ToToTEK.COM

madman · Joined: 07 Jul 2006 Posts: 598

Parallel ports are quickly becoming a thing of the past, will new products be able to use USB only? There are many other flash products out there just using USB now.

kyuusaku · Joined: 26 Jul 2003 Posts: 941 Location: .ma.us

USB is very hardware and software expensive--Tototek's small designs would require the use of off the shelf USB controllers, which generally require proprietary libraries and drivers which would skyrocket product costs and contribute tremendous bloat to a simple logic device. My philosophy is that the device shouldn't use an interface newer than the console, especially one which requires dozens of times more logic to implement than the thing's intended function/essence. Many people find parallel ports troublesome or aesthetically displeasing but I find elegance in efficiency and authenticity. People who have non-superficial issues with parallel ports most often need to just RTFM (or purchase a new motherboard/PCI parallel port.)

Products such as GBA flashcarts are made in huge quantities; they contain ASIC with USB IP, not expensive field programmable PLD such as what Tototek uses. Simply: to make products on the scale Tototek does (very small), with the same profit margins, USB is not a sensible option.

rbudrick · Joined: 26 Mar 2004 Posts: 373

I say the heck with USB...go straight to a removable flash media. Surely this can't be as expensive as USB? A usb flash card reader can be bought anywhere for $15, cutting down on the costs significantly. Plus, no messing around with every computer's own nit-picky parallel ports.

-Rob

cd_vision · Joined: 22 Apr 2005 Posts: 38

Kyuusaku, I can't agree with you less on this. If it's going to cost more to develop those products then fine, charge more for them. I would much prefer that over the inconvenience of downgrading my computer system. Matter of fact, I just fried the only mainboard I had that worked with my superflash card. This is why a certain comptetitor's product is looking better and better to me each day.

kyuusaku · Joined: 26 Jul 2003 Posts: 941 Location: .ma.us

I hear a lot of talk about how scarce parallel ports are becoming, that's why all the latest Intel/Gigabyte/ASUS/Abit motherboards still have them?

Quite frankly Tototek can't currently make USB products, it takes a relative high level of engineering prowess to do so, Tototek needs help.

If you've got your eye on the new Neoflash thing great, just remember that they eat babies.

rbudrick · Joined: 26 Mar 2004 Posts: 373

Well, I think Tomy can comfortably release parallel products no one else sells, as there's only trouble when competition arrives (like nowadays...but who the hell wants to use a GBA flash cart as their memory storage?! Holy added expense, Batman!). For example, I'm still dying to test out his FDS product. He mentioned that he's afraid no one may want it because it's parallel. Since there's no real competition there, I think people will take what they can get!

So, ok, who has the USB expertise that could lend Tomy a hand? <crickets>

Is it as difficult to add a flash card port and implement it than it is to implement USB? If not, that may be the next evolutionary step.

-Rob

kyuusaku · Joined: 26 Jul 2003 Posts: 941 Location: .ma.us

Hardware wise flashcards are very easy to implement, it's the file systems that are hard to work with. In overall complexity, I think USB is easier.

USB is not SO difficult when you use a FTDI FIFO chip (what most USB hobbyists use), but what that chip does is make a virtual parallel port with even less I/O than a legacy parallel port, it's just slightly faster.

madman · Joined: 07 Jul 2006 Posts: 598

rbudrick · Joined: 26 Mar 2004 Posts: 373

Well it's a product he's had ready for a while, but I think he's afraid there's not a big enough market for them (not a huge FDS fanbase out there, or at least that is the assumption), especially being parallel, so he hasn't made any PCBs. I'm sure if he had enough people to tell him they would buy it, it may change his mind, but just a guess. It's expensive to make a run of PCBs that not a lot of people would buy. I'd definitely be down for one, maybe two.

-Rob

cd_vision · Joined: 22 Apr 2005 Posts: 38

rbudrick · Joined: 26 Mar 2004 Posts: 373

madman · Joined: 07 Jul 2006 Posts: 598

OK, so what does this FDS product do? Question

cd_vision · Joined: 22 Apr 2005 Posts: 38

I'm not sure, are we talking about the Famicom Disk System?

rbudrick · Joined: 26 Mar 2004 Posts: 373

Yes, FDS, Famicom Disk System. It allows you to dump, copy, and rewrite Famicom Disks, supposedly. Basically, FDSLOADR on major steroids.

Unknown whether a mod kit was to be included to mod drives that need it. Most FDS Drives need to be modded or they won't write to disks.

-Rob

MottZilla · Joined: 08 Sep 2004 Posts: 765

I bought my current PC Motherboard not that long ago, and it has a parallel port. Infact I don't own a single one that doesn't have the port. Nor have I ever seen a desktop PC without one. I don't see why people complain other than being slower than USB. It's not like much else these days is going to be tieing up your parallel port.

I think the FDS is a neat system but I could never justify buying it because of the limited library of games and the lack of any way to backup and restore fragile old disks that are too expensive. The ability to write games to disks sounds awesome, but then you need to find somewhere to buy alot of blank disks from. But again it comes back to a very limited game library. If hacks/conversions for some cartridge games to run on the FDS existed, it's be different. But since this is the way it is, I'd rather see some sort of NES FlashCart that could handle NROM,UNROM,CNROM,AUROM,MMC1, and MMC3. Maybe some other simple bankswitch type boards that I missed.