Well me and my friend where thinking the other day, wouldnt it be cool if we could somehow have every single NES game on one cartridge somehow?

Then we got to thinking, if we bought some crappy 23 Cent game (Mario/Duck Hunt combo...it rules actually...but its cheap ) we could rip the chips out, flash new chips with some kind of drivers and menu software, and cut most of the cartisdge out and run some wires to a HDD!!!! We would get some old 500MB HDD (because they would all fit haha!!)

i mean really, when you think about it, it wouldnt be that hard, weve flashed stuff onto chips before, weve programmed for the NES before, i mean why not? where going to have to do major adapting and software writing, but hell, it HAS to be possible somehow!!!

i even have a AC to the Standard power cord (forget the name) that fits HDDs!!! (i have no idea where it came from hehe, i think it was from my External HDD making kit or something)

Even if this turns out to be a waste of time..it was 8 bucks for the HDD, 23cents for the game, and the rest of it we didnt even pay for

plus its something to keep us busy

Ill post updates here on how its going, right now where trying to figure out if we can reflash the existing chips or if where going to have to buy new ones (or even try a different game because i know some of them where hella different when you opened em)

You probably wouldn't even need a 500 mb drive to fit all the games. Its an interesting idea but I think it would be better for pc. God knows how many people have the nes system still alive...and if they wanted one, it would be hard to find a good hardware unit.

hehe i have like 6 NES's that all work (except one of them wont play Revision 1 games)

anyway...

RANDOM UPDATE NUMBER 1!!!!

We wired the NES straight to the HDD and it makes the HDD spin and look for stuff but theres no way to tell if its actually looking/finding anything, it could just be telling it to do random things without even knowing it

Wow, I can't believe your that bold to pop open your systems and tinker around with the goods inside. I never could do that stuff...due to a circumstance which I do not wish to discuss

heh, well actually, would never do it with my original systems...too many memories, i bought new ones cheap on Ebay/Gamestop to tinker with

Thats an awesome idea Shibathedog

Keep us updated

ok ok heres update number 2!!!

we make the bigass huge ROM image thats pretty much a menu that picks the games, we figure it would be easier to do if it was one big thing instead of like 2000 roms and it picked an image, that would be like a system emulating itself and wouldnt really work

Update number 3!!

We have been analyzing the driver for the HDD for windows and trying to convert it to NES code, also weve tryed making drivers from scratch

so far weve gone through 47 different variations of the driver, and nothings working

we have everything done except getting the NES to recognize the HDD, once that works we should be set!!

Were thinking maybe re-wiring the HDD to the NES might work, but where pretty sure we have the cables matched up right

dunno, it looks like to much trouble, using a tv out and a nes emu should do.

meh, its something to do to keep me from getting bored

plus once we get it down, im sure people would pay money for these hehe

Update 4: 14 new variations, all failed

Update 5:WOOHOO SOMETHING IS WORKING!!!....I think...

anyway, on the latest version of the driver thing (its not really a driver...i dont really know what to call it) The NES accesses the HDD!!! It kinda opens the HDD and runs the program, but it takes REALLY long, and it runs all pixelly and chunkey

Now we have to figure out, Is this driver right and the HDD just isnt getting the data to the NES fast enough? Or is the driver just off and needs tweaking? or some other problem?

ugh...headaches, headaches......

Oh by the way, i forgot to mention how we have it hooked up, we actually have the driver thing flashed onto a chip, in a cart (we had to buy an empty chip) and we used some game that had two chips in it (i think castlevania, i dont remember) and relaced the 2nd chip, with wires going to the HDD

so it loads the driver thing first then loads the HDD, or attempts to anyway

but we dont even know if thats what its doing, if anyone knows how to monitor exactly what an NES is doing with some soldering to a PC or something, that would help alot!!!

MASSIVE UPDATE:

Throwing out the HDD idea

Since i havent been sleeping because ive been working on this so much, i missed this, thanks to Dark Pulse for pointing this out to me

Instead of wasting time with a HDD, why not just use a big Flash chip? Like 256MB or 512MB?

Ill have a small flash chip for some kind of driver (if ill even need it anymore) and the Big chip will hold the massive ROM!!

Holy crap, how could i have missed this? I need to catch up on me sleep!!! (its been like 9 days of practically no sleep because of this hehe)

Im really excited now, ill bbl and tell you how it works out!!

uh oh i have really bad news!!

I went out and bought some flashable chips, a 256MB and a 512MB

Well turns out im not going to get anywhere farther in this project because my Flasher doesnt support chips that large, probably because its ancient.

Does anyone know where can i get one that supports 256/512 for cheap?, or at least, not TOO expensive?

Maybe u could use a Flash memory stick from Best Buys. I've seen some for 20$. I doubt they would get any cheaper.

im not sure if those chips would fit right in an NES cart though, thats the problem, you need chips that work the same way with the same connections

The voltage requirements are also different between PROMs and Flash chips. So many issues when doing something like this.
Just get you a fat ass EPROM and a programmer that will support it.

thats what i have, the EEPROM, but i dont have a programmer that supports it

still no luck finding a programmer, anyone here know of one?

Here's an idea... Not sure if it would work, but...
A cartridge connected to a parallel cable (or usb or serial or something..) you could have it connected so that the pc recieves signals from the nes (which should already be emulated in NES emulators, maybe?) upon recieving the signal, the pc could send back the rom data the nes ask for.

Just a thought though...

What if the PC sends the wrong data ? or Will the Nes even be able to read the data like that?

probably not, the NES expects completly lagless, comepletly un encrypted/encoded data, it expects instant raw data, like a cartridge was in, so that probably wouldnt work

Couldnt you get a source to give your NES instant data?

yes, thats why i need the Flash Chip

How is it going?

still cant find a good flash chip writer that supports filesizes that big

By flash chip i actually ment like an EEPROM chip BTW...

Sorry, but using such big EEPROM's wouldnt work anyway. The NES cant adress more than 64KB of ROM without a mapper, and even then, not more than 1-2MB. 512MB is therefore just a dream

Yes, you could modify the NES very much, but then it probably wouldnt be much of a NES anymore

Besides, could you send me the HDD-code? I NEVER thougt it would be possible with a HDD in the NES, so please let me see it!

-Jaffe

Honest to god, was it really necessary to resurrect this? Whoever answered to this thread have long forgotten about it. Jeez.

More than a year old to boot.

Well, the NES is actually able to send and receive data from a parallell interfarce, either using one of the control ports with a supplied home-made cartridge, or soldering the parallell cable directly on the NES motherboard somewhere. Read here: http://www.bripro.com/low/hardware/devtendo/index.php

-Jaffe

Go ahead - close it

Ok, that's it, end of discussion. Start a new thread if you really must have your voice heard.