MiSTer FPGA Forum

Milspex wrote: ↑Thu Feb 04, 2021 3:52 pm you cant do custom cartridges on a per customer basis obviously, so there has to be some kind of middleground solutions.

I would sell it standard with a placeholder cartridge with nothing in it for people that wont be using it anyway and do a "Add Optional Cartridge"

Lightwave wrote: ↑Fri Feb 05, 2021 4:09 am You know what you really need to do...

Make the cassette customizable with 4 separate slots

Ryuoken wrote: ↑Fri Feb 05, 2021 9:34 am What a nice project!

Will there be space for an internal HDD?

repente wrote: ↑Sat Feb 06, 2021 8:47 am Hello!
First of all, congratulations for the work, it looks excellent.
Cnc premium aluminium finish it's perfect!

As I see that you pay a lot of attention to feedback, here's mine

Regarding the controls, very important part, I love the idea of interchangeable fronts, brilliant idea, BUT....

I don't doubt that everything by usb polling goes very well (in fact I have ordered two boards from Mike but when we talk about original controllers I think that you should not use converters that do polling or at least leave the option to switch to Snac, BUT....

Snac is perfection in its concept, but it has many limitations, so my advice is to adopt its extension fork, which respects Snac and also adds:
- Compatibility with more than 100 cores.
- With db9 and db15 handle the OSD and play with those more than 100 cores, a versatility similar to Blisster, (you are not forced to use the megadrive controller with its core but with almost all but with zero lag, no usb polling)
- possibility to extend to several simultaneous ports by serialization

Please, take a look at the project, I think it is open source.
If I am not mistaken it only uses one more pin from the Nano.
It would be great if you can take it and reimagine / rework it for use it with your pcb with your great cartridge system.

https://github.com/antoniovillena/MiSTer_DB9
https://github.com/MiSTer-DB9?tab=repositories

If I could use my db15 remotes natively without usb polling, you'd have my money on day 1

akicus wrote: ↑Sat Feb 06, 2021 11:34 am We wrote this some time ago in August I think:

Player Mode
The third LED on the MSTR will tell you which mode you are in (USB is blue, SNAC is red and Extra is green). It will always start in ”USB-Mode” after powering the MiSTer on.
”Extra” will be discussed at a later date.

That "Extra" mode is indeed what you are talking about, I just forgot about bringing it up again.

Thanks for your input though .

repente wrote: ↑Sat Feb 06, 2021 8:04 pm
Then you've got me
Subscribed and waiting to see the developments and buy one, I hope everything goes well and can be this year.
In fact I was already collecting some parts and planning everything to make me a premade aluminium box with panel mount components and everything rewired inside, but with this that you have in your hands I totally rule it out and I'm going for yours without a doubt

Milspex wrote: ↑Thu Feb 25, 2021 11:48 am where's the user I/O port?

akicus wrote: ↑Thu Feb 25, 2021 12:33 pm

Milspex wrote: ↑Thu Feb 25, 2021 11:48 am where's the user I/O port?

It sits in the connector where the Player Cassette is connected. If people want the user port on the back as well I guess it could be done, and have a switch so you toggle between port on back and Player Cassette, depends on what people want.

Milspex wrote: ↑Thu Feb 25, 2021 2:50 pm

akicus wrote: ↑Thu Feb 25, 2021 12:33 pm

Milspex wrote: ↑Thu Feb 25, 2021 11:48 am where's the user I/O port?

It sits in the connector where the Player Cassette is connected. If people want the user port on the back as well I guess it could be done, and have a switch so you toggle between port on back and Player Cassette, depends on what people want.

Instead of redesigning the boards and install a switch, why not just have the user I/O inside as the main input. On the back of the case you just have a small clearing that you can guide the usb through. It gives you flexibility of putting everything inside the case or just have it outside the case.

Or have a female to female usb port mounted on the back of the case, and just connect the internal user i/o to that with a short usb adapter cable. That way you can also pick which port you want to use without the hassle of redesigning it .

Both solutions dont need any redesigning of the pcb


** Edit : Oh wait I can see these are all extremely close together (internal user io and the back of the case) so yeah a switch might even be easier....

Bits n Stuff wrote: ↑Thu Feb 25, 2021 2:18 pm

akicus wrote: ↑Thu Feb 25, 2021 2:07 pm Maybe we could sell empty Player Cassettes (or "MIDI Cassette" in this case) for this specific purpose for people who already have most of the hardware? Does that make any sense?

That makes sense to me. Obviously you're losing the original controller ports but MIDI is only available on AO486, Amiga and AtariST so it's not as if the official controller ports would be the first option for people as I would expect most people to be using the USB DaemonBite ports anyway.

Ryuoken wrote: ↑Fri Feb 26, 2021 10:06 am The midi cassette idea is great!

Thank you so much for your answer.

Milspex wrote: ↑Fri Feb 26, 2021 9:41 am I'd focus on getting the main case versions out first and work on player modules later but thats probably your timeline anyway.

Bits n Stuff wrote: ↑Wed Feb 24, 2021 10:22 am I had been tempted to ask about that, whether there could be a small window for the screen but I thought it was expecting too much because it seems like it would be a completely different case to add the extras.

Not my video.

siskavard wrote: ↑Sat Feb 27, 2021 7:27 pm I really like the console-esque design!