http://www.nesworld.com/news/nespowerpak2.jpg

This cartridge sure is every NES gamers dream....

There's just too much to sum up on, so check out the following thread over at the nesdev board.
http://nesdev.parodius.com/bbs/viewtopic.php?t=3213

It must be fake, those shadows are all wrong  ;)

Oh sorry, nevermind then ;)

I hope they decide to sell to NES "collectors" ::).

How many people will buy two?  One to keep mint-in-box, and another to use.  I wish that bunnyboy would at least have a notification mailing list, so that I could get an email the second the actual waiting list is open.

Eventually I'll probably buy two... But I'll have to save money for all his other projects as well :-)

Martin wrote on 17. May 2007 at 19:48:

Eventually I'll probably buy two... But I'll have to save money for all his other projects as well :-)

You can bet that there will be a few Ebay scalpers who buy a handful and then sell them for marked up prices on Ebay.

PowerPaks are now available at www.retrousb.com!

order placed... :-)

So on the site it lists what comes with the PowerPak, but doesn't really explain how it works.

I'm sort of an idiot, so how does one get the information from the USB drive to the card that goes inside the red cartridge?

I'm fairly sure the manual explains how to use it :-)

Yeah, yeah.   :P :P

If they're sold out by Friday when I get paid I will cry for days.

Seems pretty easy from my understanding.  You will need a flash card and a reader first off, so you are probably better off getting one of his bundles (I got the 256MB bundle myself).  Your PC should auto detect when you plug int the reader.  I think it is simple as copying what ROM's you want over to the flash card, putting it back in the PowerPak and popping it in your NES to play.  Seems like fun times, especially for playing unreleased ROM's and reproduction games.  Another great project IMO.  I am just hoping for the USB CopyNES now :P hint hint
~~NGD

Wow - I found myself buying this immediately. :o

It would be quite useful for my Aladdin project.

i am pysched to play mario adventure on a nes, good stuff!!

Looks like the 256 MB bundle is sold out already, no longer on the site...
~~NGD

I bought the 128 MB one.

I didnt see any NWCs.  I guess the 2nd batch sold out.  I'll try for the next one.

Al

The 2nd batch sold out in about an hour and a half or so I think.
~~NGD

Dang i still need a power pack, i bought the lite and NWC repro already. I need to sell some stuff on eBay first, hope they are still available when i do so.

NESaholic wrote on 12. Jun 2007 at 17:36:

Dang i still need a power pack, i bought the lite and NWC repro already. I need to sell some stuff on eBay first, hope they are still available when i do so.

Sell the Lite. ;D

Hmm the Power Pak is sold out.... that went quick

Damn  :o He over 60 of them I think, that is a boatload of ca$h in a few days.
~~NGD

Darn.  That really stinks.  I hope the second batch comes as quickly as the second batch of NWCs.

Well according to bunnyboy it may be a few months away, the second batch that is... :-/

Martin wrote on 13. Jun 2007 at 22:53:

Well according to bunnyboy it may be a few months away, the second batch that is... :-/

Next batch is ~25 and should be up today or tomorrow.  After those then it will be weeks/months until more are ready, with random ones added when I fix boards that failed first tests.

Ah great, thanks for the update....

Any news on the next NWC batch? missed the second batch aswell as the first one... damn it :-)

Next NWCs wont be up for 2-3 weeks, parts arent here yet.  They will have a manual rev to make production go faster and hopefully fix some of the errors  :)

just got mine, freaking amazing.  it is definitely a bit buggy (characters have random blocks on them), but it is still worth the money and is cool as shit.  i tried some hacks, some work, some dont.   nevertheless, it is sweet, i highly recommend getting one of these if you gots the extra dough.

blocks? would it be possible for you to make some screenshots?

my camera blows:

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e371/coinheaven/batman.jpg

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e371/coinheaven/iceicehockey.jpg

when you actually play ice ice hockey, the characters are not glitchy.

Ouch that's not good... and you're sure it's not just "dirty contacts"? :-)

yea, my system is working good.  

i acutally had better results on a different system.  it had a different type of board NES-CPU-11.  those graphical errors i showed before were gone on this new system i tested.  

Yeah, it works perfectly fine on mine.

(cross posted everywhere)

I think I have found the root problem for the sprite glitches.  It is possible there is a software fix but it may have to be a hardware one.  In that case I will be doing a recall and instructions for those that do not want to wait for shipping.  I am still doing some testing but hope to have everything figured out this week.  I have seen some background white lines but not often enough to tell if this fix makes those right too.  If half of heads are missing in SMB3, this is the problem!

Even if you are not seeing problems it is probably a good idea to do the fix.  Slight manufacturing variations in the NES systems means the board may work perfect on one system, but have major sprite problems on another system of the same kind.  My test system is one that happens to work well so I did not know the problem was so big.

For those technical people, the problem appears to be a bus conflict during sprite DMA.  The PowerPak responds too quickly which corrupts the data headed from the internal RAM to the PPU.  By adding the resistors the cart will always lose the bus conflict and display correctly.  The PRG and CHR rom/ram data are unaffected, which is why none of the supported games would crash.

Instructions with bad blurry picts are now avail at http://www.nespowerpak.com/powerpakmod.html. If you have done any electronics soldering or repro making then this should be pretty easy.

Expect a review when I receive mine... I've also planned a list of working and non-working games. I did think about using all the goodroms, but I'm too lazy and some roms might require header changes, so my list will be each game title working or not..

Well wait and see.... I may get a kick in the ass for the list, but I still believe it'll be useful :-)

Gah, no powerpak today either.... can't wait  :'(

Just got mine today.

All you variation collectors oughta buy the 128 and 256 Meg versions :)  The sticker is different on the CF card.

Al

Quote:

All you variation collectors oughta buy the 128 and 256 Meg versions   The sticker is different on the CF card. Al

why did you go and have to say that :'( :-/ Even I am not that crazy.....now when is the NWC manual variant coming out :P
~~NGD

Actually it bothers me a bit that I wasn't able to get the first version of the NWC manual :-/

I will likely buy another NWC just for the newer manuals and just resale the cart at cost.....or set on it for a few years :D
~~NGD

Maybe contact bunnyboy and see if you can purchase just the CF card.
Same for the different manuals.  Its better than having the old ones go to a recycler/landfill site.

Al

Review (Work in progress)

any feedback would be appreciated :-)

http://www.nesworld.com/nespowerpak.htm

Very well written.  And I agree about it kickstarting the homebrew scene.
When I first started to get into coding for the NES, I had no hardware background, so getting it working on real hardware was a huge obstacle.  (EPROM burner, solder/de-soldering, chips, donor carts, multi-meter, etc..)  Now a person can skip that part.

PS:
I just dug out all my NES (NTSC) systems.    I'll go through and test them and post which ones glitch and which do not.

EDIT-
All my NTSC systems show glitches to some extent.  This makes sense given the nature of the problem.  I recorded their serial numbers and did tests on my main (and spare) NES systems

I doubt this info has any value, but here goes anyways:

- N12239867 - sprite glitches
- N13010609 - almost no glitches
- N17657698 - lots of glitches
- N18291581 - just wont work. Only says Power Pak. I speculate I need a new connector.
- N19604366 - (CAN sticker) almost no glitches
- N20321970 - major glitches
- N23779497 - (CAN sticker) sprite glitches
- N25048994 - (CAN sticker) sprite glitches
- N30800334 (modded for CopyNES, CAN sticker)  almost no glitches

Al

Just a quick note for the last PowerPak page update:

The PowerPak does not do any sorting of file names, that would get too slow on the NES.  Everything is displayed how it is logically arranged on the disk.  Usually the operating system will alphabetize the new files when copying to the card, but it will leave the old files alone.  Deleting old files will open slots for new files so it might get added to the end or to the middle.

Hopefully you also know that the left/right on dpad will scroll faster too :)

Ah cool, thanks for the note... and no I didn't know about left/right, I'll have to try that :-)

Bunnyboy i mailed you several times now that i haven't received my stuff yet, it's been 5 weeks or more even. :-/

The Powerpak's are back in stock now with some bundles too. Ordered mine :-)

Are they going to re-stock? I sent an e-mail, but as I understand I shouldn't hold me breath on a response. Does anyone know if there is any intention restock these?

Just keep checking back.  He adds inventory as he makes them.  He has to hand solder everything so it takes a while to make  em.
~~NGD

Has there been a batch released since last September?  I'm DYING to get my hands on one of these things...I check back every now and again, but it always says they're sold out.  But, if the moment some are put up for sale, they sell out in a couple of hours, the chances of me actually getting one are about nil I'm afraid...

Hopefully the next batch will be made in the hundreds...then they might take at least a day to sell out.  I wish there was an official waiting list, that I could be notified when they're ready.  I GOTTA HAVE AN NES POWERPAK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Looks like there is one currently on ebay! :)

Try emailing bunnyboy, he may have a few left that are not on the site. There hasn't been a powerpak for sale from the site for quite a while now due to a shortage of parts.

So, I'm only somewhat computer savvy.  I can read directions, but my knowledge of computer language is limited to what I can glean from google searches.  How difficult is this to get running?  Is it worth the 135 to play homebrews, unreleased, and translates?

It's amazingly easy and I'll gladly help you with any questions you might have, if you should decide to buy one.