Looks like they have a finalized Genesis/Megadrive cart now. The NES/SNES/N64 versions probably aren't far away either. The price at $149 seems on the high end to me.
http://www.neoflash.com/go/index.php?op ... &Itemid=37
They appear to use GBA NOR flash cards for program storage, much like the GB Bridge for Game Boy Color. I don't know whether that's cheaper than the ATA interface in a PowerPak or a GBA Movie Player, but it drives continuing sales of NeoFlash's GBA products in an era when Nintendo DSi has cut out GBA compatibility. And I'd wager a guess that the interface they use is simplistic enough that they need to boot from the GBA card in Genesis mode, which would rule out using an SD card+RAM adapter like the SuperCard or M3.
I dont want the gen one but anyboady selling them outher than
www.ic2005.com ? 150 seems a bit much they where suppose to retail for under $100, I might be interestied in the N64 version when it comes out.
Also I suspect the reason they use the GBA carts for there memory is because they have a surplus of them.
If you look at early malkups you will notace they have memory card slots rather than GBA slots.
Although maybe they just did not want to have to create bootloaders for each system, that would require programmming knolage for each specific system perhaps they simpley did not have that
I think that they made one that is a GBA cart with a memory card slot in it. Maybe that would be supported with it? If so that would be cool.
Dout it, one of a few reasons would be, there would be no way to get the ROM from the memory card to the carts RAM because there is no interface for that.
Well a BIOS or Menu would have to be present to work with registers to access the Memory Card and load the RAM. It could be done but it certainly would be more complex.
there is a stack loader when you install more than one game that also lets you choose what kinda game your trying to play (32x, sega CD and such)
but I'm prettty sure its installed in the GBA cart itself by the neoflash software.
well I guess I was wrong becuase I read a little more and it says
"The NEO MD 3in1 flash cart, it can support up to 1Gb neo2-Lite and NEO2-SD/TF serial."
Lets think about this for a moment, they include a custom made slot for the GBA cart and USB hardware/software and they already have the hardware and software developed in order for SD cards to work and also the cost of the gba cart included with them.
maybe I am wrong be it would seem like it would be cheaper to unclude the hardware required to make an SD slot work, you know RAM and such and sd slot than all that.
would I be right in assumeing the only reason they would do this is to get people will buy more of there GBA flash carts or could there be anougher reason?
peppers wrote:
would I be right in assumeing the only reason they would do this is to get people will buy more of there GBA flash carts
I think so too. When you memory card fail etc., you have no choice to buy from them. Those company usually make money from accessory and usually their 512 meg carts are very expensive.
Or there could be some technical reasons like I think I read the powerpak with a SD would have a been an issue if I remember well.
PowerPak used CF in part because RetroZone is a small business:
- SD Card Association prefers to deal with larger companies. It has a substantial annual membership fee for access to the spec, in part because SD includes a (rarely used) DRM system called CPRM. CompactFlash, on the other hand, is just parallel ATA in a different form factor.
- CF is 8- or 16-bit; SD is 1- or 4-bit and needs a higher clock speed for the same transfer rate. Without extra support hardware on the cartridge to implement the shift register, transfers would run more slowly.
- Accessing CF is more consistent across the range of card sizes sold during PowerPak's commercial life. SD uses two different protocols for 2 GB and 4 GB cards (SD classic and SDHC). If 2 GB SD cards stop being sold, that could cause a problem. But CF uses the same 28-bit LBA protocol for 2 GB and 4 GB cards, only running into issues above 137 GB.
The first two might not apply as much to NeoFlash:
- I'm guessing NeoFlash is a sufficiently large company.
- The GBA is clocked faster than the NES and has fewer clocks per instruction, so bit-banging PIO becomes more practical.
But the thing is, there myth line of "'retro" flash carts can use sd cards if you parchase a neo-2, that is there micro-sd version gba/NDS flash cart. So that dose not seem to apply
(I might also add that the neo-2 is $60 and according to reviews I have read is of poor quality when compared to there compeditors that cost less than half as much)
I would also like to say I have some experience with neoflash products in the past and I regret it. I am one of the people who got burned by getting tricked into buying one of those useless mk2's during the earley days of NDS flash carts.
There clone products are ok but stuff they engeneer themselfs tend to not work they way they are suppose to so I would really think carefully before perchaseing one of these.
One of the admins or owners here might be able to get them to send you a sample once the NES version comes out, I would like it if one of you attempted it so we would have a proper review of it. Although if they insist on a banner on the homepage in exchange I would not do it.