nes/snes retro duo! pics, review, hacking info 7/27/10

lovablechevy · Post by **lovablechevy** » Tue Jun 24, 2008 9:33 am

Gatchan wrote:I bought a retroduo about two months ago, and I've hacked it a bit, it is not directly related to portable modding, but some people can be interested. All the informations are on my website.
To fill the compatibility list : all PAL-protected games don't work (like Donkey kong country, Super Mario all stars, etc..). SA-1 games don't work either (like Dragon Ball Z Hyper dimension).

I'd like to make the NES part output a PAL signal, by soldering another crystal, but I can't find the good value. Anyone can help?
Edit : has anyone found +12V on the motherboard?

is that dragon ball z hyper dimension the pal version or what?

Gatchan · Post by **Gatchan** » Sun Jun 29, 2008 3:02 pm

PAL version.

Sharp Sapphire · Post by **Sharp Sapphire** » Wed Jul 02, 2008 11:02 am

There seems to be a 2nd gen version of the retro duo.. Its mostly the same but there are some components moved/missing... Hmmm.. I'll post pics of my board later

lovablechevy · Post by **lovablechevy** » Wed Jul 02, 2008 11:06 am

Sharp Sapphire wrote:There seems to be a 2nd gen version of the retro duo.. Its mostly the same but there are some components moved/missing... Hmmm.. I'll post pics of my board later

yeah, i haven't seen it personally. all three i've bought are the same. but, this sit discusses it in pretty good detail.

Franky · Post by **Franky** » Sun Jul 06, 2008 4:23 am

Hi guys, I just ordered myself a Retro Duo and have been reading up on it while waiting for it to arrive, and I have a few questions about it, and I figure you guys are the ones to ask about the more technical stuff

First off, has anyone tried making a 50/60 hz switch for the RD? Apparently it's very easy to do on some FC Twins, but I'd really like this functionality on my RD, as I live in Europe and from what I've gathered all PAL NES games and some PAL SNES games will play too fast on the RD.

Second, do you think I need a stepdown converter? Also going by what I've read elsewhere, the supplied power brick should work with european power (230V/50hz) but one user claims that his RD stopped working after a while, and he suspected that he might have fried it due to too strong a current.

EDIT: Okay, I should have read the thread a bit more carefully I guess, as there's some interesting stuff about the 50/60 hz switch on Gatchan's site.

Franky · Post by **Franky** » Fri Jul 11, 2008 10:51 am

So, my RD just arrived today, and I've started a blog about it here:
http://rdpal.blogspot.com/
Keep your eyes on that page for more news and compatibility reports in the coming days!

Sharp Sapphire · Post by **Sharp Sapphire** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 7:43 pm

Can someone post the draw on how much the Retro Duo with just the SNES powered take?

Sharp Sapphire · Post by **Sharp Sapphire** » Thu Jul 17, 2008 1:37 pm

can someone find the resistor/fuse/capasitor C40 and C3 and tell me what they are and how I can replace them. :S

Crud, didn't realize the double post..

Post by **Triton** » Thu Jul 17, 2008 1:51 pm

when i was testing it in the lab the retro duo snes portion and my 2.5" ebay lcd combined drew about 440mah, i think the total current draw for the snes was 200-250mah appx

Sharp Sapphire · Post by **Sharp Sapphire** » Thu Jul 17, 2008 2:02 pm

anything about the 2 things I broke?

Joel Schmidt · Post by **Joel Schmidt** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 2:08 am

LovableChevy dear, you need to adjust your compatability list a bit. Zelda II: The Adventure of Link works okay, unless you get too many monsters on the screen and it starts lagging. When that happens, the status line at the top of the screen does a horizontal scrolling effect that results in multiple images out of alignment and out of sync with each other. it remains like this until the lag issue has been resolved (either by leaving the fight area or by defeating the excess number of monsters).

Also, on the overview map the desert is gray and doesn't show the terrain as sandy.

Joel Schmidt · Post by **Joel Schmidt** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 2:16 am

LC and I were working on this problem months ago. I don't know if she had much luck, but I stopped working on it because of time constraints. To be honest though, I found that most of the sites that showed the pinouts for the zapper were wrong.

FakePlasticBall wrote:
I'm thinking that if I wanted to play Duckhunt I'd need a Zapper. The retroduo only uses SNES ports and I don't think the SuperScope is backwards compatible with the NES game cartridge.

SuperScope
-watches the scanlines
-has a turbo button
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Scope

NES Zapper
-watches for a bright box at a keyframe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NES_Zapper

(but if both machines use the same pin to transmit the single bit that indicates a hit or miss, maybe they are similar enough)

If the superscope does not work with duckhunt, I'd like to connect a zapper to the retro duos Player1 port.

You'd have to map out the difference between a NES controller plug and the SNES controller plugs. Maybe someone already knows. Maybe the Retro duo uses different pins for the NES. They both have 7 pins so it won't be complex.

*example of 7 pins of a NES plug and a SNES plug
NES ||| SNES
000 ||| 0000 000
0000 |||

But I haven't any of the tools to test the pins...

hmmm.... Figuring out what the configuration of pins, It seems obvious but it could be setup backwards invertedly or nonsensically. Once it is figured out, I could just use a NES extension cord and a SNES Gamepad cord to splice them together to make an extension for a zapper.

But I haven't any of the tools to test the pins...

I hope this makes sense... it's late and I'm about to go to bed.

lovablechevy · Post by **lovablechevy** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 12:11 pm

Joel Schmidt wrote:LovableChevy dear, you need to adjust your compatability list a bit. Zelda II: The Adventure of Link works okay, unless you get too many monsters on the screen and it starts lagging. When that happens, the status line at the top of the screen does a horizontal scrolling effect that results in multiple images out of alignment and out of sync with each other. it remains like this until the lag issue has been resolved (either by leaving the fight area or by defeating the excess number of monsters).

Also, on the overview map the desert is gray and doesn't show the terrain as sandy.

can you show pics or a video of what you mean? my game plays perfectly fine...

Website · Post by **Life of Brian** » Wed Aug 06, 2008 4:38 pm

I have some more information about the Retro Duo. Naturally, I have pictures.

Here is a pinout for a 2nd player port. Just connect these to the matching spots labeled on the Retro Duo:

I noticed that the new revision of the board corrected the error regarding where to put 5v and GND:

Also, the mysterious place where a 7805 could go for a PAL version is now gone:

Here's the old board for comparison:

And here's the date on the old board with the mislabeled section and unused pins.

lovablechevy · Post by **lovablechevy** » Wed Aug 06, 2008 5:05 pm

thanks, life of brian! i'll add it to the first post!

have you gotten a compatibility testing done...?

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nes/snes retro duo! pics, review, hacking info 7/27/10

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