INL RETRO PROGRAMMER HELP !!!!

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secretofevermore
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INL RETRO PROGRAMMER HELP !!!!

Post by secretofevermore »

Hey guys! :D

Im new to Nes Dev so go easy on me ha

I've recently purchased the INL RETRO PROGRAMMER from infinite NES lives its a great little board and understand its still in beta etc so understand theirs a slight bit of work involved in getting it going.

I've managed to download the relevant files & drivers from github https://gitlab.com/InfiniteNesLives/INL-retro-progdump which point to running the program from command line in explorer.

The INL programmer device is being recognised by the computer and the device driver is also upto date, im running a 64bit Windows 10 setup.

i'm getting stuck on where you go into the host file on explorer & copy and paste the script to run the main program from the README file https://gitlab.com/InfiniteNesLives/INL ... Readme.txt

When running the script as directed it says problem with opcode has anybody got started with these things and can point me in the general direction of getting fired up? I've opened a ticket with the main man Paul himself but understand hes a busy man, and its good to ask around right!??

Cheers in advance and great page any help would be greatly appreciated :)

Tom
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FrankenGraphics
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Re: INL RETRO PROGRAMMER HELP !!!!

Post by FrankenGraphics »

Hi and welcome! I'm using an older revision (which wasn't as streamlined) so i don't recognize the situation. Can you take a screenshot of the error message (it might help understanding the problem with a little context)?
secretofevermore
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Re: INL RETRO PROGRAMMER HELP !!!!

Post by secretofevermore »

Hi there! Yes no problem! Thanks for replying

I do believe it’s something to do with the N64 portion of the script looking at it so might be something that Infinite have to sort!
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samophlange
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Re: INL RETRO PROGRAMMER HELP !!!!

Post by samophlange »

I believe you need to update the LUA script with specifics about the thing you trying to flash, such as N64 vs SNES vs NES. In addition to picking the correct console, you need to fill in other details, such as specify the mapper in the case of NES. Part of it being in beta is that much more of the configuration burden is left to the user to do via lua. There's a lot of commented out example code in that lua file that can be used as a guide.
secretofevermore
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Re: INL RETRO PROGRAMMER HELP !!!!

Post by secretofevermore »

Thankyou! I think with me being an absolute coding newb is I’m looking at the lua script with impending doom! Haha

I don’t suppose you could write me a basic code for writing to carts from the lua2 script? This would surely get me going then I can visually learn from it!

Paul sent me a basic dumping code for the nes - inlretro.exe -s scripts/inlretro2.lua -c NES -m nrom -x 32 -y 8 -d gamename.bin

I’m just unsure how to adapt that as to flash roms to the carts, and where do I physically put the rom file for the program to flash to the cart and where would I write this in said code?

Cheersbin advance :)
secretofevermore
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Re: INL RETRO PROGRAMMER HELP !!!!

Post by secretofevermore »

This is the LUA2 script that needs to be adapted butnim struggling on what is type in command line to get it to flash roms to the carts


https://gitlab.com/InfiniteNesLives/INL ... retro2.lua
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Re: INL RETRO PROGRAMMER HELP !!!!

Post by FrankenGraphics »

Paul sent me a basic dumping code for the nes - inlretro.exe -s scripts/inlretro2.lua -c NES -m nrom -x 32 -y 8 -d gamename.bin

I’m just unsure how to adapt that as to flash roms to the carts, and where do I physically put the rom file for the program to flash to the cart and where would I write this in said code?
The line Paul sent you is how you run programs without needing a graphical user interface.

whenerever there's a "-" sign followed by a letter, that's called an option. Options tell the program how to run itself. In this case:

-s selects what script. We needn't worry about this.
-c is the target platform. in our case NES.
-m is for mapper. Mappers are basically memory configurations on the cartridges.
-x is PRG-ROM size (your program), 32kB in this case
-y is CHR-ROM size (graphical data). 8kB in this case.
-d is the naturally the name of the file you're going to program onto the cartridge. Unless specified otherwise by you, your file should be in the same folder as the programmer software.

For manipulating these to match your program and cartridge, you should consult the readme and also examine what sort of mapper you're using, in case this is not known to you yet.

Be aware: Games/programs you run on an emulator rely on having header data at the beginning of its file. Games/programs you write to a cartridge rely on NOT having a header. Make sure you have commented it out in your assembly code, or if you just have a binary file such as the ROM image files you use with emulators, make sure it doesn't start with header bytes.

I should probably stop here to check if any terms i'm using need further explanation?
secretofevermore
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Re: INL RETRO PROGRAMMER HELP !!!!

Post by secretofevermore »

Thankyou for giving me a crash course with lamens terms you are a star!

I do love how much help is out here in the retro gaming community :)

So going off what you say - in my case I bought myself an FME-7 mapper INL flash cart PCB for for me to make my own Return of the Joker & Gimmick repro the flash cart in question has 256k capabiliy on both the PRG & CHR ROM though looking at bootgod the PRG is 256k & CHR is 128k for gimmick, so i will need to double he CHR somehowi n hex editor? Then place said Rom in host folder?

Thanks again!
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Re: INL RETRO PROGRAMMER HELP !!!!

Post by secretofevermore »

the gimmick rom i have has no header and ive placed it in the host folder the file is named gimmick.nes

would this be the suitable code to type into commad line to flash the cartridge? or do i have to make changes to lua2 script also?

inlretro.exe -s scripts/inlretro2.lua -c NES -m fme7 -x 32 -y 8 -d Gimmick.nes

Thanks in advance :)
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Re: INL RETRO PROGRAMMER HELP !!!!

Post by FrankenGraphics »

Quick reply because i'm in a hurry (sorry) but the first apparent things that won't work with that command line are the ROM sizes specified. Those games are way bigger than 32kB:s of program data. If i recall correctly, gimmick has 256kB:s of PRG-ROM and 128kB:s of CHR-ROM

you can check up any historic nes or famicom game on this database for details:
http://bootgod.dyndns.org:7777/
secretofevermore
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Re: INL RETRO PROGRAMMER HELP !!!!

Post by secretofevermore »

no problem!! thankyou for or your help thus far :) i will have a tinker around this evening
secretofevermore
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Re: INL RETRO PROGRAMMER HELP !!!!

Post by secretofevermore »

So ive had a good tinker & i seem to be making some progress! slowly but still a few hurdles

Gimmick does have 256k PRG & 128k CHR and my flash cart is 256k PRG & 256k CHR so i've popped the original gimmick rom file (no header) into famirom to double the image this splits original rom into 2 separate files for PRG & CHR at correct size for flash cart, to re-combine these files before putting into host am i ok using the script copy /b filename.bin + filename.bin newfile.out ?

Then im guessing its ok to use the inlretro.exe -s scripts\inlretro2.lua -c NES -m fme7 -x 256 -y 256 -d Gimmick.nes
secretofevermore
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Re: INL RETRO PROGRAMMER HELP !!!!

Post by secretofevermore »

Using the above in command line gives me could not write 0xAA to PPU $ 1000

Is their something that I should be editing in the lua2 script do you reckon?
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Re: INL RETRO PROGRAMMER HELP !!!!

Post by secretofevermore »

This is the pic of the message
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tepples
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Re: INL RETRO PROGRAMMER HELP !!!!

Post by tepples »

Tip: You can copy the error message from the Command Prompt to the clipboard. It might be easier than taking a photo of your monitor with your camera or phone.
  1. Click the application icon at the left side of the title bar. It looks like "C:\".
  2. From the Edit submenu, choose Mark.
  3. Drag across the area co copy.
  4. Press Enter to copy the area.
  5. Paste into Notepad, your web browser, or any other editable text area.
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