nesrocks wrote:
considering all costs, what would for example be the best mapper to develop for? I feel like the most important aspect is price, but if there's a huge advantage for a really small difference then it's worth the cost. I checked Infinite Nes Lives board prices, and the mapper 3 board seems to be the cheapest right now on their website.
Currently you can't buy nonvolatile memories any cheaper than 128 KiB.
Absolute cheapest but stupid: Mapper 218.
Practical cheapest: NROM (0)
Almost as cheap: all the "just a latch" one-IC discrete logic mappers: CNROM (3), BNROM (34), ANROM (7), GNROM (66), Color Dreams (11).
Noteworthy: Memblers' GTROM
Costs work out to roughly:
$4 for the shell
30c to $2.50 for the PCB depending on dimensions, volume, and whether you spring for the gold-plated contacts like you ought to
$1 per memory
10c per discrete logic IC
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What about where to get parts from?
Depends on just how big your order is. The suppliers of 5V programmable memories right now are Macronix, Microchip, and Greenliant; for Microchip the correct choice is to order directly from them. For the others it depends on volume.
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Is it too crazy an idea to make an injection mold for producing the shells or is it never going to be easier than importing from china? When previewing the shipping of 100 units on aliexpress, it raises the cost by a whooping 50%, which should be prohibitive. But maybe it's the only practical way to get my hands on some shells.
Having an injection mold made costs somewhere between "several thousand dollars" and "20k$". Afterwards, the cost of plastic is pretty negligible per unit.
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Have any parts disappeared from shelves and become only acquirable by destroying old cartridges? For example Cic lockout chip.
There are modern microcontroller-based clones (e.g. AVRciczz)
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What about the process, can I develop and test the rom on an everdrive and accurate emulators and then burn the final version to a permanent EPROM or is it advisable to use rewritable chip for testing?
EPROMs are dead technology now, no new ones are being manufactured. For large volume you basically can't not use flash.
That said ... having to wait for EPROMs to erase is a waste of your time. You'll be happier using flash anyway.