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

Electric Rain · Post by **Electric Rain** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 2:29 pm

...You're scheissfreaks, right?

Splode · Post by **Splode** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 2:33 pm

Electric Rain wrote:...You're scheissfreaks, right?

Providing you mean the guy who made this vid:http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=8VcbEIkAdmY

Simple answer, no. But what I've done is similar to what he has done.

Electric Rain · Post by **Electric Rain** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 2:57 pm

Oh, sorry.

I made acquaintances with scheissfreaks through YouTube and he was supposed to be coming here, but was having strange problems with the sign-up process. He's registered here, but it won't let him log in... It sounded like you must be him...

It doesn't matter either way; it's good to see a fresh face, er... avatar around here.

Welcome to the forums and to this thread. I hope we can prevail where all others have failed.

Splode · Post by **Splode** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 3:02 pm

Thanks. I'm keep to impress, so here's my first attempt at help

You said that you were intending to have the boards made at spark fun, right? There is a possibility that I could have a few protoboards made up and ship them out to you in the states. I've got a friend going to study computer science at university, and he starts on saturday. I may be able to get him to have a couple boards made up.

Not definitely sure, but I've asked him about it, and he does seem to think it's possible.

As for my avatar, it's my car (surprise surprise). I can't really get on with modern things, although the BMW 645ci I drove last night was fast, and quite fun.

Electric Rain · Post by **Electric Rain** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 3:17 pm

Wow, really? Sweet! That would save a lot of money... Let me know if that works out for sure... I'm not sure if my specs are okay, though...

- Mainboard dimensions are 75mm x 45mm
- Daughterboard dimensions are 25mm x 25mm
- Trace widths and spacing is 8mil
- Minimum drill size is 20mil (Only 44 pins from the IDE connector and some vias. Everything else is surface-mount. Oh, and a couple holes for the posts that hold the USB connector in place.)
- The mainboard is double-sided. Hope that's okay.

As long as he can pull that off, well, I guess I need to find another spot on the back of the board to silk-screen his/your name on.

Splode · Post by **Splode** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 3:20 pm

As I said, I'll have to make sure, but I know him well enough to at least give it a try. as for legitamacy(sp?) and honesty, I've been a scout for over a decade, so I don't tend to lie to people that often.

Electric Rain · Post by **Electric Rain** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 3:48 pm

Right, I know not to expect anything that hasn't been set in stone. I just wanted to give some specs so you could make sure what the board required wasn't more than he was capable of when you ask him...

Thanks again for the possibility, at least!

Edit: Oh, and I thought I'd let you guys know, the FX2 from Digikey was back-ordered, and they said the ETA on getting them in stock was the 19th (Friday). My order won't ship until probably either then or Monday, so I expect to get the order around the end of next week, at the latest. If this is true, and I take the weekend to make the second blog, that should be up by the first of the week after next.

But, don't hold me to that very strongly, please. I don't do well under pressure.

Dark-Aries · Post by **Dark-Aries** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 7:40 pm

This is finally come to frutition! Awesome! Now...I still can't figure out how you can have LAN thourhg USB like some other people were trying...I know only a few games had it but...still...just another feature you could add for those who..I don't need it...I just want to know how the hell it would work...:S

Electric Rain · Post by **Electric Rain** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 10:28 pm

...I might know what you're talking about, but I think I need you to elaborate before I respond properly.

By the way, something to think about... this hasn't been brought up a single time in this thread because either nobody noticed it, or we just didn't care. But, in addition to being able to store and load games off hard drives and stream ISOs via USB through a host PC, there's a third function this project is capable of. If anyone looked at the front page or looked through the source files, you'd notice it can also interface with ATAPI OODs. I never thought about the possibilities of this before, but this basically means that the 'cube's Disk Drive can be replace with a standard ATAPI DVD-ROM drive. I'm not sure exactly how this works (most DVD-ROM drives can't even read GC disks without firmware hacks, and even that only works on a few models), but it's surely something we can look into. Anyone that still wanted to use disks but didn't want to deal with the 'cube's HUGE bulky Disk Drive might be interested in this possibility. I can imagine a slot-loading laptop DVD drive hacked up to be even smaller (GC games are of course only mini-disks, after all), making that fake portable Gamecube image we've all seen floating around the internet slightly feasible.

I am of course, referring to this:

Dark-Aries · Post by **Dark-Aries** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 6:45 pm

okay...look here...

http://tehskeen.com/forums/showthread.p ... +harddrive

apparnetly a ubs port can be used for a keyboard or a LAN adapter....I don't know how the hell that would be possible but aparnetly that company figured out it could be...to bad that didn't come to fruition though...

Electric Rain · Post by **Electric Rain** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 9:00 pm

Oh, that thing? Yeah, I wouldn't get your hopes up on that. I can't even tell what it does.

ShockSlayer · Post by **ShockSlayer** » Fri Sep 19, 2008 8:41 pm

So how the hell are you going to program this?

SS

Electric Rain · Post by **Electric Rain** » Fri Sep 19, 2008 10:17 pm

Via USB... doesn't anyone keep up with my discoveries of this thing?

Again, Destop wrote a USB JTAG programmer that will program the PROM through the FX2, eliminating the need for a JTAG cable. That takes care of the ATA interfacing. The FX2 gets programmed upon being plugged into a host computer, with drivers that still need to be compiled.

Edit: Wow I sound like an @$$. Sorry, guess I'm in a bad mood and I didn't even know it... But seriously, I did already go over this...

Website · Post by **Life of Brian** » Sat Sep 20, 2008 7:03 am

Electric Rain wrote:Edit: Wow I sound like an @$$. Sorry, guess I'm in a bad mood and I didn't even know it... But seriously, I did already go over this...

No, you don't sound rude, but that whooshing sound is all that information flying over some of our heads.

Electric Rain · Post by **Electric Rain** » Sat Sep 20, 2008 7:43 am

Hmm... I guess, as I continue learning and certain things become common knowledge to me, I always assume most of you already know it or can at least follow.

I've got a complex where I always think everyone else is smarter than me, basically.