5 ms·

NES Dual Port RAM Interface

249 points by jboggan 13y ago

duskwuff 13y ago
I'm reminded of ICU64 - an interactive debugger for C64 - as seen in this 2009 video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjcvR5McmSg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjcvR5McmSg
psgbg 13y ago
I don't know if anybody can confirm this but this site causes that firefox (firefox 29 arch linux) use up to 300% of cpu (according to top). Weird. I noticed this when the cooler started to work. Minutes after start the machine in a cool day.
- binarycrusader 13y ago
  No problems here, but it does have several Adobe Flash embeds.
  - psgbg 13y ago
    I have flashblock, and since this incident noscript. This seems to be a problem related to Mozilla's javascript interpreter, since Chromium works fine (and worst do not affect other versions and platforms). It's not flash nor other embedded issue. The problem do not block the ui just consume an insane amount of resources.
    - binarycrusader 12y ago
      I'm using FireFox 29 on Solaris and don't see the CPU usage problem.
- edlinfan 13y ago
  No problems with FF29 on Win7.
  - psgbg 13y ago
    Thanks. Weird. I looked into the source (not a web developer) and I didn't see any suspicious. This confirms that it's probably my configuration. Just to be sure. Chromium 34 works just fine.
- psgbg 13y ago
  I don't know why so many down votes. I just happened to have a problem, made a comment to confirm If it was me.
- bartbes 12y ago
  I was wondering why my fans started spinning up yesterday, now I know. Firefox 29 on linux here, and indeed it does seem that page is doing something weird.
T-R 13y ago
That's fantastic. I'd been thinking about modifying an emulator to do automatic speedrun splits based on changes in memory. Many of the people who'd most appreciate that kind of thing prefer to speedrun on original hardware, though, and a lot of them would be happy to pay for modifications like this - as many have, e.g., paid to have their 3DS modded with HDMI output.
- b0b_d0e 13y ago
  I've had a similar project floating around in the back of my mind, except instead of reading the state off the emulator to determine when to split, the program watches the video stream and uses visual cues to determine when to split. As a simplistic example, consider the original mario game. When a runner would want to split, the game screen would display the text 1-1 with a black background roughly at the center area of the screen. With this information, I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to determine when to split by scanning in the rough area for a picture similar to the what you would expect at this spot. I know that in practice this is possible to do since I have (just for fun) written a similar program for pokemon games when I wanted to EV train on an emulator. It would scan for the edge block of the tall grass (since all grass looks the same), and then turn around and scan for the edge again. When the screen went black, I knew I was entering a battle, so I was start scanning where the wild pokemon's name was and the program would be able to decide if I wanted to kill it or if I wanted to run (so I can keep count of the EVs I've gotten) The main issue with that program is that it couldn't tell shinies apart, so maybe over night I could have lost a shiny without ever knowing. Anyway, long post short, I think it would be possible to monitor the live video and determine when to split based off information that can be stored in some kinda downloadable database (or some way to preset all the different required split information).
  - jzelinskie 13y ago
    This is how kartlytics.com works for Mario Kart 64. More info: http://www.joyent.com/blog/introducing-kartlytics-mario-kart-64-analytics http://www.joyent.com/blog/introducing-kartlytics-mario-kart...
  - _frog 12y ago
daeken 13y ago
Woah, I was designing a system just like this for the Vectrex a while back. Great execution on this project -- love to see clever hardware hacks.
mcescalante 13y ago
This is some awesome engineering, and an equally as awesome result. Does anybody know if the author is going to put these boards on sale or what he does with his designs? I'd imagine from the look of the PCB (2 layer with no solder mask or silkscreen) that they're designed & printed with ExpressPCB - they look similar to a few I've done with them before. This really makes me want to start tinkering with older gaming systems.
jevinskie 13y ago
And I thought I had a cool idea for a custom flash cart for a Game Gear. In addition to proving the ROM to the Game Gear, it would present some of its own memory-mapped registers on the bus to use as a debugging channel. This certainly blows that out of the water!
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
nctalaviya 13y ago
It's awesome, you can now create a kinect based games for nes
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
- prg318 12y ago
  HN _may not_ be the best place to ask for copyrighted NES/Famicom ROM files (i bet they aren't too hard to find though) However, you might also be interested in checking out some "homebrew" NES ROM files that developers have put together. There are some pretty interesting games here: - http://pdroms.de/files/nintendoentertainmentsystem/ http://pdroms.de/files/nintendoentertainmentsystem/
sitkack 12y ago
Needs a forth in that ram monitor, http://pygmy.utoh.org/3ins4th.html http://pygmy.utoh.org/3ins4th.html also composite out from the AVR could make a nice second debug screen.
statik_42 12y ago
This is some serious hacking, I love projects like these. Kudos for the live hex editor as well, this is a really cool debugging setup. Thanks for sharing!

249 points by jboggan 13y ago

I'm reminded of ICU64 - an interactive debugger for C64 - as seen in this 2009 video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjcvR5McmSg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjcvR5McmSg

psgbg 13y ago

I don't know if anybody can confirm this but this site causes that firefox (firefox 29 arch linux) use up to 300% of cpu (according to top). Weird. I noticed this when the cooler started to work. Minutes after start the machine in a cool day.

binarycrusader 13y ago
No problems here, but it does have several Adobe Flash embeds.
- psgbg 13y ago
  I have flashblock, and since this incident noscript. This seems to be a problem related to Mozilla's javascript interpreter, since Chromium works fine (and worst do not affect other versions and platforms). It's not flash nor other embedded issue. The problem do not block the ui just consume an insane amount of resources.
  - binarycrusader 12y ago
    I'm using FireFox 29 on Solaris and don't see the CPU usage problem.
edlinfan 13y ago
No problems with FF29 on Win7.
- psgbg 13y ago
  Thanks. Weird. I looked into the source (not a web developer) and I didn't see any suspicious. This confirms that it's probably my configuration. Just to be sure. Chromium 34 works just fine.
psgbg 13y ago
I don't know why so many down votes. I just happened to have a problem, made a comment to confirm If it was me.
bartbes 12y ago
I was wondering why my fans started spinning up yesterday, now I know. Firefox 29 on linux here, and indeed it does seem that page is doing something weird.

T-R 13y ago

That's fantastic. I'd been thinking about modifying an emulator to do automatic speedrun splits based on changes in memory. Many of the people who'd most appreciate that kind of thing prefer to speedrun on original hardware, though, and a lot of them would be happy to pay for modifications like this - as many have, e.g., paid to have their 3DS modded with HDMI output.

b0b_d0e 13y ago
I've had a similar project floating around in the back of my mind, except instead of reading the state off the emulator to determine when to split, the program watches the video stream and uses visual cues to determine when to split. As a simplistic example, consider the original mario game. When a runner would want to split, the game screen would display the text 1-1 with a black background roughly at the center area of the screen. With this information, I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to determine when to split by scanning in the rough area for a picture similar to the what you would expect at this spot. I know that in practice this is possible to do since I have (just for fun) written a similar program for pokemon games when I wanted to EV train on an emulator. It would scan for the edge block of the tall grass (since all grass looks the same), and then turn around and scan for the edge again. When the screen went black, I knew I was entering a battle, so I was start scanning where the wild pokemon's name was and the program would be able to decide if I wanted to kill it or if I wanted to run (so I can keep count of the EVs I've gotten) The main issue with that program is that it couldn't tell shinies apart, so maybe over night I could have lost a shiny without ever knowing. Anyway, long post short, I think it would be possible to monitor the live video and determine when to split based off information that can be stored in some kinda downloadable database (or some way to preset all the different required split information).
- jzelinskie 13y ago
  This is how kartlytics.com works for Mario Kart 64. More info: http://www.joyent.com/blog/introducing-kartlytics-mario-kart-64-analytics http://www.joyent.com/blog/introducing-kartlytics-mario-kart...
- _frog 12y ago

daeken 13y ago

Woah, I was designing a system just like this for the Vectrex a while back. Great execution on this project -- love to see clever hardware hacks.

mcescalante 13y ago

This is some awesome engineering, and an equally as awesome result. Does anybody know if the author is going to put these boards on sale or what he does with his designs? I'd imagine from the look of the PCB (2 layer with no solder mask or silkscreen) that they're designed & printed with ExpressPCB - they look similar to a few I've done with them before. This really makes me want to start tinkering with older gaming systems.

jevinskie 13y ago

And I thought I had a cool idea for a custom flash cart for a Game Gear. In addition to proving the ROM to the Game Gear, it would present some of its own memory-mapped registers on the bus to use as a debugging channel. This certainly blows that out of the water!

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

nctalaviya 13y ago

It's awesome, you can now create a kinect based games for nes

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

prg318 12y ago
HN _may not_ be the best place to ask for copyrighted NES/Famicom ROM files (i bet they aren't too hard to find though) However, you might also be interested in checking out some "homebrew" NES ROM files that developers have put together. There are some pretty interesting games here: - http://pdroms.de/files/nintendoentertainmentsystem/ http://pdroms.de/files/nintendoentertainmentsystem/

sitkack 12y ago

Needs a forth in that ram monitor, http://pygmy.utoh.org/3ins4th.html http://pygmy.utoh.org/3ins4th.html also composite out from the AVR could make a nice second debug screen.

statik_42 12y ago

This is some serious hacking, I love projects like these. Kudos for the live hex editor as well, this is a really cool debugging setup. Thanks for sharing!