Questions about nes and snes reproduction

[playfortoday]

Hi everyone!
i know it has been talked a lot but due to my poor knowledge of both english and electronics i have MANY questions! hope someone could help...
Let's start with 2:)

1)I would like to have ducktales 2 for the nes, but it's really expensive.
I looked at http://bootgod.dyndns.org:7777/profile.php?id=1115
where it says:
LH231GHA Mask ROM 128 KB
CXK5864BPX-12LL SRAM 8 KB (120 ns
if i'm right the second is a RAM (not rom) so i don't have to put 2 eproms, just one, the MASK ROM.
Correct? Which game should i use as donor cart?
I was thinking about Silent Service which is a NES-UNROM too, but the sram chip is different... i mean, the size is the same, the company that made it not.
Is it ok?:/

2)I'm another one that wants to make a secret of mana 2 cart
Some people uses time of illusion to do this... What i want to ask is: Can't i just use the japanese cart and change the mask rom with the translated game?
Thank you all in advance:)

[Ziggy]

I would like to have ducktales 2 for the nes, but it's really expensive.

This is generally frowned upon by the gaming community. Usually when the term "game reproduction" is used, people usually mean a cart with an unreleased or fan-translated game on it. Making carts of officially released, rare and expensive games is not the same thing. This is more of a bootleg or pirate cart.

if i'm right the second is a RAM (not rom) so i don't have to put 2 eproms, just one, the MASK ROM.

Right. All NES UNROM (mapper 2) carts have CHR RAM instead of CHR ROM, so as long as it's the same size (I think they all are) you do not have to change it. Just swap out the PRG mask ROM with the EPROM. You could use any UNROM mapper 2 game as a donor cart. The only thing is you might have to switch the jumper for vertical or horizontal mirroring, which is not a big deal.

I'm another one that wants to make a secret of mana 2 cart
Some people uses time of illusion to do this

I would definitely NOT use Illusion of Time / Illusion of Gaia as a donor cart. That damn SNESdev website says to, which is why a lot of people use it, but it's a bad choice.

Can't i just use the japanese cart and change the mask rom with the translated game?

Best choice, hands down, if you consider the ethics. There's probably a dozen or so games that you could use as a "donor cart" for Secret of Mana 2, but using the ACTUAL Super Famicom version is ALWAYS the best choice since you don't have to destroy a game to make your repro.

due to my poor knowledge of ... electronics

I would suggest that you do NOT attempt hacking carts if you don't have any experience with electronics, and especially if you don't have experience soldering. Chances are you will just end up wrecking a game cart in the process, which is also frowned upon by the gaming community.

Why not get a flash cart for both the NES and SNES?

[playfortoday]

Hi!
first of all ducktales 2 was just an example
I'm mainly interested in translated games (like these: http://www.thenesdump.com/new%20website/translated.html)
and of course i will do some practice with the soldering thing before trying on a real cart!
Anyway i don't want to try a retropack (or similar), i would like to do something by myself:)
In any case, i saw that retrousb sells rePropaks! I think that since i'm a beginner i would try those first... Anybody tried them?:)

[3GenGames]

If you going to do this, do it nice. Maybe spend some money and make a NICE repro.


http://www.retrousb.com/product_info.ph ... ucts_id=38

http://www.retrousb.com/product_info.ph ... ucts_id=42

If your wanting it to run on un-modded consoles:

http://www.retrousb.com/product_info.ph ... ucts_id=37



Ta dah! Screw donors...... Crystalis's need to live!

[Niode]

If you don't know how to solder I would suggest you try some sort of beginner project. I don't know what to suggest but hacking carts is just a bad idea. I'm a very experienced solderer and I still struggled. It's a lot of wires in a very small space. You simply can't throw yourself in at the deep end without the required skill first. Not knowing electronics isn't so much a hurdle, but the physical skill of soldering is something that must be practiced over and over to get proficient at.

[thelolotov]

Chances are you will just end up wrecking a game cart in the process, which is also frowned upon by the gaming community.

Probably the worst sin possible.

[YoshiEgg25]

Chances are you will just end up wrecking a game cart in the process, which is also frowned upon by the gaming community.

Probably the worst sin possible.

I'd be okay with it if it were a Superman 64 cartridge.

[3GenGames]

Chances are you will just end up wrecking a game cart in the process, which is also frowned upon by the gaming community.

Probably the worst sin possible.

I'd be okay with it if it were a Superman 64 cartridge.

Dude, it's his first mod. N64 isn't the best....especially since it'd take a HUGE programmer and ROM, Can't screw up cheaply.

If anything, get a couple PacMan carts. I'm sure the people of Atari Age will give you some for free.....if I could give away games, Atari 2600 would be every game I have more then 4 of (Pac man....I have 10) because they're worthless. I don't feel bad for killing Atari 2600 commons. There's so many, makes me want to not even touch Atari colecting. Every lot has 100 common games like Defender, Pac Man, Space Invaders, and one rare that you have to buy the lot for! It's annoying.

[playfortoday]

Haha ok so i understand i should never play superman 64, thaaat's good.
Anyway i'm already getting used to soldering... i'm using old/broken pc boards and i'm messing up with them, creating some strange frankenstein boards.
Regarding the cartridge: I decided to start with the repropak. Since i'm a begninner this is the best choice.
But have a doubt:

1)i'm not used to capacitors. The manual of the repropak states o.1uF capacitors are needed. I looked on ebay and there are some diffrent kind... which should i use? are there some optimal parameters?
2)Same thing for resistors... There are many kind

Just as an example would these do the work:
capacitors: http://cgi.ebay.it/100-x-100nf-Ceramic- ... 2286wt_907

resistors: http://cgi.ebay.it/100-x-1k-Ohm-0-25w-C ... 028wt_1141

I'm pretty sure resistors are ok. But capacitors... don't know. Can someone help me?

[3GenGames]

I'm not sure on that...


And if you have any NES-NROM-128 or NES-NROM-256 carts, those take standard EPROMS (2764 for CHR, And either 27128 or 27256's for the 128/256 carts) so you can just unsolder the Nintendo ROM, put a socket in, cut a hole in the cart, and make the EPROMS interchangeable easy, plus you don't have to pay $9 total for a retropak with shipping, since Mario carts are easy to find, and are NROM-256, and lets say...duck hunt is NROM-128 so you can have both boards really easy. No the combo carts though, those map between the games so it won't work, plus their surface mount chips so you can't take them off.


MMC1 retropak is nice, though, since MMC1 boards need re-wiring and it saves a lot of time, though. Thats for more complex projects though.