I'm thinking of doing some MD Homebrew, and I need a hardware MD for this, which I've acquired recently. I don't have a flashcart though - I'm thinking of getting the Everdrive for the $80, but it'd leave me broke for the next few months which isn't exactly ideal. So - is anyone here willing to sell their flashcart (even if it's just 1 Megabyte) for any price below $50? Or, of course, does anyone here know of any cheap flashcarts that I could program from a modern computer? (There is a 32 M out there for $50 but it's printer port and that's durpy) Thanks for any help in this subject, I appreciate it.
Really... the Everdrive is the cheapest convenient solution being sold at the current moment. Unless some incredible news of a new flash cart being made has gone right over my head. More types of flash carts on the market could be a good thing though, to drive down prices.
This really isn't my area of knowledge but... it might be cheaper in the short term to buy an EPROM programmer and some EPROMs. If you are serious about MD homebrew it's probably something you're going to need anyway.
If you're tight on money I'd suggest saving up and eventually buy an EverDrive later, and meanwhile stick to emulators and hope to get somebody else to test on real hardware. I'd suggest using Regen since it's the nearest you'll get to the real thing when it comes to emulating error situations.
I've done looking for about 2 hours yesterday, but sadly, all flash carts I've found that were below $50 were all for the old parallel port which is obviously a) a piece of junk and b) something I don't have anywhere except on a huge rack server. I've looked into building my own with two 512K EEPROMs - but sadly you can not buy these EEPROMs anymore, which is kind of a shame. I also looked, and any good EEPROM programer are around $50 - and if I'd get the EEPROMs and all other parts, I guess I'd also arrive at $80. Well, sadly I was expecting something like this. I'm a Macfag and don't often have access to Windows, and I don't think Regen runs on Wine, so I'll need to do VM magicalness. Anyways, I'll likely be able to afford an Everdrive in a few months, but it's kinda a shame that I have to wait so long. Thanks for all the responses, I really appreciate it.
I have a non-pro Macbook from last year, and I can confirm that Regen runs fine on Wine. And I also recommend the Everdrive if you can afford it.
WOW, THERE'S MORE OF MY KIND OUT THERE~ Well, that's good to know. I have a mid-2010 MacBook whose Magsafe plug is fucking with me (noticed this morning) and I'll try out Regen later today. I've ordered some free sample chips (yay for internet) from Microchip and Atmel I'm hoping I can build an EEPROM programmer that will work in the cart using USB, but we'll see. I'll let you guys in on a little more once my parts arrive and I get off my lazy ass.
The best place to find 5V memory is Arrow Electronics. Start at this link: http://components.arrow.com/semiconductor-ic/memory/ Then select Flash memory, then select NOR, then select parallel, then select 5V, then select the size. You can find 2MB (1Mx16) NOR Flash 5V memory for around $5 each in single unit quantities.
