Turbografx-16 & PC-Engine Reproduction Hucards & Cases Now for Sale!!!!

[turbokon]

https://www.pcenginefx.com/forums/index.php?topic=19848.0

Ah right, turbokon started there, ordered some from that French guy, learned how to program them, and later teamed up with Jodi and Steve to do their own with full cases/manuals also.

So Steve, what factory did you find to produce the cards, like what ichigobankai found, this http://www.ponoko.com/ ?

Actually we were already working on this before stumbling across ichigobankai's post.  Thesteve already started on the layout before I saw ichigobanki post.  However having ichigobanki's cards on hand did helped on the programming aspect of it.

As thesteve already mentioned, ours used FR4 materials.  Ponoko just make simple cuts from plactics, mdf boards, leathers etc.

[NightWolve]

Ah, and "FR4 materials" ? (Nevermind, I looked FR4 up)

But are you fabricating these entirely at home or ? Where are you buying the material and what have you, and getting the design of the HuCard made is what I'm asking/wondering about, etc.

And how are you accomplishing that great printing/label/artwork on them as fans ? It's so original-looking/professional, maybe even better-looking! Or are you not wanting to share some of those details ?

[esteban]

Ah, and "FR4 materials" ? (Nevermind, I looked FR4 up)

But are you fabricating these entirely at home or ? Where are you buying the material and what have you, and getting the design of the HuCard made is what I'm asking/wondering about, etc.

And how are you accomplishing that great printing/label/artwork on them as fans ? It's so original-looking/professional, maybe even better-looking! Or are you not wanting to share some of those details ?

Trade secrets.

Hint: XXX XXX XXXXXXXXCC.

[NightWolve]

Here's an interesting idea: new, cheap, repro Arcade card... Any takers ?? Can it be done...? Well, inside sources reveal that the idea is currently being explored... That's not a 'yes', but that's not a 'no', it's a 'stay tuned'...

[TheOldMan]

... new, cheap, repro Arcade card

Yes it can probably be done. Would need a programmable chip (PGA/CPLD) to do the registers, and
extra RAM chips. The real question is if there is enough space on the board for everything...But you would have both sides to work on, so probably.

[Sapicco]

Are these available yet?   And, can you make cd games on the hu's?

[thesteve]

... new, cheap, repro Arcade card

Yes it can probably be done. Would need a programmable chip (PGA/CPLD) to do the registers, and
extra RAM chips. The real question is if there is enough space on the board for everything...But you would have both sides to work on, so probably.

well my thing is i havent done anything with programmable controllers
as far as space we have about 0.040 chip height to play with and are using TSOP now
also i have no info as of yet on how the pages are called

[TheOldMan]

...as far as space we have about 0.040 chip height to play with and are using TSOP now

Height isn't the problem; we know theres enough room underneath for Flash / Ram chips. (Rams are same height at Flash; Flash chip fit underneath, so there's no problem).
The problem is surface area; only about 1/2 of the top area is available for mounting chips. A large programmable chip might use all/most of that. You would have to find one with enough gates to duplicate the arcade card registers, and a small enough area to fit on the board.

I know only that programmable chips exist, and come in different gate counts. IIRC (and I may not), number of gates is proportional to surface area, so more gates == bigger area.

If you are serious, or just want to learn more about the chips, maybe you could contact Kevtris on the atari age forums; he's been doing cpu emulation via fpga's. Maybe he can help recommend one to use.

And somewhere around here (and in HuC files) is a description of the arcade card registers. Looking at that might give you an idea of what you would need, in terms of gates, etc.

I still think it's doable; I just don't have the in-depth knowledge it would take.

[Black Tiger]

A cheapArcade Card is out of the question, considering the price of these relatively simple straight-game HuCards already. But this physical format might be ideal for the kind of "super" Arcade Card that developers have been asking for. To make translations and various projects easier.

[Trenton_net]

A cheapArcade Card is out of the question, considering the price of these relatively simple straight-game HuCards already. But this physical format might be ideal for the kind of "super" Arcade Card that developers have been asking for. To make translations and various projects easier.

At the rate I see Arcade Card Pros going up in price, we may not even need super cheap repos. Just something cheaper than the stupid prices it goes for now. What boggles me even more, is that there are only a few legit games that work with it and only a small pool of users who would genuinely need one.

I'm sure if they had made the Arcade Card Pro incompatible with duo systems, the price wouldn't be nearly as high as it is now since it would eliminate all the people who buy it just for the "idea" that it's somehow tangibly better than a Duo card.

[farankoshan]

Cannot wait!! Please update when these go live!

[SplatterTrigger]

Thanks again guys!

[Black Tiger]

Do these come with repro manuals, or is that one you just already had?

[elmer]

...as far as space we have about 0.040 chip height to play with and are using TSOP now

Height isn't the problem; we know theres enough room underneath for Flash / Ram chips. (Rams are same height at Flash; Flash chip fit underneath, so there's no problem).
The problem is surface area; only about 1/2 of the top area is available for mounting chips. A large programmable chip might use all/most of that. You would have to find one with enough gates to duplicate the arcade card registers, and a small enough area to fit on the board.

I know only that programmable chips exist, and come in different gate counts. IIRC (and I may not), number of gates is proportional to surface area, so more gates == bigger area.

IMHO, you should only need a fairly simple FPGA/CPLD to do the Arcade Card ... your problem is more going to be in the number of I/O pins that you need, and the total number of individual IC chips ... trying to fit a CPLD, ROM, and 2 RAM chips into the space that you've got is going to be ... interesting.

As far as CPLD/FPGA/RAM choices, well you don't have that many anymore if you're talking about using 5V parts ... and if you're going to use 3.3V parts, then you're going to need to add level-shifters too, which is going to take up more space.

Is the Arcade Card Pro really that rare that it's worth going to all that trouble?

Give it 5-10 years and the whole PC Engine/CD/Arcade Card will all be emulated on FPGA hardware anyway.

A cheapArcade Card is out of the question, considering the price of these relatively simple straight-game HuCards already. But this physical format might be ideal for the kind of "super" Arcade Card that developers have been asking for. To make translations and various projects easier.

Errr ... don't we already have that "super" Arcade Card with the Turbo Everdrive 2?

It's got 4MB RAM, built-in SD card, and built-in USB (for a few dollars more).

I don't see that there's been a rush of new translations/homebrew that have been started since I released the patch that gives the TED2 512K of easily accessible RAM for the Super System Card (and you can access the whole 4MB if you actually follow the programming details that I posted).

[Black Tiger]

A cheapArcade Card is out of the question, considering the price of these relatively simple straight-game HuCards already. But this physical format might be ideal for the kind of "super" Arcade Card that developers have been asking for. To make translations and various projects easier.

At the rate I see Arcade Card Pros going up in price, we may not even need super cheap repos. Just something cheaper than the stupid prices it goes for now. What boggles me even more, is that there are only a few legit games that work with it and only a small pool of users who would genuinely need one.

I'm sure if they had made the Arcade Card Pro incompatible with duo systems, the price wouldn't be nearly as high as it is now since it would eliminate all the people who buy it just for the "idea" that it's somehow tangibly better than a Duo card.

The difference in price between the DUO and PRO is still less than that of a CD-ROM combo and a Duo system. You're already saving more money.

Errr ... don't we already have that "super" Arcade Card with the Turbo Everdrive 2?

It's got 4MB RAM, built-in SD card, and built-in USB (for a few dollars more).

I don't see that there's been a rush of new translations/homebrew that have been started since I released the patch that gives the TED2 512K of easily accessible RAM for the Super System Card (and you can access the whole 4MB if you actually follow the programming details that I posted).

Over the years, PC Engine homebrew developers and programmers have talked about the shortsightedness of the System 3 bios and how a new system card should include a new custom rom and misc under the hood that would make PCE projects in general much easier and might attract new hackers/developers to the PCE scene.