I'll take a look at Squirrel. I need to see the foot print size of it (rom, ram, and cpu resource).
Squirrel is just the compiler. The asm stuff is a lightly modified version of the cd bios player (so we can test it on card images). 8K for code, 2x8K for music. You could shrink the bios code by 1/2 with a little thought - it repeats entire sections for sound effects. IIRC, that's one of the first checks it does, and then calls one of two versions of practically the same code. Never understood why, but it works.
BTW: if your player uses the mml codes that bios uses (as listed in the psg driver section of the docs), then squirrel should be able to convert for you. Though it would need modified to support additional codes for DDA, etc. I think there are a few left open.
What kind of eprom would this take?
Don't remember off hand the chip number, but it's a 512K byte parallel 90ms chip that we use. You might be able to go 1Mbyte, but I'm not sure; possibly it may cause bus conflicts.
Trick is, you need a way to burn smd chips - which in most cases means some kind of adapter.
They are easy to make, but finding the socket for a HuCard is a pain. Been watching the progress on
reproducing the socket (the guy making the converter is doing it), so it should be possible.
FWIW: we burn the cards after assembly. Easier than trying to handle the small chip.
Would the HuCard version be Japan region or US region? Hopefully Japan?
Depends on how it's burned. Easy to flip the bits in the image to run on a Japaneese system.
Cost would depend on how many were made; money would be needed up-front to buy parts.
I'm not sure why we're having trouble getting someone to do HuCards of the game, wasn't Arkhan making some for his Deep Blue II game?
We still are. But we are not taking the risk of releasing a hacked game still under copyright.
Might consider selling empty cards, though. But not in mass quantities - they are too much of a pain to assemble.
Honestly, though, if you can live with the exposed chip, that card design would be easier to produce. Use thick pc board, solder on a chip, round the corners and bevel the front edge and there it is. And if you don't like the exposed chip, design/make a cover for it. Won't look like a real HuCard, but it would work.
+1 for bomber man as a boss. He can use the cut-man logic, and throw bombs instead of boomerangs
