Nintendo Gives you the Power of Flash - Nintendo Power Rewritable Cartridges

Courtesy of Wikipedia, Photo by Muband

Three times Nintendo released a product where you could write new games to existing media. The first was the Famicom Disk System, where users could bring in their disks to Disk Writer kiosks in stores and have new games rewritten to the floppy disks. This system began in 1986 and was modestly successful, newly written games were cheaper than buying either new cartridges or new disk games in boxes. The disk system's popularity waned by the 1990s, but Nintendo revived the concept with the Super Famicom Nintendo Power cartridge in 1997. A few years later they released the Game Boy Nintendo Power cartridge in 2000. They discontinued the service on February 28, 2007. In this article I will discuss how the service worked, how the flash cartridges worked, and how they can be flashed today.

How the Service Worked

Game Selection Kiosk

For the Nintendo Power cartridges, (or as the Japanese may prefer, "Memory Cassettes") retail rewriter kiosks were setup at Lawson's Convenience Stores all across Japan. A user would buy a cartridge, 3,980¥ for Super Famicom and 2,500¥ for Game Boy, which would be empty except for the menu program. Then he would go to a Lawson's store, insert the cartridge into a kiosk and select the game he wanted to purchase through a Loppi-style interface. The interface would allow the customer to select his or her game through a touchscreen and allow him or her to delete games if the cartridge did not have enough space. The kiosk would print out a ticket which he would take to the store clerk and pay for the game. Wrestling With Gaming has a good video showing how this could actually happen in a store and is the source for much of the information in this section.

The price depended on the game, and was usually between 1,000¥ and 2,500¥ yen for Super Famicom games and 800¥ yen to 1,000¥ yen for Game Boy games. The price crept up a little over time. The cashier would then take the cartridge, put it in the writer machine, tell it which game to write with the terminal and when it was done, hand the cartridge back to the customer. The writing process could take up to three minutes. How to play sheets were also available on the store for a small fee or free as PDFs on Nintendo's website.

Later Nintendo offered an online service where you could select the game you wished to write and mail in your cartridge. This would probably only have been practical if you lived in a remote area without a Lawson store nearby.

These might be the most comprehensive lists of games available for the SFC service and the GB service. Games could appear or disappear over time on either service.

The cartridges came in off-white cases and had mostly featureless labels with seven boxes, one for up to the seven games the cartridge could hold. The box had a sheet of labels of different sizes where the owner could write the name of the game(s) on the label and stick the label on the cartridge. The different sized labels would correspond to the different sizes of the games. 

Cover to Nintendo Power Book 1

When you bought a cartridge the menu would initially have a scrolling message translated as "News! This cartridge does not come with a game written to it. Please have a game written to it at a store that offers Nintendo rewriting services."

A special magazine, Nintendo Power Book 1 was available in stores for 380¥. This "how to play" magazine gave the instruction sheets for the first 103 games released for the system and a sticker for each game which could be put on the Nintendo Power cartridge label. These stickers would show the games' title screen. There were also instructions on how the system functioned and a short comic showing how the kiosks in the Lawson stores worked. There were also celebrity interviews, a quiz and a maze page and features on some of the new games for the system like Heisei Shin Onigashima, which was originally a Nintendo Power exclusive (but later released on cartridges) and Doukyuusei 2. There was also a Vol. 0 Book which had fewer games and possibly a Game Boy version of the book.

Super Famicom

The SFC Nintendo Power cartridge contained flash memory, which could be rewritten with new games. The amount of flash memory inside was 32 Megabits/4 Megabytes (MiB). As many games stored games to cartridge RAM, 256 Kilobits/32 Kilobytes (KiB) of battery backed SRAM was also inside the cartridge. Normal SNES games, those without special chips, ranged from 256 KiB to 4 MiB.

The cartridge functioned in two modes. In the first mode, the multi-cart mode the cartridge was split into 8 x 512 KiB banks or "F Blocks". A maximum of seven games could be flashed to the cartridge and selected by a menu which boots when the console was powered on. A game could take one bank, two banks or so on depending on its size. One bank was dedicated to the menu program. The second mode was single-game mode. In this mode, only available to 4MiB games, the whole contents of the flash would be overwritten, including the menu program.

Some SNES games used SRAM, others did not. The 32KiB of SRAM was split into 16 banks or "B Blocks". Those that did normally used either 2KiB, 8KiB or 32KiB of SRAM. Games would take up as many banks as they needed.

SFC Cartridge PCB

If you found a cartridge with Wizardry I-II-III - Story of Llylgamyn on it, that was a 4 MiB/32 KiB game and would be the only game on the cartridge and it would use up all its Flash and SRAM. Games like Super Mario World and F-Zero were 512 KiB games and only required 2 KiB each. Seven such games could comfortably share the cartridge. A game like SimCity, which was a 512KiB/32KiB game, rather restricted one's options as to other games because it took all the SRAM in the cartridge. You could only write ROM only games to the cartridge at that point.

Powering all this multicart functionality was a Mega Chips MX15001. This CPLD would handle all the functions required for multicart usage, including providing gatekeeping access to the flash memory for programming it.

In addition to the game's size and amount of RAM it uses, normal SNES cartridges used one of two types of memory addressing, HiROM or LoROM. LoROM and HiROM games put their ROM in different areas of the memory map. The 65816 SNES CPU had a 24-bit addressing bus, meaning it could address 16 MiB of ROM, RAM and registers. Being an upgraded 6502, the 65816 could address 256 banks of 64 KiB. 

The Nintendo Power banking scheme was not efficient. If a 256 KiB game like Space Invaders was written to the cartridge it would still take up a full F Block even though it only needed half of one. The menu code was not very large, it is only just over 16 KiB but takes up a full 512 KiB F Block. If you wrote a game that was 1.5 MiB or 2.5 MiB, it would take 2 MiB and 3 MiB on the cartridge, respectively.

Game Boy

The GB Nintendo Power cartridge was similar to the SFC cartridge with 8 Megabits/1 MiB of flash memory in 8 banks of 128 KiB and 128KiB of SRAM in 16 banks of 8 KiB. It uses the Mega Chip MX15002. Unlike the SFC, the GB required MBCs to be simulated to access more than 32 KiB of ROM, so the MegaChip simulated the MBC1, MBC2, MBC3 (no RTC) & MBC5 chips. These were the common official GB mappers. The menu program would be written into one flash bank, allowing up to seven games to be flashed onto the cartridge, or a 1 MiB game could be written and take up all the cartridge space. 

Prototype of GB Cartridge PCB

Both Game Boy and Game Boy Color games could be played on the Nintendo Power cartridge. The menu graphics are different on a monochrome system compared to a color system and the tune which plays is also different.

If a GB game contained SRAM, it was usually only 8 KiB. MBC1 could support 32 KiB of SRAM in a special mode, MBC3 always supported up to 32 KiB and MBC5 could support 128 KiB but the Nintendo Power cartridge may have been limited to 32 KiB support per game. MBC2 was a special chip which had a small amount of SRAM built into it, 512 nybbles (4-bits of a byte).

By increasing the amount of SRAM, Nintendo made it much less likely that a user would not be able to write the game combination of his choice due to running out of B Blocks. Game Boy games usually ranged in 32 KiB to 512 KiB but Game Boy Color games could push 2 MiB and 4 MiB. Those games would not fit on this cartridge.

Exclusives

The Nintendo Power service provided an opportunity for Japanese gamers to play games that were not released on standalone cartridges.

SFC Exclusives

Columns
Derby Stallion 98
Doukyuusei 2
Dr. Mario

Famicom Bunko - Hajimari no Mori
Genjuu Ryodan
Metal Slader Glory - Director's Cut
Oekaki Logic 1

Oekaki Logic 2
Picross NP Vol. 1

Picross NP Vol. 2

Picross NP Vol. 3

Picross NP Vol. 4

Picross NP Vol. 5

Picross NP Vol. 6

Picross NP Vol. 7

Picross NP Vol. 8

Picross NP Vol. 9

Power Lode Runner
Ring ni Kakero
Super Famicom Wars
Super Family Gelaende
Super Punch-Out!!
Tamagotch Town

Wizardry I-II-III - Story of Llylgamyn
Zootto Mahjong!

This list includes games that were released elsewhere in the world, like Super Punch-Out!! and Dr. Mario (in Tetris & Dr. Mario) but not in Japan as retail cartridges.

At least one game, Metal Slader Glory - Director's Cut, could be purchased as prewritten to the Nintendo Power cartridge. It uses the standard Nintendo Power cartridge box but it has a big sticker with the game's title on it on the box, a peel-off label with the title which can be applied over the regular Nintendo Power cartridge label and a real manual for the game.

GB Exclusives

Balloon Fight GB

Batman Beyond - Return of the Joker

Daikatana GB

Game Boy Gallery 2 (Color)*

Jeremy McGrath Supercross 2000*

Karamuchou wa Oosawagi! - Okawari!

Kawa no Nushi Tsuri 4*

Koguru Guruguru - Guruguru to Nakayoshi

Loppi Puzzle Magazine - Hirameku Puzzle Dai-2-gou

Loppi Puzzle Magazine - Hirameku Puzzle Dai-3-gou

Loppi Puzzle Magazine - Hirameku Puzzle Soukangou

Loppi Puzzle Magazine - Kangaeru Puzzle Dai-2-gou

Loppi Puzzle Magazine - Kangaeru Puzzle Dai-3-gou

Loppi Puzzle Magazine - Kangaeru Puzzle Soukangou

Mr. Driller

Naminori Yarou!

Super Mario Bros. Deluxe

Taisen Tsumeshougi

Xtreme Wheels*

All the Game Boy exclusives are Color-supporting or Color-only games. Not all of these games have been known to have been released. Some of them were only discovered in the huge Nintendo Leak from a few years back. They are given the * above. Nintendo appears only to have offered the monochrome version of Game Boy Gallery 2.

Super Mario Bros. Deluxe was supposed to be the prestige release for the new service, which was originally intended to be launched on November 1, 1999. Delays caused by the 1999 Jiji Earthquake disrupted production of the GB Nintendo Power flash carts and delayed their release until March 1, 2000. It was the most written game to the cartridge in the first half of 2000, followed by The Legend of Zelda DX, Kirby's Dream Land 2, Kirby's Dream Land and Metroid II.

Karamuchou wa Oosawagi! - Okawari! was advertised as an exclusive and cost 1,500¥, significantly more than almost any other game writable to a GB Nintendo Power cartridge.

Writing to Nintendo Power Cartridges

No Game

It took the community a long time to figure out how to write to the flash carts. Nintendo used special flash chips from Macronix with their own programming protocols. These had to be reverse engineered and the Mega Chips did not yield their gatekeeping accessing secrets easily.

There are actually two of these Macronix chips in the SFC cartridge, each 2 MiB and they each have a hidden sector. The PCB has space for a third flash chip. There is a single Macronix flash chip in the GB cartridge and it also has a hidden sector. A hidden sector is 256 bytes and contains the mapping information to tell the Mega Chip how large the game is, how much SRAM it requires, where the game is stored in the flash and where its SRAM is assigned, if any. The GB Map also tells the Mega Chip which MBC to simulate if it uses one. Th SNES Map tells the Mega Chip whether a game uses HiROM or LoROM. Full flash size games put additional information in this space but it is not necessary for the functionality.

Games Added with SF Binary Maker

The Sanni Open Source Cartridge Reader can write both SFC and GB Nintendo Power cartridges. The InsideGadgets GBxCart RW and the Joey Jr. from BennVenn can also write the GB Nintendo Power cartridge.

In order to write games to either cartridge you will first need a special mapping program to create a binary with a MAP file so the cartridge can find a game at the right memory offset. There is one program for SFC Nintendo Power carts  and another for GB Nintendo Power carts. The program can also generate a MAP for a single ROM written to the cartridge.

The SFC binary will ask if the game is a HiROM or a LoROM cart. Run the game in bsnes and you will see its mapping in the Manifest Viewer, or use Superfamicom.org

You will also need the correct menu ROM. No-intro has them for the SFC, "Nintendo Power Menu Program (Japan) (NP).sfc" and "Nintendo Power Menu Program (Japan) (Rev 1) (NP).sfc" are their names. No-intro has the GB Nintendo Power menu ROM as "GB Memory Multi Menu.gbc" Rename them to "menu.sfc" and "menu.gbc" and put them in the same directory as the binary generator program is located.

Games Found on Prototype Carts

One curious thing is that Nintendo allowed a game to use its own custom bitmap to display its game name in the menu. The bitmap data is stored in the menu's F Block as the game is written to the cartridge. The binary generators allow you to use your own font. The Nintendo Power cartridge writer can also change the scrolling message.

If you see a SFC/GB cartridge with only one game, no menu and that game is less than 4 MiB/1 MiB in size, then you should know that cartridge was written through an unofficial device.

If you buy a Nintendo Power cartridge, make sure to dump the menu as it came on the cartridge before writing new games to it if you ever wish to restore the cartridge to its pristine state.

An eBay PSA

eBay can suck to use. I have bought a bunch of comic books recently from many sellers. On August 13 I bought many books and all but one shipped within days. Then on August 26-31 I bought a fair number more and again all shipped within days.

About two weeks and receiving no shipping notifications about the one August 13 book, I initiated a request to cancel the order through the eBay system. The seller refused. An automated response said it was "too late" to cancel the order. Too late? the book has not even had a shipping label printed for it! I then sent a message to him in eBay Messages on August 28 asking when my book would be shipped, no response.

On his listing it says "ships within 5-30 business days." I did not look hard enough at the listing at the time I was buying. eBay lets sellers put a vacation notification on their listings but this seller did not have one. Even so, 30 business days to ship a single issue comic book is a ridiculous amount of time in this day and age but eBay permits it. Then on September 6 I sent him another message stating that the 30th business day would be September 24, I would hold him to his words and file a complaint with eBay on the 25th if he had not shipped it by then. He shipped it on September 9, via USPS media mail, 27 days after my order. (Shipped is when you put a package into the hands of the carrier, not when you print a shipping label).

After receiving the book on the 11th, today I left neutral feedback for this seller, (after debating whether to leave negative), writing that the book was well packaged and in good condition but the seller was uncommunicative and was absurdly slow in shipping. The seller does not live in a rural area and there is a post office within walking distance of his return address. I might observe that a single $9.00 purchase (including shipping) may not be terribly motivating to get a seller who runs a comic book selling business to the post office promptly. Within minutes of posting the feedback the seller contacted me for the first time on eBay messages to say he would be getting it removed. After a few minutes it was and he said as much and added me to the blocked list. I responded that I would never buy from him again anyway and it is sellers like him that makes eBay suck to use sometimes.

26 other eBay sellers managed to ship and deliver comic books to me before him since August 13. Most of them had them in the mail within 1-3 days after placing the order. Some of the other orders were for heavy trade paperbacks or from longer distances, this was for a single issue one state over. The longest to ship other than this seller was 7 days and I certainly did not ask to cancel that order.

How was the seller able to remove my neutral feedback so quickly? eBay has a feedback policy where it removes "neutral/negative feedback when we can see that: The buyer asked to cancel after placing their order". I think this is a bad policy to apply automatically when the seller refuses to cancel the order. I could not remember the last time I left negative feedback for a seller, I apparently have left only one since 1998. This seller still has 30 other neutral and 5 negative feedbacks that he cannot remove and will likely accumulate more if this is how he runs his business. He of course must know the eBay policies very well. Has he been able to stifle criticism of other buyers who have made the same mistake?

The moral of this story is to be patient and do not try to cancel items if you want to be able to leave honest feedback. Ask the seller through messages first if he is willing to cancel but it is better to steer clear of any seller which puts something like "ships within 5-30 business days" in their description. Fortunately I have had my fill of buying comic books for a while. Still, eBay has laid a trap for the unwary buyer by providing them with an automated system for buyers to request cancellation but not warning them that they give up their right to leave permanent neutral/negative feedback if the seller refuses to cancel. I do not recall seeing any such warning with the system. There are many bad reasons why buyers cancel but also some good ones. I believe my request was reasonable after waiting for two weeks for a seller to put the book in the mail or at least contact me to tell me why it would be delayed. The automatic ability to remove the feedback is my quarrel with the policy. A company which actually cares about customer service should at least have a human being consider the situation before removing the feedback.

Resurrecting the Most Useless Piece of Vintage Computing Technology - The Modem Part 1

For decades, if you wished to have two computers communicate over any length of distance, you often only had one option, a analog telephone-based modem. The modem allowed for communication over telephone lines, utilizing a technology that was over a century old by the time it became accessible in the 1980s. Over time speeds became faster from 300 baud to 1200, 2400, 4800, 9600, 14.4K, 28.8K, 33.6K and finally 56K(ish). However those speeds were simply not enough to keep up with the ever growing demands of internet bandwidth and traditional modems lost out to cable modems and DSL by the early 2000s. Now with broadband available for just about anything and plain old telephone system (POTS) landlines almost completely replaced by VoIP services, can you really still use a modem today? This blog post will demonstrate how you can.

The New ModRetro Chromatic & Accessories

Last year the company known as ModRetro released an FPGA-based Game Boy and Game Boy Color handheld console. Those consoles were advertised as limited editions and sold out on the ModRetro website. I bought and reviewed one and had an overall favorable opinion of the device. Now eight months have passed and ModRetro is releasing not only a new batch of consoles but also accessories for all Chromatic consoles. I ordered a new console and the new accessories to put them to the test. What has changed? Are there improvements?

The New Chromatic

Let me start with what has not changed. When you order a console the items you get in the box will be the same: the console, 3xAA ModRetro-branded batteries and the Tetris cartridge (which I reviewed separately). That is about it in terms of what is unchanged. Even the box for the new units is slightly redesigned. The old box showed off games that were available for sale on the ModRetro site, but the new box shows screens for a game called "Mega - The Viper Wars" that either does not exist or has not been released.

When the console was originally released last year its price was $199.00 regardless of color or markings. Six standard color variations were offered on the site and with either English or Japanese markings. There was a GameStop variant for sale on GameStop's site and a "Logan Paul" edition sold on the ModRetro site. Both variants were priced at $199.00 but only had an English marking option. All these consoles have a "1st EDITION" marking on them.

The new edition of the Chromatic console is offered for a base price of $199.99 and in all the standard colors (Midnight, Wave, Leaf, Inferno, Volt, Bubblegum) plus a new Cloud color (very SNES-like color scheme). Only English console label markings are available for this edition. These are only available from the ModRetro site. These new Chromatics no longer have a "1st EDITION" marking and only have two color stripes on the bottom left-hand corner of the console instead of three. The middle stripe is gone and the end stripes no longer straddle the edge of the console. This should reduce wear as these colors are printed over the magnesium alloy shell.

The new edition of the Chromatic comes with a Gorilla Glass screen in the base model. An upgrade to a Sapphire Glass screen is available for an extra $100.00. All 1st Edition Chromatics, including the GameStop exclusive, came with Sapphire Glass screens. The Sapphire Glass screens have a small "SAPPHIRE" marking below the bottom of the active display. The GameStop variant is still available for purchase at the original $199.00 price, so if you want a Sapphire Glass screen and do not want to pay the premium, you can still buy that variant at the time of writing.

The main advertised difference between the Gorilla Glass and Sapphire Glass screens is the hardness of the screen. Gorilla Glass comes between 6-8 on the Mohs scale, Sapphire Glass between 7-8. The Mohs scale measures scratch resistance but Gorilla Glass is officially rated with a Vickers Pyramid number, which measures the impact on the screen. Most generations of Gorilla Glass measure between 550-650HV. In short, Sapphire Glass is harder and heavier than Gorilla Glass and offers superior scratch resistance but Gorilla Glass is cheaper and is less prone to shattering on impact.

Comparing both displays, both are equal to my eye in terms of clarity. Gorilla offers slightly superior brightness than Sapphire at the same brightness levels but there is more backlight bleed from Gorilla. Gorilla is less reflective, which may be important if you are in a setting with a lot of ambient or bright light. If in sunlight, find some shade and you should have a nearly equivalent experience with either screen.

The internals bear a comment or two, but there are some improvements. There is one less screw needed to unscrew in order to get the mainboard out of the case. The D-pad trace near the pivot has been moved enough that the pivot cannot wear against it and break the trace. My new Chromatic's mainboard has a microSD card slot soldered onto the board whereas the old Chromatic's only had pads.

There are other minor changes from the old consoles to the new ones. The black RF shield in the back is thicker. The gaps between the power switch and IR window and the shell are tighter. You are also less likely to get a scuffed IR window due to a softer liner used in the new Chromatic's box. The battery cover no longer has the rubber pads on the sides to help hold in the batteries. The metal tabs on the battery cover are in different places and thicker. The bottom of the new enclosure has a plastic piece screwed in to help latch the battery cover. There is a slight ridge or lip behind the volume wheel on the new Chromatic's bottom shell. 

The speaker on the new Chromatic can reach a significantly higher volume than the old Chromatic. However, there is still a lot of noise when both the audio jack and the USB port is connected to the same PC. This makes streaming video and audio less than ideal because the console cannot transmit audio over USB.  As of Firmware v4.0 audio can be streamed alongside video over USB, making the audio quality no longer an issue.

There are slight improvements to the build quality. There is no roughness around the power LED. There were no scuffs on the plastic bits like the IR window or the Tetris cartridge that came with my console. The EverDrive GB X7 worked fine with the new Chromatic.

Accessories

In addition to the new consoles, ModRetro is offering three new accessories, all in their own boxes or packaging with the same colorful, cutesy style as the console's box.

The long-awaited "Rechargeable Power Core" (the battery pack announced alongside the original Chromatic) is finally available for $29.99. The battery pack was mentioned with the initial announcements of the Chromatic but has been MIA until now. This pack fits into the battery compartment of any Chromatic, no tools required, and can be charged by the USB Type-C connector. There are contacts in the battery cavity to make contact with the battery pack and the battery can be easily removed for instances when the console will not see use. This limits unnecessary drain from the battery pack.

The Chromatic can use standard Alkaline, Lithium or rechargeable AA batteries (three required) but cannot charge the latter. ModRetro claims 16 hours of gameplay on a full charge and recharging takes 2-5 hours. These numbers are dependent on the game being played and the power source connected to the Chromatic, respectively. The battery has a 2250mAh capacity and adds about 1.5 oz to the weight (no more than AA batteries) of the Chromatic. It comes with a braided USB Type-C to USB Type-C charging cable, 3.25 feet long.

The second new accessory is a link cable, sold for $14.99. I believe ModRetro made their own so they would not have to listen to customer complaining of flaky vintage cables or poor quality modern cables or have to recommend Analogue's link cable. The Analogue link cable is high quality but it is a competitor's product. Unlike the Analogue link cable the Chromatic link cable does not have a switch for GBA compatibility. GBA link cables are wired differently from GB/GBC cables and require a switch to support GBA and GB/GBC consoles. The Chromatic Link cable is advertised at 6.5 feet, which is slightly longer than Analogue's 4.75 feet. It is also a braided cable as opposed to the plastic sheathed cables from everyone else. Analogue's cable also supports GBA multiplayer and the original Nintendo GBA link cables were shorter than the 8-bit link cables.

The ModRetro site says that its link cable is not compatible with the original Game Boy but that is not the whole story. The Game Boy DMG connector is only physically different from the link cable connector on the later 8-bit Game Boys. The same cables are used for the Game Boy Pocket, Super Game Boy 2 and Game Boy Color. The Game Boy Advance, Game Boy Advance SP, Game Boy Player and Analogue Pocket are compatible with these cables when playing Game Boy or Game Boy Color games. Nintendo made an adapter, DMG-14, that can convert the smaller GBP/GBC plug into the larger DMG plug. I was able to play a multiplayer game of F-1 Race between the Chromatic, the ModRetro link cable and a DMG-14 in an original Game Boy. I had no trouble using the ModRetro link cable, even with the Game Boy Printer. The link cables are compatible with non-Chromatics.

The final new accessory is the Mod Kit, also $14.99. This includes 9 pairs of A & B buttons, 2 D-Pads, 2 D-Pad Membranes, 4 button membranes, a Start and a Select button, an IR Window, a Power Switch and a Menu button. There is also included some stickers, a double ended bit driver with a 3.8mm security screw bit and a tri-wing bit and an end cap for the bit driver. These parts can be used to customize the look and feel of the cartridge or to fix broken parts. One set of membranes have a softer action press than the other. One of the D-Pads has a short pivot post and the other has a longer pivot post. Once you start breaking open the cardboard covering the back of the blister pack, you will need to find a new way to store these parts.

Button colors are subjective but the big improvement here is the longer D-Pad stem. This eliminated the issue of being able to press opposite directions, which can break some games. The black membranes are supposed to be softer than the gray ones, but I have not noticed much of a difference in the short time I have used them. The included screwdriver is magnetized.

The Koss Porta Pro headphones are still available but only in the standard six color variations. Speaking of Chromatic, there is no red or violet/purple console available or green, blue or yellow buttons in the ModKit. (A red Chromatic was shown during the Classic Tetris World Championship event last year.) I think ModRetro might come up a little short in its spectrum-encompassing branding.

The Chromatic's box states "Designed in California, Assembled in Mexico." The packaging for the Chromatic accessories says "Designed in California, Made in China." It is likely that the "assembly" on the console's box means the assembly line functions of putting the console together (placing the buttons and membranes, screwing in the PCB and shell) and putting it in its box, not soldering electronic components to the PCB. It is more likely that board soldering is done in China but Mexico is not impossible.

Firmware Update v3.2

The new Chromatic and the Battery Pack tell you to update your firmware and give you stickers with QR codes to do this. There last firmware for the Chromatic was released on May 21 (v3.2), so you do not need to rush out to update your old Chromatic if you have updated it since then. My new Chromatic was on the latest firmware out of the box but that may not always be the case going forward. Make sure to update your Tetris cartridge, just in case. ModRetro keeps a changelog documenting updates for any games it sells.

The v3.2 firmware update brought many fixes to the platform but the webcam-identified video based output now no longer uses the RGB color space but the YUV color space with 4:2:2 chroma subsampling. This results in blurrier color but makes the "webcam" compatible with macOS and Discord, as a ModRetro representative explained. Black and white and grayscale are unaffected and still perfectly sharp. The captures I made of the system with launch day firmware are as sharp as a tack. ModRetro is looking at workarounds to the problem but the firmware upgrade tool does not allow for downgrading firmware. The v4.0 firmware is unchanged in this regard. See the link above for details on how to downgrade the firmware (it is not easy).

There is a change to the Chromatic's custom color palettes for monochrome games. The Right + A + B palette is unchanged from prior firmware but the Left + A + B now evokes a Game Boy Light. Another newer option in the menu allows for smooth transitions. This is useful in a game like The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening where there is a lot of flicker when Link goes in and out of houses, caves and labyrinths. 

 Conclusion

The new Chromatic offers some quality of life improvements over the old Chromatic. The screens are not so different that you may feel left with second best if you do not fork over the extra $100 for the Sapphire screen. The accessories improve on the console experience. At this point the console's only major flaw is one of its main advertising points, the USB video capture. At present the capture is fuzzier than it needs to be on the horizontal axis with color video and could be fixed. and audio quality is bad if it is connected to a line input to the same PC that is capturing video. Connecting just the line in to the PC without the USB connection allows for high quality audio capture, for what it is worth. This can be fixed in software by permitting USB video and audio capture together as a proper capture device, but this has to be implemented by Gowin, the maker of the FPGA, in its development kit. If this is done the Chromatic would be far better for streaming and capturing GB and GBC gameplay than it currently is.

I bought my new Chromatic and one of each of the accessories on July 10 and received my console on July 31. As a prior Chromatic owner I received a 15% off coupon, before it my order was $259.96, after application it was $230.95 (including $9.99 shipping).

In terms of FPGA handheld placement, the new Chromatic is still well-behind the Analogue Pocket in terms of features and value for money. If I did not have a Pocket I would much rather use the Chromatic over the FunnyPlaying FPGBC. The Chromatic's screen is incredible, bright, sharp, 1:1 pixel resolution (no scaling) and no lag. The simulation quality is excellent and the cartridge slot is deep enough to keep your original cartridges firmly in place. If you want a modern way to play your Game Boy and Game Boy Color cartridges on the go, the Chromatic is the best option after the Analogue Pocket in my opinion.

The Famicom Top 100 List, Brought to you by Famitsu

Number 100: Gradius II - Number 1: Dragon Quest III

To commemorate the Famicom's 20th anniversary, Famitsu released a special DVD celebrating the console and its games. The main feature on the disc is a top 100 countdown, listing the most popular Famicom games. The list is a fascinating look into the tastes of the Famicom's original audience and the only one of its kind. Let's break it down today.

DOS Commands Across Home Computers: Apple, IBM & Commodore

To those people familiar with the MS-DOS command prompt, have you ever wondered how similar tasks are accomplished with non-PC compatible systems? Well, I am one of those people and I have wondered, so I have written this blog article to compare common disk operations with the DOS for the IBM PC, the Apple II and the Commodore 64 (and VIC-20) to compare how these tasks might or might not be accomplished on each system.

Godzilla & Criterion - The Monster vs. The Premier Boutique Label

The Criterion Collection is a well-known boutique distributor of aesthetically-interesting films on physical media. The company releases films that have had some significant artistic or cultural merit and has released well-over 1,000 films on disc. Its releases span the world's cinema, it has distributed films from every civilized continent on the planet. Japanese films are no exception and of course the biggest cultural icon that Japanese live-action cinema is Godzilla. Even if you may debate the artistic merits of the Godzilla films, they indisputably have had a significant cultural impact over the last 71 years. Criterion has released films in the Godzilla series on four separate occasions. In this blog article we will take the deepest dive into its releases, both the positives and negatives.

Tandy 1000 EX & HX vs. Color Computer 3 vs. Commodore 128 vs. Apple IIc - Which is the Better All-in-One?

In the calendar year of 1986 Tandy introduced two all-in-one computers, the Tandy 1000 EX and the Tandy Color Computer 3. Both were competitively priced at $799.00 and $219.95, respectively. At first the budget-conscious consumer may have chosen the CoCo 3 over the EX. By the next year the price of the EX had dropped by $100 while the Tandy 1000 HX took its prior price. At the same time the CoCo 3 dropped in price by $20, where it would stay until it was discontinued in 1990. The HX would displace the EX and eventually fall to $699 before it was also discontinued in 1990. In this article we will compare the features of these all-in-ones feature by feature and try to determine which would have really been the better purchase.

The 1977 Trinity - Which Computer is the Best Buy?

The 1977 Trinity, Courtesy of Wikipedia, Image by Timothy Colegrove

Consider that you have been transported back in time to the heady and hot summer of 1977. You are wanting one of these new "personal computers" that you see advertised in Popular Mechanics and Byte Magazine. Maybe you've seen an ad from Radio Shack. Perhaps you saw a flyer from that pocket calculator company called Commodore. Or you are a hobbyist frustrated with time sharing on the local college's PDP-10 and want a microcomputer of your very own. After you've seen Star Wars for the third time, you want to be part of the computer age. You have three choices, which will you chose? Let's break down the Apple II, Tandy Radio Shack TSR-80 and the Commodore PET 2001 and see how they might factor into a buyer's decision.

Is the Original Tandy Color Computer Worth your Gaming Time?

Courtesy of Wikipedia

Tandy Corporation's first home computer was the TRS-80, released in 1977. The TRS-80 was fairly affordably priced for its time but limited to monochrome text and extremely blocky semigraphics. 1979 saw the release of the TRS-80 Model II, a business machine with an 8" floppy disk drive incompatible with the previous computer or the budget of a middle-class family. With color computer systems like the Atari 400 and TI-99/4 being released in the late 1970s, Tandy realized that if it wanted to have any chance of capturing the growing home market for personal computers, it would need to offer a low-cost model with colorful graphics and a family-friendly appeal. Fortunately it had an ace up its sleeve in the form of the thousands of Radio Shack company and franchise stores dispersed across the United States and Canada that could sell a lower cost computer. That computer turned out to be the TRS-80 Color Computer, released in 1980. Having recently acquired one, let me go over some of its features and quirks.

Comparison of Comic Book Reproduction Editions - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1 vs. Cerebus #1

As regular readers of this blog should no doubt be aware of by now, I have had a resurgent interest in comic books. There is nothing quite like holding and reading stapled pieces of folded paper together that tell a story with pictures and word balloons. Recently I have discussed both the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Cerebus the Aardvark. Now let's compare a pair of recent authorized reproduction editions of the first issue of each series.

Cerebus the Aardvark Early Issues and Reprints

Since I have gone through the early years of TMNT I thought I would touch upon some highlights of one of the comics which inspired TMNT, Cerebus the Aardvark. Cerebus was created by one David Victor Sim with issue #1 premiering in December, 1977. The book ended with issue #300 in March, 2004. The comic was self-published and Dave Sim set up his own company, Aardvark-Vanaheim, to publish the comic. This blog entry will devote itself to distinguishing features made through the end of the main series. Another blog entry may look into similar features after that period.

Revision after Revision - Evolution of Classic Dungeons and Dragons

The Classic or non-Advanced Dungeons and Dragons game had a remarkably long life. Arguably first introduced with the Basic Set in July, 1977, products were made for the Classic game line until 1996. Unlike other editions of the game, the Classic game did not remain almost immutable and unchanged throughout its lifetime. In this blog article we will consider how the game evolved over time.

The Failed Kickstarter - Legal Ramifications

Crowdfunding is a very useful tool to help a creative, whether that creative is a single artist, a pair of complementary inventors or a small group of designers, obtain access to the money needed to produce something and bring it to people willing to buy it. Some campaigns become very successful, some just barely meet their funding goals and some fail to get funded. Today we are looking what can happen in the legal sense when a project meets its funding goal but fails to deliver on promised backer rewards.

Holmes D&D-era Dice Replica Review

Holmes Dice, courtesy of eBay

Dice have a very long history, humans have been using them to play games, as parts of a game or to generate randomness since prerecorded history. While the 6-sided cube or hexahedron (d6) has always been the most popular die shape used, it is not the only shape used to generate random numbers. It and other four platonic solids, the 4-sided Tetrahederon (d4), the 8-sided Octahedron (d10), the 12-sided Dodecahedron (d12) and the 20-sided Icoashedron, have long histories in this application. It is their earliest employment in role playing games, namely those dice originally sold for Dungeons and Dragons and included with its original (Holmes) Basic Set, which interests me and the ability to replicate that experience at a reasonable cost. Today I will explore the history of the so-called "Holmes Dice" and two such products which aim to do so.

Early TMNT Comic Book Printing and Reprinting Features

The early issues of Mirage Studio's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic book have been very collectible for a long time. Like many successful comic books, TMNT has had most of its early issues reprinted and made available regularly if not continuously since its debut in 1984. In this article I would like to discuss some issues regarding the reprinting of the various black and white comic books published by Mirage Studios during the 20th Century,

Wireless Controller Duel - 8bitdo N30 2.4g vs. Retro-bit Origin8

Wireless NES controllers are nothing new but good ones are more recent. Wireless controllers contemporary with the NES were generally infrared based, which meant that they had to be within a direct line of sight to a receiver and within only a rather limited range and angle from the receiver. They also had high latency as the infrared pulses took milliseconds to transmit a full controller packet. More modern solutions use a 2.4g or Bluetooth receiver. Today we are going to compare a newcomer to the NES controller scene, the Retro-bit Origin8, to the reigning 2.4g NES controller champion, the 8bitdo N30 2.4g.

Universal Studios' Dracula and Frankenstein's Entry into the Public Domain

2027 should be a big year for fans of Universal Classic Horror Films, as both Dracula and Frankenstein, both being released in 1931, should enter the public domain on January 1 of that year. But maybe Dracula's entry into to public domain may not be as soon as you might think.