Low cost Flash Hucard

[Nando]

what a project! wow!

[gameofyou]

Hmm.  I have an idea, which may be stupid, but I'll say it anyway.

What if... the card gets tested, and everyone signs up for their cards.  And everyone pays.  But to share the workload, the people on the forum who are good at soldering could recieve around 5 bare cards and parts, solder them up, and send them on to other people in their area?  As a consequence, the people who recieve these cards would pay a small fee to the solderer, meaning the solderer would end up getting a reduced/free card?

Like I say it may be ridiculous, but considering the interest these things are generating, I don't see GameofYou having time to solder together 100s of these things.  And I suck at soldering, so I would gladly pay someone to solder mine (if I get one).

lol.  I think 100 is a little optimistic, but who knows?  Over time maybe that many people will want them.
 
Right now my plan is to offer two options.  One option will be to buy a fully assembled (and tested) HuCard.  The second option will be to buy a bare pcb only (no parts soldered down).  I will also supply a Bill Of Materials, and all the parts are common enough to be available at vendors like Digi-Key.  This way if other people want to build some up for others, they can.

[gameofyou]

Might I suggest a toaster-oven? (Don't laugh, Google it.)

Ha, that's a good idea.  I'm actually getting the hang of it though, with an iron.  I think each board will get faster as my skill improves.

[gameofyou]

Ok, I have the first prototype assembled:
 

 
And good news, I have successfully gotten the USB communications working (after fixing a couple dumb software mistakes).  It won't be long now, before I can insert it into my PC-Engine...

[spenoza]

I hate to say this, in part because I'm perpetually low on funds, but I'm itching to shell out for one of these.

[esteban]

Ok, I have the first prototype assembled:
 

 
And good news, I have successfully gotten the USB communications working (after fixing a couple dumb software mistakes).  It won't be long now, before I can insert it into my PC-Engine...

That is beautiful. A tear is rolling down my cheek.

Seriously, though, you have been making excellent progress with all aspects (no just the hardware) of this project.

[cabbage]

Really looking forward to this since my neo pce flash cart is out of commission for the time being. Everything is looking great so far 

[grahf]

That's awesome! Nice job!

For the final design, have you considered using a mini-usb connector instead of the type-b connector? Everything else is fairly low-profile, so mini-usb would be awesome. Or instead of having only mini-usb, it looks like you could add headers for both types of connectors on the PCB, if you wanted. What do you think?

[ccovell]

I'd opt for micro-USB myself...  The whole point being to get the thing as flat as a card.

[spenoza]

The mini and micro USB connectors really don't have that much difference in overall size. I suggest using the same USB connector most phones are currently using for charging. That way everyone will already have half a dozen or so loose USB cables sitting around.

[TailChao]

This is a very nice, clean design. Good work
I'm going to need to learn more about USB... everything I make still requires a chip programmer. Being able to flash with just a PC is so nice.

[gameofyou]

That's awesome! Nice job!

For the final design, have you considered using a mini-usb connector instead of the type-b connector? Everything else is fairly low-profile, so mini-usb would be awesome. Or instead of having only mini-usb, it looks like you could add headers for both types of connectors on the PCB, if you wanted. What do you think?

My original thought on the USB is that it would be nice to have a full-size connector so that you can grab onto it to pull the card out.  Adding a footprint for both types is a good idea.  I will look into this if I get time.
 
Hopefully this isn't against board rules, but can anyone send me a KNOWN GOOD PC-Engine game file?  It doesn't matter if it's commercial or homebrew, I just need something to test.  My email address is gameofyou _at_ sbcglobal.net.  Thanks!

[ccovell]

You can always try out (plug time) some demos from my page:  http://www.chrismcovell.com/creations.html

The BRAM tool, for example, won't work on the Tototek flash card, for whatever reason.  (Tototek one erases/disables BRAM randomly for regular HuCard games too...)

[gameofyou]

Thanks ccovell !
 
I have made a major breakthrough today and got one of ccovell's demos up and running on the HuCard !!!
 

 
Before I tested the demo, I had done a test where I loaded AfterBurner II into the flash memory, over the USB link.  I then read the data back out of the flash memory and compared it to the original game file and they matched exactly.  This meant that the flash writing routines and the USB communication routines are working correctly.
 
However, when I attempted to play the game on the PC-Engine, I got nothing but a blank screen.  However, ccovell's demo works correctly.  The only thing I can think of is that maybe the two highest address lines are backwards.  Because ccovell's demo is small enough that A18 and A19 will both always be zero.
 
One other interesting thing is that I had to do the "bit swap" operation on all of the databytes, in order to get ccovell's demo to run.

[gameofyou]

Holy crap!  I have finally gotten my first commercial game up and running on the flash HuCard!  I downloaded the USA version of Alien Crush, and enabled the "Bit-flipping".  This allows the game to run perfectly on my PC-Engine!
 
Alien Crush is also a 256KByte game, which reinforces my belief that the larger games don't run because I have a couple address lines flipped.