Hacking NDS to ide

[junits15]

OK, so a little while ago I saw a post on another site about using a hard drive on a NDS. The user used a compact flash GBAMP and he soldered the wired from the ide ribbon cable to the pins on the Compact Flash connector. He then used a superkey to load homebrew off of the drive; this works because an ide hard drive has the same pin out as a Compact Flash card however the pins are in different spots. I know for a fact that a GBAMP has no chips in it, I also know that a Compact Flash connector can be hand soldered into a DS for homebrew. My question is Does anybody know how to connect an ide ribbon cable directly to the edge connector on an old GBA cartridge? What I was thinking was if a hard drive can be connected to a Compact Flash connector, which can be connected to a GBA connector; can't the Compact Flash connector be bypassed allowing the ide cable to be soldered directly to the edge connector of a GBA card? If this can be done I would allow a cheaper way into the homebrew scene for many that are detoured by the money, because almost everybody has an old ide hard drive and a cable for it lying around.

Original article: http://natrium42.com/blog/?p=39

All help is appreciated!

 

[how_do_i_do_that]

they already make CF->2.5 44 pin IDE and 2.5 44 pin IDE->CF adaptors. waste of time soldering and destruction of perfectly good hardware.

it is pretty old.

bypassing the gba card? NO, there wouldn't be a direct hardware translator if you did that.

 

[junits15]

they already make CF->2.5 44 pin IDE and 2.5 44 pin IDE->CF adaptors. waste of time soldering and destruction of perfectly good hardware.

it is pretty old.

bypassing the gba card? NO, there wouldn't be a direct hardware translator if you did that.

I'm not sure that you understood what i was talking about in my post. What I meant was How can I solder an ide cable onto an old gba cart so it will work for running gba roms and ds homebrew with a passkey. It was supposed to be a cheap alterniative to using a GBAMP, If you know where I can find the pinout map send me a link. I really dont want to buy a GBAMP so if you know a way I can do this please tell me. thanks!

 

[FAST6191]

My direct3d decided to crash so I will have to leave it at linking a pinout:
http://pinouts.ru/DiskCables/ide2cf_cable_pinout.shtml

As how_do_i_do_that says though CF to IDE and vice versa are cheap enough so there is little reason to bust out the soldering iron unless you want some practise or something.

 

[junits15]

Thanks for the pinout that really did help me!......ALOT


Do you know how I can convert a compact flash pinout to GBA pinout? Because that is the key to what I want to do.

 

[TrolleyDave]

Thanks for the pinout that really did help me!......ALOT


Do you know how I can convert a compact flash pinout to GBA pinout? Because that is the key to what I want to do.

You can't convert a regular GBA cart into a hard drive controller that a passkey will be able to use.

 

[junits15]

Thanks for the pinout that really did help me!......ALOT


Do you know how I can convert a compact flash pinout to GBA pinout? Because that is the key to what I want to do.

You can't convert a regular GBA cart into a hard drive controller that a passkey will be able to use.

Ok then how does a GBAMP do it?

 

[SifJar]

on darkfader's website there's stuff about a homemade GBA flash cart, which seems to be a CF connector soldered into a GBA Game (F-Zero, i think) with pinouts and all. Dunno if it actually works properly or has DLDI which would be necessary, but you could try adapting that for IDE drive. Darkfader's site can be found at darkfader.net/ds

if you do manage, please post a detailed tutorial on how to do this. I'll probably never actually do it, but it'd be interesting to see how it's done. And if there's a DLDI patch for this, it could be an awesome addition to an old DS, which has been replaced with a DSi for example (not me, I'm not forking out for a DSi, but others). Could turn the DS into a little media player or something. Anyway, good luck.

 

[TrolleyDave]

Thanks for the pinout that really did help me!......ALOT


Do you know how I can convert a compact flash pinout to GBA pinout? Because that is the key to what I want to do.

You can't convert a regular GBA cart into a hard drive controller that a passkey will be able to use.

Ok then how does a GBAMP do it?

Because of this "512KB internal flash for firmware". I'd imagine some part of the firmware does the syncing between the CF slot and the GBA slot.

 

[SifJar]

it must be possible, because that homemade CF GBA adapter on DarkFader's website isn't going to be a fake from DarkFader. (I'm pretty sure it's from his pre-DS-bricker-releasing days). And you just adapt that to be IDE instead of CF, which shouldn't be too hard for someone with a bit of know-how, and you're there. I think.

 

[spinal_cord]

I know for a fact that a GBAMP has no chips in it

OK then Sherlock, tell me where the firmware for the GBAMP lives if there are no chips to store it on...

And why would this be cheaper than buying one of the budget slot-1 cards from DX or somewhere?
+ there's an extra battery to carry around. Unless of course you use a 2.8" ipod drive, which runs on 3v, which have a different pin layout again.

 

[SifJar]

it may not be cheaper, but it'd be kinda cool, and you'd have loads of storage. if i knew anything about this sort of stuff and had an IDE drive, i'd try and whip something up.

 

[ShadowEO]

I know for a fact that a GBAMP has no chips in it

OK then Sherlock, tell me where the firmware for the GBAMP lives if there are no chips to store it on...

And why would this be cheaper than buying one of the budget slot-1 cards from DX or somewhere?
+ there's an extra battery to carry around. Unless of course you use a 2.8" ipod drive, which runs on 3v, which have a different pin layout again.

I agree with Spinal_Cord, Every Flashcart has chips, whether it only contains a bootloader, or a full firmware. So let me just correct your nice little post there

QUOTE(junits15 @ May 22 2009, 02:00 AM)

I know for a fact that a GBAMP has chips in it

There, That's alot better.

 

[junits15]

I know for a fact that a GBAMP has no chips in it

OK then Sherlock, tell me where the firmware for the GBAMP lives if there are no chips to store it on...

And why would this be cheaper than buying one of the budget slot-1 cards from DX or somewhere?
+ there's an extra battery to carry around. Unless of course you use a 2.8" ipod drive, which runs on 3v, which have a different pin layout again.

It is ceaper for me because I have all of this stuff liyng around, so in reality I can do it for free.

 

[junits15]

on darkfader's website there's stuff about a homemade GBA flash cart, which seems to be a CF connector soldered into a GBA Game (F-Zero, i think) with pinouts and all. Dunno if it actually works properly or has DLDI which would be necessary, but you could try adapting that for IDE drive. Darkfader's site can be found at darkfader.net/ds

if you do manage, please post a detailed tutorial on how to do this. I'll probably never actually do it, but it'd be interesting to see how it's done. And if there's a DLDI patch for this, it could be an awesome addition to an old DS, which has been replaced with a DSi for example (not me, I'm not forking out for a DSi, but others). Could turn the DS into a little media player or something. Anyway, good luck.

Good news for you SifJar, I used a CF to ide chart to convert all the pinouts over, but I still have to solder it, I hope it works.

 

[SifJar]

let us know either way.

 

[junits15]

It failed...
I was expecting it too.

 

[kocoman]

bump, any updates

(from the natrium site)
Why is the ide-step2.jpg the paper says "GND or N/C" and "VCC or N/C" while the pinout text list just say N/C. so for ie: pins 8 to 17, do we connect to GND or its N/C? Its conflicting. Has anyone successfully made the ide to cf converter