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

[TheOnlyOneHeFears]

Nice, more support! Sorry I've been inactive regards this for a while, I've pretty much put off all my modding because I've got GCSEs coming up
I've got a few updates, sort of, personally.

-I may well be aquiring a free/very cheap Gamecube from a friend who now has a Wii, and doesn't need his GC anymore, which I will dedicate solely to this project
-Over at http://assemblergames.com/forums/showth ... #post78710, there are loads of pictures of the disassembled NPDP which could be useful. The main guy, ASSEMbler, owns one, so e-mailing him could be a posibility?
-It seems that the cartridges are more complicated than they first appear, but I'm not sure of that makes a difference/is really important. BUT I have found the specific type of hard drive they use, turns out its a Toshiba Laptop IDE 9mm drive, with a capacity of 6.007Gb. The good thing is I've found a website that sells them in the UK (here), so I might get one.

My plan at the moment is to look into the cartridges themselves, rather than the interface. I just need to find an actual NPDP cart (yeah, like that's going to happen ) I think it might help. So wish me luck, and keep me posted on everything you're doing

[R3ason]

@TheOnlyOneHeFears
Good luck on your exams!

Hmm, VERY interesting link you have provided....

I've got my Gamecube coming in the mail (picked up a cheap one from eBay), so I'll be doing a lot of reading until it arrives.

[TheOnlyOneHeFears]

@R3ason
Cheers man I've got a few out of the way already (French and German Orals), but the bulk are in June. Still, I've got a long summer to look forward to
Turns out my friend eBayed his GC instead of giving it to me Minor setback, but I guess I'll just get onto eBay myself and find a cheap one. I tried to explain the project to him, but all I got was a blank stare
I found out about ASSEMbler's NPDP in a Retro Gamer article, and then found his forum. There's quite a lot of good info/pics on there. A guy called Shiggsy has a massive collection of carts, and a few internal pics as well. He has a website called Shiggy's Palace, with LOADS of info on other Gamecube related hardware. Might be a good idea to contact him too. There was also an eBay auction for a NPDP some time ago, but it's expired, so I can't check how much went for.

[R3ason]

Thank goodness for long summer breaks!

Yeah, it seems that we modders get the blank stare when explaining a new project. However, when the project is finished that blank stare has turned into: "OMG dude, that's f***ing awesome, I want one, gimme gimme!!"

I'm going to contact Shiggsy and see how much he's actually worked on the GC hardware, and go from there. Good news, though, is that if Nintendo has the technology, then it is possible!

Btw, what is the final goal of the project, an internal hard drive, like the Xbox & PS2, or carts, or games on SD/CF cards?

I'm gonna purchase a GC bba on ebay to start analyzing image files for the games....

[Triton]

definatly wanna be kept posted on the progressw of this, if you can get aworking gc to ide interface built i would definatly want a CF card version for my GCP, massive power savings and reatly reduced thickness would kick ass! i will do whatever i can to help this project along!

[R3ason]

Ok, I'm just waiting for my stuff to arrive. My equipment thus far: Gamecube, Memory card, 2GB mini SD card, SD card socket, Broadband adapter, screwdriver to open those pesky little screws. Need to pick up some wire and assorted components at Radio Shack as well. Let's see.... Am I missing anything obvious?

Hopefully I'll get to finish reading all of the available articles this weekend. I'll also write emails to the other people who are/were working on this; I'll post the messages I send to them. Oh, and obviously if anyone stumbles across a GC NPDP or anything, LET US KNOW! Ok, I'm about to crash for a few hours before work in the morning....

[Electric Rain]

R3ason, YOU ARE SO F***IN' AWESOME RIGHT NOW!!! I can't believe someone's ACTUALLY HELPING with this thing! ... HOLY CRAP THIS IS SO GREAT! I only wish there was something more I could do... but... turns out I'm not gonna have any time or money to do a d@mn thing... our "landlord" (she treats us like we're renting... anyway... even though we're buying this house from her on a lease option) decided to sell... and either wants $40,000 down if we're gonna buy it (HA!) or we need to be out by... June... something. I don't know... whatever... Anyway...

R3ason, I assume when you ask if you're "missing anything obvious" you're not counting the FPGA itself, right? I think that's a stupid question... but you can't get much done without the heart of the entire hack... erm... can you? <.< >.> I'm deeply apologize if that made it look like I thought you were a complete idiot, but I'm just makin' sure here... Ah... there's really no more polite way to put it, is there? Anyway, again, you're AWESOME for actually picking this project up.

And TheOnlyOneHeFears, you too. I don't know how far you'll be able to go, but... I don't know... maybe once R3ason fills in the gaps with some much needed documentation and builds a prototype, you can build the second prototype, since you'll have the parts. But let's face it... R3ason is probably our best bet at this point. It seems as though he's got cash, he's already got parts on the way, which means he's got the ambition, and most importantly, he's got the knowledge. And let's face it, that's something I don't think either of us have enough of to tackle this project on our own. But you know what? You've been here with me from the beginning... not having a clue what your next step should be, right alongside me.

Anyway, yeah... I think SD cards are the way to go. Or CF... I can't say. I've only ever worked with SD, and I think they're smaller... so... By the way, R3ason, do you know what Destop means by "audio streaming"? What games use that... do you think? *is totally confused* See... that's the problem... I have enough ambition for all three of us, but I don't have either of the other two things (money or knowledge)... >.> Please help us R3ason! Don't ever leave us! *clings to your leg*

[Triton]

CF would be better i think because they are actually pin for pin IDE compatible

[R3ason]

I believe you are right. I just know that the GC uses modified SD cards for the memory, but yeah, CF will probably be the route we'll want to go. Thanks!

[TheOnlyOneHeFears]

Few more bits of info/thoughts.

The IDE interface replaces the disk drive in the GC right? So I wonder how the Gamecube's original bios treats the interface. Does anyone know if the GC mobo boots without the disk drive attached, and what happens? Does the GC go to the bios screen? What happens when you press up to select a game. I have no reason to see why it *wouldn't* boot, per se, but I might be wrong. I might try this myself later. My reasoning being, I wonder if the GC would treat the IDE interface as a huge disk instead of something else. If this was the case, could it be possible to use the booting functions of a modchip such as the Qoob Pro to run games from the hard disk? I know that you can use the Qoob Pro to browse a burnt disk, and see the various applications like emulators or homebrew games on there on a menu, from which you can select and run them. What if you could use the disk browser to browse games, applications etc on the hard drive?
Of course, this would only work if the GC saw the interface as a massive disk. If not, someone (R3ason? ) would have to programme a modified bios which could boot programmes/games off the hard disk.

@R3ason
I was thinking more of having a small, large capacity laptop hard drive permanently attached to the GC. I probably won't portabalise a Gamecube, and thus CF/SD cards seem a bit pointless to me. However, I would much rather work with CF and have it work, than work with a laptop hard disk and not have it work

@Electric Rain
YES! SOMEONE TO HELP US! I'll go as far as I can go, and I really really want this to work and be a success. It's true, we've been around since the beginning, bemoaning out collective lack of funds and skills But I honestly think that we can all help out. We WILL do it, I'm sure of it Oh and you're whole house thing sucks man I really hope you sort it out

Oh and I second Electric Rain's leg clinging tactics

[gannon]

Fairly sure it'd boot up with the standard hardware error screen if the hdd unit/circuitry isn't attached, nothing but conjecture of course though

[ShockSlayer]

Everyone Exchange emails and contact info NOW! You dont want to lose anyone when working on a group project. I tore up a GC last night(2 painful cuts...) So, I'll be doing some tracing and gathering info (Voltage ins, outs, grounds ect) I'd like to do a lot for this!

SS

Edit: d - a - y - l - e - n - h - i - c - k - m - a - n - @ - b - e - l - l - s - o - u - t - h - . - n - e - t

Typing it is much faster than editing it.

[ShockSlayer]

Possibly helpful links?

Homebrew Dev kit? Optical....

If these wii dev kits plug into existing GC dev kits, they would make more right?

So Thats what they look like! (scroll down)

SS

[R3ason]

@Electric Rain
Right on! I'm gonna dig out my components and stuff and see what I have, and order what I "think" I'll need. Hmm, probably need a new breadboard now that I think about it.... Eh, don't worry about apologizing; as soon as I hit Submit, I says to myself "dang it (only it was a different word)!" I knew someone was going to ask that Btw, I hope the house situation works out. Make sure you stay a part of the project, though, at least for moral support, k?

As far as the storage device goes, CF or hard drive shouldn't be to dissimilar.... Not sure as of yet since I just started looking into all of this.... Ideally, I'd love to see a 160GB laptop drive purring away inside of my GC, but CF is gonna be the way to go for portable (more than likely).

Uggh, if only my stuff would get here faster

@ShockSlayer
Good point, everyone else who's worked on this seems to have fallen off the planet. I can be reached at: music (dott) extractor (att) gmail (dott) (com). (Yes, I realize that dot and at only have one 't' in them )

[ShockSlayer]

I dont know if anyone else has noticed, but, on the guy who did it's website, at the very bottom, there is a blue line. It takes you to file folder of project files. Schematics or something. Seen it?

SS