Official Gamecube IDE/USB interface thread (PROJECT BEGUN!)

jeroen · Post by **jeroen** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 1:51 pm

Ya or some kind of adapter. (I bet they have them) probably wouldn't be to big to. I'm soooo gonna buy this when it comes out! (and make a portable cube!)

Post by **marshallh** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 2:12 pm

Looks like a small CPLD interfacing directly. They must have been able to trim down the thing quite a bit.

Cool, but buying it seems like you're violating yourself.

jeroen · Post by **jeroen** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 2:17 pm

Ya it could be a CPLD. Stil think this is awesome. I really hope this works 100% ect and on pal no exeptions. Are there any games that could have problems running on this?

edit: just talked to someone aperantly its an fpga.

Electric Rain · Post by **Electric Rain** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 2:34 pm

marshallh wrote:Cool, but buying it seems like you're violating yourself.

Mind explaining yourself?

Fat D · Post by **Fat D** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 3:47 pm

The ProASIC series is described as a low-cost FPGA with non-volatile memory, essentially combining the advantages of FPGA and ASIC.

Yes, I've seen pictures of those adapters, but I don't know where to get any.

Mind explaining yourself?

Well, I'm not marshallh, but I think it means that with all the time you spent on it, you are too quick to switch to a different solution.

Electric Rain · Post by **Electric Rain** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 3:56 pm

I guess I understand that... meh, maybe I'll still try to do it. After all, this new thing hasn't even been released yet. *shrugs*

Edit: Yay! 1200th post!

More importantly though, Corscaria has, out of the blue, gotten back with me and supplied me with the Gekko (Apparently I've been spelling that wrong... why didn't any of you say anything? >.>) datasheet!

I don't know if anyone's still interested, but if so, I've uploaded it to my server. Corscaria asked me to host it elsewhere for the rest of you... essentially she said she didn't want any of you people leeching off her server, so, I guess that makes me special.

j/k

Enjoy, and beware that it's a 618 page, 5+MB PDF document!

Post by **marshallh** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 10:34 pm

For all you know it could be vaporware. If it gets mainstream attention Nintendo will surely notice. It is definitely a target for 'piracy'.

Taking another look at it, yes it's a fpga/mcu doohickey. It'd be interesting to see how they got audio streaming working (assuming they did).

Electric Rain · Post by **Electric Rain** » Fri Oct 05, 2007 10:44 pm

marshallh wrote:For all you know it could be vaporware. If it gets mainstream attention Nintendo will surely notice. It is definitely a target for 'piracy'.

Taking another look at it, yes it's a fpga/mcu doohickey. It'd be interesting to see how they got audio streaming working (assuming they did).

...All good points.

You've re-inspired me! Hooray Marshall! ...And beer!

Fat D · Post by **Fat D** » Sat Oct 06, 2007 8:29 am

Emu_kidid (the author of GCOS) seems to have talked to members of the development team and posted the information that there would possibly be
a) some space for on-board OS or homebrew programs (SDLoad would be fun, but somewhat pointless)
b) the chance of getting an S-ATA connector.
both sound good to me. Especially the possibility of getting SATA support (the next best thing to IDE when it comes to using high-space storage. And there are PATA-Adapters to IDE and CF for SATA as well).
Source: TehSkeen, this post.

timmeh87 · Post by **timmeh87** » Sat Oct 06, 2007 8:57 am

hey guys. Ive been silently lurking this thread every once in a while.

you see, as part of my schooling I deal with fpgas. and they are very much related to my interests...

perhaps it has already been discussed here, but the way I would go about this would be to get the $150 cyclone II dev board from altera. Its pretty chock-full of features (including 80 free pins to use as you wish, and an SD card slot.. hmm..), and you can get individual cyclone II chips for less than 20 bucks when it comes time to make it into a PCB.

Im currently using the $300 dev board in my labs, the other day we made a VGA controller and a simple pong game to show it off. Anyways, from what Ive learned thus far, its actually really easy to interface FPGAs with hardware. This project is entirely possible.

that said, Im afraid i dont have much time to actually help. I figured id just throw in some words of encouragement.

Im hoping to get that altera dev board myself. At some point im going to have to come up with a thesis for school, and im thinking of making a N64 backup unit/cartridge emulator, etc.

if that dosent work out maybe I could do this, it certainly sounds a lot easier (ie better documentation)

toru173 · Post by **toru173** » Mon Oct 08, 2007 7:43 am

This is fantastic! Cheaper then our plan, too. adding S-ATA would be about 100% brilliant!

khaag · Post by **khaag** » Mon Oct 08, 2007 10:31 am

I'm no electronics guru, so I really have no idea what you're talking about with all this electronic engineering jargon and such, but I might have a suggestion (I don't know if it will work, but it is a suggestion nonetheless).

Is there a way to create an "adaptor" as such from a microSD to Compact Flash? If so, you could interface the CF card to that new board that is coming out. That way, the hardware for the "disk drive" is already there, all you need to do is hook up the CF to that.

Fat D · Post by **Fat D** » Mon Oct 08, 2007 11:09 am

some user who claims to be a member of the development team has posted that SATA won't be in the base package, but they are observing the possibility to include it with an add-on board.

toru173 · Post by **toru173** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 5:40 am

Suspicious... SATA is heaps more complicated then SD access. Much higher clock and data rates, not to mention IP licensing. I don't really see it happening but I would absolutely die of hapiness if it did!

Fat D · Post by **Fat D** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 9:57 am

But it's less pins.

Currently they consider CE-ATA... ATA via an SD-esque interface.