cheap retro flash carts?

By aadz93, Dec 8, 2020 1,219 18 2

  1. aadz93

    OP aadz93 GBAtemp Official Psychonaut
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    seems aliexpress got some interesting retro goodies:

    GB/gba:

    https://www.aliexpress.com/item/400...earchweb0_0,searchweb201602_,searchweb201603_


    https://www.aliexpress.com/item/328...earchweb0_0,searchweb201602_,searchweb201603_

    megadrive scd and sms:

    https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000530430322.html?spm=a2g0o.detail.0.0.76f24a0enS6iHN&gps-id=pcDetailBottomMoreThisSeller&scm=1007.13339.169870.0&scm_id=1007.13339.169870.0&scm-url=1007.13339.169870.0&pvid=873800fa-4a4d-4a64-861b-f050d6d03f24&_t=gps-id:PcDetailBottomMoreThisSeller,scm-url:1007.13339.169870.0,pvid:873800fa-4a4d-4a64-861b-f050d6d03f24,tpp_buckets:668#0#131923#54_668#808#4094#543_668#888#3325#9_668#2846#8116#959_668#2717#7566#868_668#1000022185#1000066058#0_668#3468#15617#877


    https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005001468895818.html?spm=a2g0o.detail.1000023.17.76f24a0enS6iHN

    https://www.aliexpress.com/item/100...earchweb0_0,searchweb201602_,searchweb201603_


    https://www.aliexpress.com/item/400...earchweb0_0,searchweb201602_,searchweb201603_

    pc engine:

    https://www.aliexpress.com/item/100...earchweb0_0,searchweb201602_,searchweb201603_

    game gear:

    https://www.aliexpress.com/item/100...earchweb0_0,searchweb201602_,searchweb201603_


    snes:

    https://www.aliexpress.com/item/329...earchweb0_0,searchweb201602_,searchweb201603_


    jamma/mvs-aes:

    https://www.aliexpress.com/item/330...earchweb0_0,searchweb201602_,searchweb201603_

    https://www.aliexpress.com/item/329...earchweb0_0,searchweb201602_,searchweb201603_

    https://www.aliexpress.com/item/100...earchweb0_0,searchweb201602_,searchweb201603_
     
    Last edited by aadz93, Dec 8, 2020
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  2. asper

    asper GBAtemp Advanced Fan
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  3. aadz93

    OP aadz93 GBAtemp Official Psychonaut
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    tbh flashcarts were around before krikzz, he just was able to cut himself a niche, also provides support and provides a quality made product

    reminds me the wild west days when gb/gbc flashcarts became a thing, back when they came with a cart flasher that used lpt or r232, good times

    https://reinerziegler.de.mirrors.gg8.se/readplus.htm#Commercial cartridges

    https://reinerziegler.de.mirrors.gg8.se/readplus.htm#Commercial programming systems

    they originated from taiwan, hongkong,and china, they were technically first to commercialize flash cards
     
    Last edited by aadz93, Dec 8, 2020
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  4. aadz93

    OP aadz93 GBAtemp Official Psychonaut
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    what's even more interesting (for me), they all seem to be based on the max II epm240 CPLD, a micro sd slot, and flash memory, and 3v to 5v level shifters,

    from a diy pov it's quite easy to make a universal retro flash card, simply via a cartridge adapter for each console, which the cpld and nor flash would plug into, you would simply flash the cpld when using a different console. just need a breakout board, nor flash, and sd slot....

    https://ebay.to/2L8R64r
     
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  5. aadz93

    OP aadz93 GBAtemp Official Psychonaut
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  6. asper

    asper GBAtemp Advanced Fan
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    Try to transalte the article I mentioned above :)
     
  7. aadz93

    OP aadz93 GBAtemp Official Psychonaut
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    I did, it kinda makes out like krikzz was the first to commercialize flash cards, he was not, the article has some inconsistency, flash cards originated from the 80s home computer scene, they were just a cartridge with sram instead of a rom, which also had battery backup, once eeproms became more accessible, now you have the basis of every modern flash card

    upload_2020-12-9_11-2-15.png

    upload_2020-12-9_11-5-19.png

    upload_2020-12-9_11-5-5.png



    One of the earliest commercial "flash carts" for atari computers from the 80s
     
    Last edited by aadz93, Dec 9, 2020
  8. asper

    asper GBAtemp Advanced Fan
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    If you say so, perhaps you have not fully understood what is written in the article; it starts with the history of flashcards and ends by explaining who is currently doing business with it. Anyway always a good read ! Have a nice day :)
     
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  9. aadz93

    OP aadz93 GBAtemp Official Psychonaut
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    Google translate isn't perfect, I'm not saying the article is wrong, just inconsistent, that could be Google's fault
     
    Last edited by aadz93, Dec 9, 2020
  10. asper

    asper GBAtemp Advanced Fan
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    For what I understand in the translation it says that krikzz made it a real business not that he was the fist (because he was not the 1st to sell that kind of stuff) so I do not read any inconsitencies; anyway the detailed list of all the possible cartridges/odes/etc is pretty exausitve !
     
  11. mrgone

    mrgone old man
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    i would say krikkz was the first one to commercialize flash carts in a time when the originating companies did not have any remaining interest for it, and with a large enough consumer.crowd.

    don't forget, nintendo sued bung enterprises into oblivion in 2000.
     
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  12. aadz93

    OP aadz93 GBAtemp Official Psychonaut
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    Quote:

    The first to make it a real business was Igor Golubovskiy , better known among retrogame fans under the pseudonym of " krikzz ":

    End quote

    From an English context, it comes across as if he was the first guy to start selling flash cards...

    His cards are "top tier", they get updates, support, and usually they run everything, but they are costly, he was just one of the few people who actively makes them, usually they just get made to order in small batches, then stop making them

    If you want to pay that much i'd recommend his products


    Google translate could be inconsistent then


    Screenshot_20201209-132405.png
     
    Last edited by aadz93, Dec 9, 2020
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  13. zfreeman

    zfreeman GBAtemp Maniac
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  14. aadz93

    OP aadz93 GBAtemp Official Psychonaut
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    got one already, 256MB version, you can load every fds rom, and still have plenty of space, too bad no homebrew uses the fds....there are a few demos, and you can't load nes roms either

    upload_2020-12-9_16-32-54.png

    36578380_10156181291125269_5390580304652009472_o.jpg
     
    Last edited by aadz93, Dec 9, 2020
  15. asper

    asper GBAtemp Advanced Fan
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  16. aadz93

    OP aadz93 GBAtemp Official Psychonaut
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    i love tototek

    Rip lik-sang
     
    Last edited by aadz93, Dec 11, 2020
  17. aadz93

    OP aadz93 GBAtemp Official Psychonaut
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    Well back in 2000 ninty was still making money from the gb line, nintendo seems to quit caring once hardware patents expire, that takes 20 years
     
  18. FAST6191

    FAST6191 Techromancer
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    re: krikkz

    As mentioned above flash carts have existed in various forms for decades now, if you want to include disc copying, CD burners and more then... yeah.

    What krikkz's mob did was make modern designs, using modern chips and focus it on the typical flash cart user for all those 8, 16 bit and 32 bit era consoles and handhelds.
    Prior to that most of the flash cart scene for anything that wasn't the GBA, DS or technically PSP (I could maybe entertain an argument for some of the neo geo stuff but those are rare in an of themselves so eh) was the handful of rare vintage carts still working (and these were made in a time when floppy discs were useful storage, and 32meg chip, or indeed chip array to get to that size, of suitable speed would have been about the price of second hand car so today's standard of "buy SD card, put basically entire library on there, have fun from there" was "lock them up as they are super delusional" fantasy), a few ultra simplistic user makeable (that being if said user was some flavour of electrical engineer or seriously dedicated electronics hobbyist) designs using now hard to come by chips, a handful of homebrew ones that were annoying to use for the ROM running set and probably did not fit much more than one ROM, depending upon the console said homebrew devices likely did not even attempt to bypass protections (ask yourself why there were protections unique to the consoles if there were no flash carts and emulators were still some years out) or emulate oddities that various original carts employed to boost performance over stock hardware, all in conditions where the typical gamer was cheap as anything (granted nothing changed before or after) and probably quite satisfied with emulators (arguably many still are, or indeed consider them superior).
    A commendable and very welcome act/series of acts from where I sit but anything but "first".
     
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  19. aadz93

    OP aadz93 GBAtemp Official Psychonaut
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    good times, looking at those cards, they could be further simplified by combining the cpld logic (for sd/nor flash/rom) and fpga (mapper support) into one single larger fpga (instead of a bunch smaller cpld's and fpga's), add a simple mcu to handle sd access (so you don't have to rely on the console cpu), add a nor flash (256 or 512 Mbit should be plenty), for each console you'd have a daughter board, with level shifter (5 - 3.3v), to change the console one can just re flash the fpga, and plug it in and load rom, as all of those cards are based around the same hardware (with minor variation)
     
    Last edited by aadz93, Dec 11, 2020
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