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New Products Coming: db Card, db TTP Booster, Oh My!

posted Oct 14, 2014, 9:44 AM by René Richard   [ updated Oct 14, 2014, 12:03 PM ]
I've designed several new PCBs in the last few weeks for retrogamers. These are ordered and on the way - anxiously awaiting to be tested and released! Here's a quick description of 3 news PCBs:

db TTP Booster

The db TTP Booster (Twin Turbo Power!) is a kind of Turbo Booster clone. It includes two separate A/V outputs (hence the name): standard RCA CVBS video and stereo audio (yellow, red and white for non-technical folk), and a Genesis 2 A/V connector supporting stereo audio, CVBS video, and RGB video. If you have an RGB monitor or an RGB to YPbPr converter you'll be able to use a Genesis 2 RGB A/V cable to play TurboGrafx or PC-Engine in amazing video quality! The db TTP Booster is designed to plug in to the EXT port of the TurboGrafx/PC-Engine and will fit snugly inside a standard Hammond plastic enclosure. 
 

db Card

The db Card is a TurboGrafx/PC-Engine Flash Cart designed to help homebrew developers release their creations. It supports up to 8Mbit ROMs and is fully 5V compliant unlike other existing flash carts currently on the market. I designed the db Card with simplicity in mind; it uses 1 or 2 SST39SF0x0 chips in TSOP packages. Their signals are all routed to a SST39SF0x0 32-DIP footprint which enables the use of any compatible EEPROM burner such as the TL866CS Universal Programmer to program db Cards. The 32-DIP footprint is pin-staggered allowing you to insert simple pin-headers without soldering them in order to flash the chips.
 

MD Probing Adapter

As I delve deeper into Genesis hardware development, I'm encountering more and more the need to be able to probe any signal at will without any hassle; hence the MD Probing Adapter. It's a purely passive signal pass-through for Genesis games which includes plated through-holes for each signal. It also has labels for all signal names on both sides of the PCB (sadly this can't be seen on the screenshot as Protel doesn't seem to render small text unless the zoom level is abnormally high).

The MD Probing Adapter has two possible configurations. The Genesis edge connector (which will accept the Genesis Cart) can be installed on top similar to the Power Base Converter I made - this way the plated through-holes are used as test points. The other configuration is that the Genesis edge connector is installed perpendicularly since the plated through-holes are in fact the footprint of the edge connector.

The MD Probing Adapter could also see some use as an easy means to insert signals in the Genesis. You could, if you were so inclined, make a cable to adapt an FPGA dev board to the MD Probing Adapter and hack away all night long!