Messages

1

EverDrive N8 / Re: List of Compatible Systems for N8

« on: November 29, 2019, 04:05 AM »

Hmm can't find "Nintendo Famicom" and "Nintendo Entertainment System" in this list, probably not compatible... 

Thank goodness you pointed that out! I'll throw mine in the trash now. 

2

EverDrive N8 / Re: Clone compatibility

« on: November 29, 2019, 04:02 AM »

I purchased an everdrive N8 last week.    I haven't had any issue playing on my NOAC based clone with real cartridges.   Any issues I should watch out for or things I would be be able to do?

I apologize for necroing an old thread, but I got the expansion audio to work just fine on a Retron 1 and a Retro Duo. Ace explained to me how to do it. However, this did require some soldering. The FC Twin supported the expansion sound by default. The expansion sound is a bit off-key on the Retro Duo, however. It is the 2007 to 2011 model.  No idea how you would enable it on the NOAC carts that allow the SNES to play NES though.

3

EverDrive N8 / Re: Noticed something odd about the Everdrives and Clones

« on: August 06, 2018, 10:04 AM »

because clone (system-on-chip) system is missing a one data line to read special mapper chips correctly
and cause clone can not see the 2nd rom chip (Genesis SSF2) or special chip (Castlevania 3) on real cart.

with Everdrive emulates special mapper chips with more
and plus rom image is 1 file instead of 2

Thanks for the insights. I thought it might have something to do with too many discrete ICs, but wasn't sure what the case would be. Again, thanks.

4

EverDrive N8 / Noticed something odd about the Everdrives and Clones

« on: August 06, 2018, 08:13 AM »

I have several Everdrives that I've purchased over the years.  This post is NOT a criticism, but seems to suggest an advantage over real cartridges in some situations.

An issue I've noticed is that some cartridges that will NOT play on one of my clones WILL PLAY as ROM images on exactly the same consoles through the Everdrive.

For example, my Castlevania 3 cartridge will not play correctly on my Retro Duo (revision 3), but it will play on my Everdrive as a ROM image on the exact same console. There is nothing wrong the Castlevania 3 cart. It plays fine on a real NES and some clones that were modified with an additional IC to support it.

Another example is that my copy of Super Street Fighter 2 for the Genesis has graphical errors on my Sega Genesis clone, but again will play perfectly as a ROM image on the everdrive using the exact same clone. Again, nothing wrong with the original cart. It plays fine on three real Genesis consoles. Only has issues on the clone.

To be clear, what I'm saying is that on some of my clone consoles, the games that do not work properly as real cartridges will play perfectly on the Everdrive.

Does anyone have an explanation for this? It isn't a criticism, but it is weird.

5

Mega EverDrive / Re: [ARTICLE] - The Dangers of 3.3V Flash in Retro Consoles

« on: August 03, 2018, 10:47 AM »

BennVenn has a video on Youtube called "Can a bootleg/flash cart prematurely age or damage your console?!?!?" which may provide a more complete picture of how these cartridges operate in reality and shed a little light on lurking variables that the author of the article in question may have overlooked.

That being said, I am going to respond to statements made by another member here to clarify my position as to why Krikzz does not need to prove that his items do not damage consoles, or cause cancer, or attract bears, etc. I am not doing this to be antagonistic.

You didn't do your research...

...you are not an engineer.

This guy is repeating the same errors of the previous posts, as well as a few new errors. Although it is beginning to try my patience, the discussion isn't necessarily pointless. As my views are yet again being misrepresented I will civilly respond one last time. There are many fantastic examples of erroneous reasoning, so this will be good reading if you like that sort of thing.

You didn't do your research. This much was clear to me.

 It is clear to me that much less is clear to this person than he believes to be the case.

And yes, you are not an engineer.

This is the logical fallacy we call "appeal to accomplishment". It is where a person erroneously attempts to evaluate a statement based on the accomplishments of the person making the statement and not the merits of the statement being made. The fact that he keeps repeating this in each response is telling.

He keeps stating that one has to be a licensed professional engineer to be able to think critically or advocate a position with sound reasoning. He seems oblivious to the fact that this suggestion is insulting to everyone here as well as being plainly wrong.

I don't claim to be a super-intelligent person, but I do have multiple university degrees in the field of computer science and discussed this article with an actual engineer and a retired air force officer who used to work with the United Space Alliance (No, that isn't something from Star Trek, look it up). They agreed with my view. Further, there are engineers, teachers, computer programmers, and law enforcement detectives in my family. It isn't like I'm living in a vacuum of stupidity and technological ignorance.

Prove then that he profited from the site traffic.

Asking me how I could know that someone could profit off of an article that leads traffic directly to their store is kind of like asking me how could I possibly know the tooth fairy is really one of his parents.  No words.

Prove then that the 3 older everdrive models on the store do not consume faster a console's lifespan.

This is the logical fallacy we call "denying the antecedent". If a person claims bigfoot is stealing cars in New Jersey and I state he has not proven it, he doesn't get to tell me that I have to prove that bigfoot is NOT stealing cars in New Jersey to prove him wrong.

You claim that all of your suggestions are reasonable because they sound reasonable...

Wrong again. Reasonable in this context means that I submit that the statements are plainly obvious to any reasonable and informed person. The fact that he persists in expressing his view while attempting to support it with logical fallacies puts him at odds with reason.

...yet you reject scientific research because...

Wrong again, on two counts. The first error here is the "false dilemma" logical fallacy in which a statement is claimed to be "either/or" when there are additional options. I never rejected content of the article IN TOTAL and clearly stated that it contained a grain of truth. Meaning that there were valid points but that the overall picture is misleading (BennVenn Electronics has a great video explaining this in layman's terms).

The article this thread is referring to is not scientific research. It was one guy stating a dubious claim based on misleading and incomplete information. Although he has valid points, the article is not a carefully documented, systematic study of impartial scientific rigor published in a peer reviewed scientific journal.

Many people incorrectly think using technical terminology and schematics in an article amounts to bonafide scientific research. It does not.

At the end of the day, all Krikzz has to substantiate his argument is an old document...

"Denying the antecedent fallacy" again. Krikzz isn't the one making the argument. These devices have been out for years. We would have proof by now if there was anything to the premise of the article in question. It is incumbent upon the author making the claim to prove Krikzz is damaging consoles. It is NOT incumbent upon Krikzz to prove the reverse of the author's claim.

Having a console fail faster due to the use of out of spec devices is difficult to prove unless the failure is immediate, which is not the case here...

Wrong again. He keeps repeating this absurd claim. These devices have been out for many years now and there are forums of hundreds Everdrive users that would have no problem screaming to the heavens about Krikzz and his diabolical cartridges. So no, the failure would NOT have to be immediate in this case because there has been plenty of time for valid examples to come to light.

People who work in tech support will know this.

There are intelligent people in technical support. However, many technical support jobs require no more technical expertise or education than operating the burger cooker at McDonalds. That doesn't carry much weight here. I've talked to technical support staff in the Philippines that admitted they never completed high school.

...the evil pedestal he was put in.

Yet another straw-man fallacy. I didn't say the author was a cannibalistic devil worshiper.

Let's leave conjecture behind and this argument to the engineers from now on, shall we?

Here he's repeating the "call to accomplishment" logical fallacy yet again and doesn't understand what is meant by the term "conjecture". Here's a hint. It is a conclusion formed on the basis of incomplete information.

Concrete evidence is not conjecture. Stating that there is no concrete evidence to support a claim is ALSO not conjecture. 

For example, there is no concrete evidence supporting the claim that "bigfoot hid an atomic bomb under the foundations of the Great Pyramids of Egypt". My statement that there is no evidence to support this claim is simply a FACTUAL OBSERVATION. This is NOT conjecture. I don't have to prove bigfoot does not exist.

The article--sophisticated though it may be--actually IS a piece of CONJECTURE. That doesn't mean that it does not contain factual information. Though it offers highly technical argumentation, it is based on an incomplete analysis with no body of statistics and no concrete proof.

Now my patience has reached its limit.



 

6

Super EverDrive / Re: The definitive Super Everdrive vs Super UFO Pro 8 thread

« on: July 28, 2018, 01:35 AM »

The Super UFO Pro 8 behaves differently on the Retro Duo (rev 3.0) than it does on the FC Twin or on the real SNES hardware.

EDIT: TLDR -- The Super UFO Pro 8 works better in SNES Clones (especially the Retro Duo) than it does in real SNES consoles.

It seems that the Super UFO Pro 8 was designed with the Retro Duo in mind, although it also works on the FC Twin and real SNES hardware (mostly). The same goes for the SNES multi-carts. I would not be surprised if whoever designed the Retro Duo PCB is the same person who designed the Super UFO Pro 8 PCB (even though the Super UFO concept came from much older hardware, which that person did not design)

One observation is that that on real SNES hardware with certain revisions of the CPU, PPU, and CIC, specific games become corrupted during play. It varies from console to console. This is not the case on the Retro Duo or the FC Twin.

Another observation is that on both the FC Twin and on real SNES hardware even games that play perfectly will become corrupted after resetting the game (sometimes you may have to rest more than once). The "save state" function of the Super UFO is also unreliable on these consoles. This is not the case on the Retro Duo. I noticed that I reset Demon's Crest around 5 times and the game never became corrupted.

On any of my real SNES consoles, the multi-carts (100 in 1, 110 in 1, etc) play perfectly, but eventually crash when left in attract mode for more than an hour. I have not observed that problem on the Retro Duo.

I think the cause is voltage on the cart slot. An engineer you are familiar with pointed out that multi-carts and flash devices tend to utilize 3.3 volt components (within 5 volt logic through the use of diodes, etc) that do not handle 5 volts coming off of the cart bus very well. In the ten years I've owned flash devices, I've seen zero evidence that any of these devices actually damage consoles, but it does cause for them to behave erratically. 

A guess would be that the old SNES consoles are simply pushing out more voltage, so when the cart tries to drop the voltage down to for the components on it, they are still recieving too much voltage and this causes corruption. However, on the Retro Duo (that is running directly off of 5 volts itself) this might not be as much of an issue.

The Retro Duo (at least the 3.0 revision) is different than the real SNES or the FC Twin in that it runs off of 5 volts and has no 7805 voltage regulator. It may be pushing out voltage through the cart slot closer to the 3.3 volts the Super UFO components were designed to handle, or it may simply regulate voltage more efficiently.

Whatever the reason, the Super UFO behaves much differently on the Retro Duo than it does on either a real SNES or an FC Twin. For example, the save state function is fairly reliable on the Retro Duo, but not on ANY SNES that I've tried it on. For the regular SNES console, the save state function might as well not even exist.

7

Mega EverDrive / Re: [ARTICLE] - The Dangers of 3.3V Flash in Retro Consoles

« on: July 26, 2018, 05:32 AM »

I generally hate internet drama...

That was obviously not my intention. My central point is that it is irresponsible for an author to claim that a product--any product--damages electronic hardware without offering a single conclusive piece of physical evidence.

At the risk of sounding defensive, this person pretty much distorted everything I said into a number of straw-men, then threw in the predicable "he-isn't-an-engineer-so-he-can't-know" and the predictable "he-doesn't-agree-with-me-so-he-has-not-done-research".

It is not reasonable to claim that the author didn't profit from the article because he "has a day job" and is an "ever-drive user". The author sells products related to the mega drive on the internet. It would be unreasonable to deny that increasing traffic to his article helps him sell his wares.

It is not reasonable to claim that having a single example of a console damaged by a cart would be useless based on the notion that you would need thousands of consoles to build a statistical model with an adequate sample size for the appropriate confidence interval. We are not talking about publishing scientific research or preventing nuclear reactors from melting down. We are talking about flash carts for 30 year old consoles.

It is not reasonable to claim that the author did not ignore Krikzz, when the author actually did ignore Krikzz (by refusing to directly address Krikzz' observation of the author's errors) in the comments section of the article in question and only later responded elsewhere and continued to dance around the criticisms raised without answering them.

If one makes an accusation that any product damages electronic hardware, one is obligated to produce at least a single conclusive piece of physical evidence. This is just a reasonable expectation and good common sense.  Anything less than that is not ethical.

It is good to initially give people the benefit of the doubt before dismissing them as antagonistic and disingenuous, even when it sometimes seems their intention is to distort what one has said by removing context or taking hyperbole to be literal fact.

8

Mega EverDrive / Re: [ARTICLE] - The Dangers of 3.3V Flash in Retro Consoles

« on: July 25, 2018, 08:24 AM »

I realize this is an old thread and I may get the boot for bumping it, but there were a few things that bothered me about the article. You don't have to be an engineer to see the holes in the claim made by the author, you just have to have a little common sense.

First, the author stated that various carts had damaged some of his friend's consoles. However, he offered no physical evidence of this and no concrete examples. This is deceptive. It is not enough to claim that something is theoretically possible. This type of claim requires physical proof.

Second, he condescendingly implied that Everdrive designers were not knowledgeable of elements of electrical engineering and physics. Somehow, I doubt that is the case.

Third, his "common rebuttals" section  did not contain rebuttals of serious criticisms, but instead contained rebuttals to infantile straw-men arguments. Serious criticisms, like those of Krikzz, were  ignored.

Fourth, the idea that he did not have a selfish motive for creating a misleading article due to the fact that he doesn't sell flash drives is not correct. He doesn't have to be selling a competing product to benefit from increased traffic. Any product at all benefits from increased traffic.

Finally, people are saying that science substantiates the author's claim, simply because it sounds logical. While I don't doubt that there is a grain of truth to what the author is claiming, the fact is that he did not offer a single concrete example of a console damaged in the manner he suggested. That is the very first thing he would need to start with.

My feeling is that these older consoles were designed with greater tolerance than the author is representing and he over looked variables that mitigate the "design fault" he describes. Otherwise, we would have mountains of dead consoles and thread upon thread of people bitching about flash devices wrecking their consoles.

As old as these consoles are, common sense would point to the notion that they are more likely to simply disintegrate with age than blow up because of a discrepancy of slightly more than 1.5 volts.

9

Super EverDrive / Re: The definitive Super Everdrive vs Super UFO Pro 8 thread

« on: July 17, 2018, 12:48 AM »

I realize this is a very old thread, but with all of the new flash devices and clones on the market I wanted to comment on the Super UFO.  I don't think it is a very good flash device, but it is useful for diagnostic purposes.

It is useful for game saves, region bypass, ROM dumping, and diagnostic capabilities of the cart, but it is NOT the best option to play ROMS. There is a utility on the SUPER UFO that will "read" the console and tell you which revision of the hardware you have internally. It is a little bit buried in the menus, but this function is there.

This is useful because many S-CPU chips had DMA/HDMA defect and to a lesser extent, many S-PPU2 chips had problems. This is why they were quickly revised for the North American launch in 1991.

CPU Version
(1) S-CPU--often defective-- (2) S-CPU A (3) S-CPU B, etc

PPU1 Version
(1) S-PPU1 (2) S-PPU1 A (3) S-PPU1 B, etc

PPU2 Version
(1) S-PPU2--sometimes defective--(2) S-PPU 2 A (3) S-PPU 2 B, etc

So, it is nice to pop the cart in, run the check and save yourself from wasting time replacing caps on a board with a failing S-CPU or S-PPU2 from 1990.

That being said, as a flash device for real Super Nintendo consoles, it is not very good.

First, even for a flash device it is way off spec. It is a 3.3 volt device running on a 5 volt slot with inadequate means to address that difference. Second, the SNES had many revisions of the CPU, PPU1, PPU2, and the CIC chip. Certain combinations of these chips will cause the Super UFO not to work or to randomly work on some games, but not others.

I have noticed that consoles with the earliest revision of the CPU and possibly the earliest revision of PPU2 sometimes have problems with the Super UFO. However, clones like the FC Twin usually have no problems with it.

Third, as the Super UFO is based on the legacy technology of game copiers that were sold when the SNES was still in stores, one would expect elements of late SNES revisions that interfered with those devices to also interfere with the Super UFO. I've personally experienced this with games like Demon's Crest (I actually had to find an old hacked version to get past a certain point in the game where the CIC would kick in and block your progress).

Finally, the battery system on these cartridges is abysmal, with games sometimes being corrupted within the DRAM as you play them.

In my opinion, none of this is worth paying more than $25.  The Super Ever Drive and SD2NES are on a completely different level than this thing.

10

Turbo EverDrive / Re: PC Engine Cheat Codes

« on: June 30, 2014, 04:30 AM »

Some games I'd like cheats for are:

Sinistron (It is a significantly different game than the original Japanese version, Violent Soldier)
Samurai Ghost / Genpei Tōma Den: Kan no Ni

11

Turbo EverDrive / Re: Japanese PCE power supply question.

« on: June 29, 2014, 11:06 PM »

it just has an extra voltage regulator in the circuit

It's actually a bridge rectifier that converts the incoming AC voltage into a DC voltage, a voltage regulator can't do that.

Correct. The point is that it as an additional part that will not hurt the NES. It simply does nothing at all when used with the NES. In fact, it is probably SAFER to use with the NES than the original NES power supply.

12

Turbo EverDrive / Re: Japanese PCE power supply question.

« on: December 18, 2013, 05:22 PM »

I've never had any problems using Japanese power supplies in the US. The input voltage is very similar for US and Japanese consoles. The output voltage is what you should be concerned about.

Here are some easy rules with AC adapters that can save you money:
(1) The output voltage should be either exactly the same or within about ten percent of the original power supply. If the voltage on the AC Adapter is too high it can damage voltage regulator.
-----------I've run a Genesis on an 8.5 volt power supply, and on an 11 volt power supply.

(2) The output amps need to be either exactly the same or higher than the original AC adapter. You do not want lower amps as that will damage the console over time.
-----------Some consoles are efficient enough to handle lower amps on the AC adapter than the original, but it isn't worth the risk.

(3) The output polarity must be the same. If your console is center negative, your AC adapter must be center negative. However, you can easily switch the polarity of any AC adapter by simply cutting the plug and re-soldering the wires in reverse. After you have changed the polarity, make sure you label the AC adapter accordingly. You can also switch plugs the same way, to make different AC adapters fit different consoles.
-----------I have a 10 volt, 2000 mA AC adapter that I modified (with interchangeable plugs) to power the following consoles:
* Atari 2600
* PC Engine Core
* PC Engine Duo
* Turbo Grafx 16
* Genesis Model I, II, III
* Genesis w/Sega CD attachment (spliced into two plugs)
* Super Nintendo
* Nintendo
* Sega Master System
* FC Twin

It doesn't power the Retron 1, however, as that console uses only 6 volts.

(4) The output voltage should be AC/DC, never AC/AC. Even a console that uses AC/AC voltage will run more safely on an AC/DC adapter (it just has an unused extra voltage regulator bridge rectifier in the circuit).

13

Turbo EverDrive / Re: UK user - is it worth me getting a Turbografx?

« on: December 18, 2013, 04:48 PM »

If you are only going to play Hucard games, the best version to get is the standard PC Engine Core system.

Yes, it is worth it. The PC Engine surpassed the Genesis and SNES in many ways. It was just not supported in the United States with enough software. It Japan there was plenty of software.

14

EverDrive N8 / Re: NES clone compatibility

« on: December 18, 2013, 04:41 PM »

I can say that it works on the following clones:
* Retron 1
* Retro-Bit RES
* FC Twin
* Dendy Jr (according to Krikkz)

We can't promise it would work on the NASA NES clone, but I would be surprised if it didn't.

15

Off Topic / Re: Neo-Geo CD

« on: October 13, 2013, 06:52 PM »

The Neo Geo CD model 2 is a notoriously badly designed console. The CDZ is slightly better, but has an issue with overheating. Don't every buy one of these, stick with the AES.

I've owned MANY consoles without issues, but every Neo Geo CD I've owned failed after a few days of use, with multiple parts of the drive mechanism constantly failing.