My first post in quite some time now... I need to find some time for SNESdev.
I bought Yoshi's Island for my girlfriend, on eBay. We played it for a couple of months on/off, when suddenly a strange thing happened. The image on the TV was "zapped", as if a tiny burst of current distorted the picture somehow. I have no idea about electronics so far, you'll have to excuse the lay lingo.
I knew this was bad. When I went to the menu, I found that our savegames have been deleted. That really sucked. Now... I would like to positively ensure that when we go about trying to do 100% on each level the second time, we never have to do that again unless we want to. That can mean anything from using my father's GALEP to program the chip in question (is that the SRAM?) with a backed up copy of the saves or buying the Mash Mods programmer thingy (I would also like to back up my Zelda saves from my childhood with zero tolerance for possibly botching it up, so maybe this is the best way to go).
I understand that the smallest chip in the Yoshi's Island cart is a "reset IC" used to preserve the backup battery for as long as possible while receiving juice from the power supply. Maybe that cooperation between the 61029A (MM1026AF, dunno which one I should use - the former label is on the chip, the latter on the PCB) was what disrupted the saves?
So. If there is any way I can perpetually back up the saves by using my SNES PowerPak and/or my father's GALEP programmer, I would really like to know about it. I'm just trying to save $62.50 on buying a programmer I have no other uses for.
I bought Yoshi's Island for my girlfriend, on eBay. We played it for a couple of months on/off, when suddenly a strange thing happened. The image on the TV was "zapped", as if a tiny burst of current distorted the picture somehow. I have no idea about electronics so far, you'll have to excuse the lay lingo.
I knew this was bad. When I went to the menu, I found that our savegames have been deleted. That really sucked. Now... I would like to positively ensure that when we go about trying to do 100% on each level the second time, we never have to do that again unless we want to. That can mean anything from using my father's GALEP to program the chip in question (is that the SRAM?) with a backed up copy of the saves or buying the Mash Mods programmer thingy (I would also like to back up my Zelda saves from my childhood with zero tolerance for possibly botching it up, so maybe this is the best way to go).
I understand that the smallest chip in the Yoshi's Island cart is a "reset IC" used to preserve the backup battery for as long as possible while receiving juice from the power supply. Maybe that cooperation between the 61029A (MM1026AF, dunno which one I should use - the former label is on the chip, the latter on the PCB) was what disrupted the saves?
So. If there is any way I can perpetually back up the saves by using my SNES PowerPak and/or my father's GALEP programmer, I would really like to know about it. I'm just trying to save $62.50 on buying a programmer I have no other uses for.