Hacking Flash Advance Linker Xtreme compatible Flash Carts

[Rolling]

Hi GBA-Freaks!

I just recently bought a Flash Advance Linker Xtreme device with a 64Mbit flash card which works fine on my old XP laptop.

Now I'm looking for some compatible flash cards. I wrote a little homebrew app which i'ld love to see on real cartridge!

I heard that you can also use and reflash bootleg gba games but i'm not sure if they (and if so which) also work with FALX.

Does any one know which cards may be compatible or where i could buy some?

Have a nice day!

 

[FAST6191]

The flash linker is a real cartridge. If it runs on hardware and the flash cart itself does not add anything to the mix (rare on the GBA) then it counts.

Anyway there are no simple "buy this and flash it" things we can point at for homebrew that are not just normal flash carts.
There are a few homebrew takes but nothing major, and I can imagine the chips are hard to come by.
https://web.archive.org/web/20120628204500/http://www.reinerziegler.de/GBA/gba.htm
Designs are nothing special though and I don't know how easy some of the chips will be to source today. Mind you if it is small and does not want a save file then maybe.

Some other homebrew efforts over the years had cartridges made ( http://www.qwak.co.uk/pages/gba/ , https://www.rgcd.co.uk/2011/04/gameboy-advance-homebrew-cartridges.html , https://2004mbit.gbadev.org/ ) but no specs have ever been made available.

Some repros/fakes do use things you can overwrite with various amounts of effort, but not all and I don't have a reliable "buy this and do it" type link or guide for things to look for even.

Back when the GBA size EZFlash 3 in 1 was cheap enough (and could be flashed by a DS) but they have long long long since all been bought up by those wanting real copies of their ROM hacks, homebrew, repros of their own and apparently the chips were also valuable to some people playing with electronics at one point so also those.

 

[Rolling]

Hi Fast,

thanks for your fast response (pun intended! ).

Wow, that sounds complicated. Seems like these old flash advance cards are hard to come by these days. I wouldn't really need a lot of them and would be happy with two or three flashcards. I also wouldn't need any save features, a plain card 64m or 128m would be enough...

I just hopend someone got an advice so that i'm not buying hundreds of bootlegs just to realize i'm dead in the water

 

[MockyLock]

Hello
could you precise your PC setup for the FALX ? I had trouble to make it work last time i got mine out of the drawer.
Thank you very much in advance !

 

[Abstract3000]

Interesting, I as well have a Flash Advance Linker I Wanted to see if would be compatible with the Flash Carts I have but unfortunately it Wasn't. I have an original Flash2Advance & EZF Advance carts, the Flash2Advance USB Cable & a homebrew flashing utility i found appear to be compatible I found though.

Wish you luck in your project, I'm sure it could help many individuals out there with these old Flash Carts laying around.

 

[Rolling]

@Mocky
I got it running using original software (XtremeLink V1.20 beta) on an old HP copmaq nx9005 laptop. Probably due to the fact that it's the USB version of FALX, so i don't have to deal with "parallel pleasures".

As you can see in this table i guess you're out of luck with F2A cards.

It seems FALX is compatible with some types of cartridges, I just don't know where to get these

 

[FAST6191]

Forgot one thing.

If you are considering flash carts there is a design of small amount of storage card that was sort of available in somewhat recent times (before EZFlash and Everdrive came back it was mostly the EZ4, the 3 in 1, the few remaining stockpiles of supercard that nobody wanted and these).

They are known as fire cards but go under any number of other names. Most you will find will be 128Mbit (16 megabytes) but there are some 256 ones out there. Their lack of storage tanked it for most people and repros might still be cheaper if you can find a reflashable set.


Also on random cards and somewhat modern operating systems.
Do remember to check out littlewriter
http://www.gameboy-advance.net/flash_card_tutorial/littlewriter.htm
and might as well link http://mootan.hg.to/fmgba/ while I am at it.

 

[Rolling]

Just a quick update on my research.

For some reason i couldn't get Littler Writer to work with my USB FALX, official software XtremeLink (1.20 & 1.25) works fine though.

I tried many bootleg/reproduction cartridges, sadly to no avail.

I guess i have to go on the - probably impossible - hunt of tracking down one or two visoly flash cartridges.