Bacteria's project: "Project Unity"

[bacteria]

Opened up my Commodore Amiga CD32 unit to see what was inside, quite interesting...that will be my next project after all... not hard inside, will be interesting to mod.

On the GameCube - located the two memory card ports into the CD drive enclosure i'm making, needed a bit of dremel work, but got them in place. Interestingly, I have two GameCube memory cards, different sizes!

Going to recycle some old corregated cardboard for the internal case structure, cheap, strong and light.

This is a mammoth project, without rigourous planning it would be immensely hard to complete.

[bacteria]

Ok, success!

Relocated the GameBoy player for GameCube directly to the GameCube motherboard, relocated the GameBoy game cart. Worked first time.





The GameBoy game cart will go alongside the CD drive (between the current one and where the Amiga CD32 drive will be).

The Amiga board will be located above the fans and across most of the length of the enclosure - you'll see that in due course. There is space alongside the GameBoy player for the GameCube controller to be located.

Anyone know BTW why the GameCube resets its calendar most of the times the system is booted? If I set the calendar, turn the system off, it starts straight away to the game; if the system has been off for a while, or my soldering iron does any soldering work on the board, it resets - the battery is fine, 3v. Is the motherboard so sensitive that any soldering to the board causes the reset? It isn't a problem, just a small inconvenience.

[AppleQueso]

weird, I don't think I've ever needed to reset my gamecube's calendar

[bacteria]

Me neither, before opening up the console and modding it. It might be its sensitive to the soldering iron?

[Josh]

That's probably it, unless it comes unplugged frequently. And even then, I bought mine at launch and haven't had to reset the clock since.

Though I do have to reset the clock on an xBox and a Dreamcast if they're unplugged. Whether that's because of a battery, I have no clue.

[bacteria]

I'm going to change the GameCube battery for a larger 3v cell anyway as 3v seems to be universal for memory cards, CMOS, etc. Just use one large battery for all - will last many years!


Ok, maybe jumping the gun a bit, but needed to work out how to house the GBA game cart in the casing and the only way was to open up the Amiga CD32 and "have a play" with the guts. Removed all the shielding, cut out the CD case holding area as that contains the screw posts to secure the CD assembly unit in place; noticed there was a board under a metal shielding section of the CD assembly, so removed the shielding, cut the metal plate in half to retain the CD section, now it will fit fine in my system!

The CD section is thick, slightly thicker than a GameCube believe it or not.

The motherboard is large, full length of my console mounting board (as designed to be), looking at the motherboard, frankly there is nothing to do with it apart from maybe relocate two capacitors and remove the ports to wire directly to them. There is no surplus on the board to trim, edge to edge virtually.

The Amiga CD32 takes 5v and seems to take 12v, i'll test to check. The system natively supports composite and S-video as standard, and RF (going to remove that too), however not RGB - again, for some wierd reason, the French system supports RGB. What is it with the French - they get RGB enabled Intellivision, Atari 7800, Colecovision, CD32 - ....?





I'm going to have to incorporate the CD32's drive unit into the GameCube video so can mount the GBA cart holder in place - BTW, used the GBA cart holder from the GameBoy Player case and epoxied the cart to it, dremeled out the section - nice cart holder - going to do the same principle with the other system carts too.

After the GameCube video is made, the Amiga CD32 will be quite soon afterwards as most of the work is done for it now anyway.

Details on the CD32 if you're interested in the Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_CD32

[bacteria]

Had an interesting modding time today.

Tried one of the third party GameCube controllers I had, didn't work properly; tested against official one - playing Battalion Wars (excellent war game BTW); so tried one of my two other third party controllers I deemed "non working" - GameCube light came on for a second, then off, system then didnt' boot. Only two options, either something fried from that lousy controller, or a system fuse (if there is one) or mains fuse. I was hoping it was the mains fuse; hope elevated when plugged in the system and got zero voltage from the power supply, changed the fuse in the mains power plug, and fortunately it was that that had blown - system proceeded to work perfectly - played another level of Battaliion Wars.

Regards the GameBoy Player - it had a fault on the cart slot, the small lever that determines if a GBA or GBC game is present wasn't resetting properly; as a result, one of my GBA carts fried as it got 5v instead of 3v; my remaining GBA cart got tempremental - giving error message on boot up, or blank screen, or static - sometimes works fine though. Tested on a GBA to check. Replaced the lever block from an old GBA game port I had (had to remove it from an old board), changed for the old one, works fine now. All working; will buy a couple of more GBA games tomorrow at a car boot sale, more to test with.

Secured the GBA cart slot in place, as you see in the pic. All the wires are up against each other and against the drive unit - tight in there, especially with two game save cart ports in place. All works though. GBA cart slot is hot glued into position.

Replaced the standard trip switch on the GameCube drive board to detect if the drive door is closed for a small switch too.



Next job, after more testing, is to paint the drive unit after filling in the gaps. Going to paint the interior antique white as a contrast. Also need to open up the controller and make a very temporary board for my main controller, very crude, but working, I can worry about making a proper one later in the project - the controller will be a fairly major project in itself potentially after all.

[bacteria]

Thought i'd give a general update - the GameBoy Player is working fine now, plays two of my three GBA titles, including the one I got for £1 which ends out to be a Chinese bootleg copy - never mind, works fine. The one that doesn't work works on a normal GBA console, so perhaps the GameCube Player for GameCube doesn't play 100% of original titles?

Decided to start to make the all-embracing controller, at least, the front piece, with some parts loose like the shoulder buttons. That way, I can start to make "conformity", i'll also look better on the video too.

The construction of the controller will be a bit more down the road anyway as i'll need to overcome various other issues, for example, on some systems the shoulder buttons are on/off buttons; on the GameCube, DreamCast, etc they use a variable resistor before the on/off button (eg GameCube), it might be the variable resistor from the GameCube is compatible with the 3rd party MadCats DreamCast controller (uses a potentiometer not the reed contacts), or might mean I need to use two sets of variable shoulder potentiomers, etc - lots to work out for sure.

[bacteria]

Here are the guts of the controller section so far. The top is flat on purpose, it is designed so that I can make overlays to cover the keypad and the four button areas. The logic is that the Intellivision and Coleocovision, which use the keypad, use these buttons plus the shoulder buttons; however most games don't need this and just need two or four action buttons, and in the case of the N64, four "C" buttons - the "C" buttons, and start, can be on the keypad. Bear in mind i'll use overlays, it means every game, if I want, can have a dedicated overlay! The tact switches are flat on top of course, yet able to take an overlay over, no issue. What I might do though, is stick on some "buttons" out of thin card onto the overlays, to get a "feel" for where the buttons are under the overlay, rather than just printing "A", etc on them. This idea also means the "buttons" can be labeled as A, B, X, Y as required, also given their console colours too. Ingeneous!

Anyway, apart from the "Z" button, which will be at the back of the controller when done, the front is ok to wire up, looks bad at the moment but that's because it isn't housed. When I get to the looks of the controller, i'll base it on an Xbox style housing, although i'll need to vacuum form my own controller casing to suit, and smooth out the rough parts, also incorporate two sets of shoulder buttons.

I mounted the tact switches onto 2mm perspex through holes, then cut out holes for the tact switches into a top piece which is then glued in place. This means the tact switches will not press inwards.

[CRTGAMER]

Love the controller layout, keypad in the middle!