New to uzebox, I have some questions

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john101
Posts: 18
Joined: Sat Mar 16, 2013 8:04 am

New to uzebox, I have some questions

Post by john101 »

Hi,everyone. I just find this interesting project though it has been there over 5 years.
This is a wonderful opportunity to learn electronics and computer. My plan is solder one by myself.
So I have some question:
1. What is the sd\mmc interface does?
Does the game be stored in it or just temperary data?
Does the sd\mmc store the total program about a game.
In beginning, the Mega164 load it using the loader program?
This works as a programming the MEGA164. But we can store the new game into sd\mmc card from
our personal computer directly.
So using a sd\mmc card is not necessary, it can not reduce the "burn times of Mega164"? Or It saves a programmer.
I guess the game stored in sd\mmc card has different format , it is loaded through a user program.
If a program is loaded through a programmer, it is through a Mega164 system program.
Do they have same format?
2.
.JPG
.JPG (22.23 KiB) Viewed 5140 times
I do not understand this part : JP4 and JP5 is conneted with snes player 1,2
but blow JP4 and JP5, there is another player1,2 Why?
Thanks in advance
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Kilo
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Joined: Wed Dec 19, 2012 3:43 pm
Location: AC, Germany

Re: New to uzebox, I have some questions

Post by Kilo »

Hey John,
welcome to our forum and this great project :)

First of all:
The SD card stores the games in a hex file + a header which will be at least an .uze file.
These are the hex files which will be needes by the Atmega. Yes, this are the games!
So you can drag and drop these files from your PC to the SD card.
On the Atmega there's a gameloader which reads the SD card and shows the games on te card. By choosing one on the gameloader the game (the .uze file) will be flashed on the Atmega.

I don't understand exactly your second question.
Well, on the pic there are to different kinds of connection fpr the gamepads. One are the original SNes connechtors and the other one are simply 5 pin connectors. Except for the two data lines are all connections the same!
The last digit of Pi is 7! I calculated this, as I counted to infinity yesterday!
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uze6666
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Re: New to uzebox, I have some questions

Post by uze6666 »

Hi john101,

Welcome on board. :) To complement kilos answers:

The SD interface can also be use to read extra data needed by a game like music or other stuff. The .Uze files are simply binary version of the hex files with an header. That's the files that the bootloader / Gameloader understands. Naturally, you can also program games directly (in hex format) on the atmega644 if you have an ISP programmer such as the AVRISP. It's faster to use this way when developing a game, than copying on the SD card all the time. But it's even faster to use he uzem emulator for development. Finally for the circuit, JP4 and JP5 are not parts but instead allocates space on the circuit board for two headers. Those would be used by folk who design their own enclosure and would not solder the she's connectors directly to the board.
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