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

Mario · Post by **Mario** » Fri Oct 17, 2008 5:17 pm

Electric Rain wrote:It's hard to nail down a price at this point, but I've estimated it will be somewhere around $100 or maybe a little bit more depending on how long it takes to assembe the boards. Cheaper without the FX2, of course.

*facepalm*
THAT MUCH??? I was considering buying one not for portablizing, I wanted to put it in my gamecube. But man, 100 bucks? >_<

Electric Rain · Post by **Electric Rain** » Fri Oct 17, 2008 5:23 pm

Do you have any idea how expensive these things are to make?

I'm working on some cost-cutting solutions, but you have to remember that I'm not making 100,000 of these at a time.

Dark-Aries · Post by **Dark-Aries** » Fri Oct 17, 2008 7:45 pm

well I actually wanted this bored to make a GC lappy...so HDD would actually be more suited for me...but if I could have both it would be even better...and streaming form usb...it would be so cool.

Mario · Post by **Mario** » Fri Oct 17, 2008 8:35 pm

Electric Rain wrote:Do you have any idea how expensive these things are to make?

I'm working on some cost-cutting solutions, but you have to remember that I'm not making 100,000 of these at a time.

I guess so...
But still! $100! Can I see what the board is supposed to look like?

Electric Rain · Post by **Electric Rain** » Fri Oct 17, 2008 8:48 pm

I don't have my prototype yet, so no, not exactly. However, the following images are of the original PCB designed by Destop. Mine will be much smaller, and there will be a number of other differences as well.

Mario · Post by **Mario** » Fri Oct 17, 2008 9:50 pm

Ooohhhh... The boards have the components already on them. I thought they were the bare boards!

That makes the price seem much more reasonable. Also, that's really nice! I'm assuming the prototype works well? How do you choose the games?

Electric Rain · Post by **Electric Rain** » Fri Oct 17, 2008 11:22 pm

Dude, you're killing me!

Answers to all of your questions are in this thread... but, I guess it is pretty long, so...

I don't have my prototype yet, and this "destop" we keep referring to is the original creator of the project. He created this a few years ago, and did not take the time to document it very well. He has not even provided any proof that it actually works, and nobody else that has attempted this project (only a few people) has successfully completed it. We don't know why. Destop is now very difficult to contact as well. Because of all of this, this project has many times been referred to as vaporware. But we know this isn't true, and my goal is to prove it. So, I am attempting to re-create it. There is a little guesswork involved, however, especially concerning the software. There are a lot of source files and other stuff whose purpose is still unknown, as they aren't labeled or documented well. I've been chipping away at it for a while now, and am at the point where I'm fairly confident I will able to figure everything out once I start programming the device. But, no further testing can be done without "trying stuff" on the hardware, so that is now the next step. Schematics are provided, so the hardware is pretty straightforward (minus some missing values on components, but I've figured that out). I have re-designed the schematic in Eagle, created a PCB layout, and recently send the layout off to BatchPCB. I will receive my prototype board in a few weeks, at which point I will solder the components I have already bought from DigiKey onto it, and begin attempting to program it.

That's the short version, anyway. The long version is currently 32 pages long plus an additional 12 pages from the Dextrose thread I linked to in the first post.

If nothing else, give that a read. It's much more informative than this thread has been so far, and even includes some posts by destop himself, which is the only known documentation on the project other than the very bare-bones webpage on Crazy Nation, which is also linked to in the first post. Files for the project can be found by clicking the hyperlinked "___" on the page, right above the words "Links of interest". These include the schematic and all software.

I'll go over all of this in my next blog... just be patient!

Edit: Oh, and your other question... games are loaded via a program that was previously only in C++ source form, but that I have managed to compile. They are loaded onto the drive using a very basic, proprietary file system. This wipes out all data on the drive chosen, so don't test it with an important drive! Games are selected via a custom menu screen that destop has also designed for us that will likely appear when the Gamecube is booted up. It is in ISO form, and is also loaded onto the drive with the above mentioned program. It acts like any other Gamecube game, and can be emulated with Dolphin (a PC Gamecube emulator). However, without being loaded onto the hard drive with games, it shows an empty directory. Nevertheless, a screen shot can be seen on page 27, and a screenshot as well as the compiled version of the game loading program hosted on my server can be found on page 14.

R3ason · Post by **R3ason** » Sat Oct 18, 2008 12:25 am

Technically, if you solder an IDE connector onto the board, shouldn't people be able choose whether or not they want to connect a hdd or a CF adaptor/converter via a ribbon cable? I'd think that would be the way to go, so that the CF slot can be mounted externally if we wanted to be able to swap out cards...

Maybe I'm missing something, though... It's possible at this late hour

Electric Rain · Post by **Electric Rain** » Sat Oct 18, 2008 12:58 am

Yes, but this is not the most efficient use of space. I have spent today coming up with a solution that should make everyone happy, but it will take too long to explain and nobody will probably get it without visual aids. But, it will provide the option of a CF card slot on-board, a 2.5" hard drive mounted on-board, OR the ability to use IDE ribbon cable to attach either a 2.5" hard drive or a 3.5" hard drive, or, like you said, a CF card adapter. I'll explain my idea... later.

But, just know that it's cheap and compact.

Nice to see you pop in every once in a while, R3ason.

Ness · Post by **Ness** » Sat Oct 18, 2008 11:51 am

I am sure that CF would be cheaper, but, hell, I'd prefer the HDD version as well. It would be much easier for me at least to keep my stuff organized especially if I wanna load up more than one game onto the machine.

Awesome work so far, very very impresive!!!

Electric Rain · Post by **Electric Rain** » Sat Oct 18, 2008 12:52 pm

Well, you can... you just have to get a decently sized CF card. A 32GB one will allow you to store 21 games on it if my calculations are correct. They're not very expensive anymore either.

Destop said he allows each game to take up 0x57158000 bytes of space. That's hex code for 1,461,026,816 decimal. It doesn't matter how large the game actually is, each game must have the exact same amount of space allocated for it in order for the file pointers to work properly. There are a billion bytes in a gigabyte, so 32GB times 1,000,000,000 = 32,000,000,000 bytes on the CF card... 1,461,026,816 into 32,000,000,000 is 21.9. Thus, 21 games... as long as the bootloader and sudo "filesystem" doesn't take up more than .9GB.

Edit: Hey, can this be stickied? It seems like it deserves at least that much.

Edit 2:

Okay, bad news good news time. The bad news is, I'm an idiot, and I just now realized it. I designed the PCB with SOT-223 footprints for both regulators. Apparently, however, I only ordered the 2.5V regulator as a SOT-223 package. I accidentally ordered the 3.3 regulator as a D-PAK package.

The D-PAK is a little bit larger, however, the good news is that they are still a very similar size, and with some VERY careful lead bending, I should be able to make the D-PAK regulator fit in a SOT-223 footprint. It will look stupid, but I guess prototypes are supposed to look stupid, aren't they?

In other (good) news, I'm looking into cost and size cutting solutions, as I mentioned, and figured out how to make the voltage regulation circuitry fit in a much smaller footprint on the board, with improved efficiency, a lower part count and for about a dollar cheaper! Win win win win situation, no?

Mario · Post by **Mario** » Sat Oct 18, 2008 3:51 pm

Thanks for your detailed answer. I get it now.

And sorry for being too ignorant to read the entire thread.

Electric Rain · Post by **Electric Rain** » Sat Oct 18, 2008 4:02 pm

It has nothing to do with ignorance... it's just laziness.

R3ason · Post by **R3ason** » Sun Oct 19, 2008 2:09 am

Electric Rain wrote:It will provide the option of a CF card slot on-board, a 2.5" hard drive mounted on-board, OR the ability to use IDE ribbon cable to attach either a 2.5" hard drive or a 3.5" hard drive, or, like you said, a CF card adapter. I'll explain my idea... later.

Sounds good

timmeh87 · Post by **timmeh87** » Sun Oct 19, 2008 2:51 am

I approve of this thread.

Heck maybe Id even pitch for one just to support the cause? Sounds fun to put together.

The code sounds kind of sloppy though. I wish I had time to commit to this...

It would be great to see some development for this from the community if you get the hardware running ok. I think we could make it pretty damn fancy.