to the PC-Engine which the exception of the 8bit bus lines reversed (as a region lock-out method) and 1 pin held high for the I/O port (it's internal and used by only US hucards to check which region system they are running on). For the screen, I assume it handles the 7.16mhz pixel clock mode as some hucards use it, but I don't know about the 10.74mhz pixel clock mode. It handles the 5.37mhz pixel clock just fine.

 The CDROM maps new I/O ports into existing range of the hardware bank and re-uses IRQ2. Both the address lines and IRQ is available on the cart port as well. It's totally possible for someone to build a CDROM "emulator" that could run CD games from a flash rom on the cart, on the TG Express. Now that would be something 

[Charlie]

Ok, thanks for more info.

The obvious inference is that, generally, anything that can work on the TG16 will work on the TE.  This means I can use some of the demos, once I figure out how to get them to compile, on the TE.
That's a big help...thanks again.

Now, if I can only get my PCB adapter made...

Charlie

[pckid]

I have no idea what's going on, but it looks pretty rad!

And now, the final draft:



BYTE# was tied to Vss, so the pin is grounded and the chip is locked in Byte mode.

Hello ,

i would like to use this schema to create a hucard custom , but do you know the way to implement the 29F400 ,
 to get 16 or 20 mbit for my development homebrew ?

it's difficult to add this features ?

thanks

[TheOldMan]

to get 16 or 20 mbit....

With only 21 address lines, you would have to design a memory mapper to do it.

[nodtveidt]

With only 21 address lines, you would have to design a memory mapper to do it.

pckid and I were talking about this in PM. I suggested that he use a 29F400 mapped to the low 4mbit addressing range and a few 29F400s with some kind of addressing scheme for the top 4mbit addressing range (a multiplexer, perhaps?). He's posting this in public to see if anyone has any ideas as to how to proceed with that idea, or if there are any other ideas that will work.