New Famicom Shells (Available Now)

[L___E___T]

Wow, that red shell...  Definitely ordering that for an Everdrive to go in!

[P]

Will the Everdrive fit though?

[L___E___T]

 
If it doesn't fit out the box I can make it fit snugly.

[muramasa]

Will the Everdrive fit though?

So it should fit. We both started with the same shell. So I imagine there would be no problems.

Also we have some more color samples getting close now.

Got some the first color samples of actual shells and took some quick pictures.

[Switchstance]

They look awesome!

[muramasa]

Available now. Just updated the first post.

[L___E___T]

 
Awesome - been looking forward to getting some of these for ages.  I also wanted to buy the NES Extended Famicom Converter, but that's out of stock in black.
 
I checked the other colours and it made me wonder how easy it would be to get one in a deep red / maroon shell like you have for the Famicom carts? 
 
Just a thought, no biggie
 

[muramasa]

Awesome - been looking forward to getting some of these for ages.  I also wanted to buy the NES Extended Famicom Converter, but that's out of stock in black.
 
I checked the other colours and it made me wonder how easy it would be to get one in a deep red / maroon shell like you have for the Famicom carts? 
 
Just a thought, no biggie

So at the moment the colors I have I can only use with my own mold. I am hoping to do another mold soon, but am not sure about doing NES. The big problem with doing a NES Mold is that there are already 5 other molds that I can think of and two of them are in China which will be tough to compete with.

[P]

Ah finally 60-pin repro cartridges are here! Only NROM, CNROM and UxROM so far (which are not bad though), and no battery backed SRAM yet, but I guess that's coming?

I like that you use Nintendo's notation for nametable orientation (V and H) instead of the dreaded backwards-thinking H and V "mirroring" more commonly used in the scene.

So at the moment the colors I have I can only use with my own mold. I am hoping to do another mold soon, but am not sure about doing NES. The big problem with doing a NES Mold is that there are already 5 other molds that I can think of and two of them are in China which will be tough to compete with.

Yeah there are a lot of NES alternatives already. But what about MSX? It has quite a large and active homebrew scene (naturally because it's a computer meant to be programmed) and cartridges are getting much rarer and more expensive than Famicom cartridges, making it hard to use donors. There shouldn't be that that much competition. I haven't found anyone making MSX cartridge shells in a long time anyway, and I would like to be able to make my own ROM cartridges of my creations. Besides it would be nice to be able to make SRAM cartridges (used by some games to save) as well since they are expensive. There is one by Konami used by Konami games and one by Panasonic.

Cartridge front
Cartridge back
MSX cartridges are often generic and easy to open like this Hydlide here which just uses two screws. But there are exceptions like Konami cartridges which uses tabs like Famicom cartridges do.

Board solder side
Board front
Hydlide has a simple mapperless board with a 32 kB one-time programmable EPROM. Mask ROMs are not as common as on Famicom carts.


ASCII cartridge front
Some carts like Star Command here has a funny spring-loaded edge-connector protector that is forced in when sliding in the cartridge.

[muramasa]

Ah finally 60-pin repro cartridges are here! Only NROM, CNROM and UxROM so far (which are not bad though), and no battery backed SRAM yet, but I guess that's coming?

I like that you use Nintendo's notation for nametable orientation (V and H) instead of the dreaded backwards-thinking H and V "mirroring" more commonly used in the scene.

Yeah there are a lot of NES alternatives already. But what about MSX? It has quite a large and active homebrew scene (naturally because it's a computer meant to be programmed) and cartridges are getting much rarer and more expensive than Famicom cartridges, making it hard to use donors. There shouldn't be that that much competition. I haven't found anyone making MSX cartridge shells in a long time anyway, and I would like to be able to make my own ROM cartridges of my creations. Besides it would be nice to be able to make SRAM cartridges (used by some games to save) as well since they are expensive. There is one by Konami used by Konami games and one by Panasonic.

I hadn't actually considered MSX because someone in Korea has already made a mold for cartridges. I haven't actually sourced any yet but plan to at some point. I figured I would try some MSX boards if I can get them.

Still thinking on my next project. Haven't had too much time to dig into it yet. The original plan was to feed money from the Famicom shells into the next thing but right now they are selling too slow for that to work. I might try crowdfunding to make sure there is actual demand but still in the planning phase.

[P]

I remember there were cases from Korea years ago, but I never figured out how to get them.
There are a number of flashcarts and other newly-produced cartridge-slot hardware so I guess someone must be doing the cases for them. There's MSX Repro Factory, which has breadboard cartridges with case, but they have been out of stock for a long time.

Universal Mega Drive cartridge cases is another alternative, since you already have boards for them but no cases from what I can see.


About sales going slow, what about adding the tutorial the website is promising. I think it would be a good alternative to donors for people that just want to make repro cartridges of games, hacks and translations, but are not sure what things you need.

[muramasa]

I remember there were cases from Korea years ago, but I never figured out how to get them.
There are a number of flashcarts and other newly-produced cartridge-slot hardware so I guess someone must be doing the cases for them. There's MSX Repro Factory, which has breadboard cartridges with case, but they have been out of stock for a long time.

I think I saved an email for the creator and will try finding it again and see if the creator can still sell either shells or possibly the tooling.

Universal Mega Drive cartridge cases is another alternative, since you already have boards for them but no cases from what I can see.

My understanding is someone is working on one. The pictures I saw looked really promising. I'm not sure entirely what their plans are for them yet.

About sales going slow, what about adding the tutorial the website is promising. I think it would be a good alternative to donors for people that just want to make repro cartridges of games, hacks and translations, but are not sure what things you need.

Tutorials are definitely high on my list of things to get done. I've long heard that there are people that would love to get into this as a hobby that aren't sure where to start.