OneStation NOAC

[smariotti]

Howdy, long time listener, first time caller here. Thanks for all the great posts and for helping me become unhealthily obsessed with making portables and hacking up consoles.

I'm posting with some info on the OneStation, which I found while trolling around eBay and looking for NOAC source possibilities.



I found some discussion of the OneStation in other forums, but only in the context of possibly using the case/screen for display/controls, not for using the NOAC itself.

As it turns out, the OneStation has almost no logic on the mainboard of the handheld itself and all of the brains are in the cart. This allows it to support multiple emulators for multiple systems (if you get a MD cart for it, and then plug a 4-in-1 games cart in, you're playing Genesis/Megadrive games.)

Here's the main board for the unit, most of the components are on the back side (shown here:)


The front doesn't have much:


All of the really interesting bits are on the cart. The NOAC blob, the ROM chip, and a bunch of test pads arranged as if SMD mounted chips might fit there.



Hi Res Pictures of cart front and back:

Cart Front:


Cart Back:


What I'm wondering is this:

Is there enough exposed to actually tap this NOAC for other uses? It's nice and small, it's a 99 game cart which has a nice wide selection. I doubt you'd be able to hook up a cart slot or anything like that, but I'll bet you could drive a lot of other hardware with it. Bigger screens, TVs, etc.

There's NTSC out on the main unit, but it's only black and white. Color signals are available as the main screen (OLED screen, btw) is in color.

Anyone investigated this device or done any logic analyzer work?

[ShockSlayer]

sweet find!

SS

[smariotti]

Here's a little more info about it.

• It's roughly the size of a GameBoy Micro, but thicker.
  The screen is an OLED screen so it's very thin since no backlighting lightbox is required.
  It supports NTSC out via a special cable, but only B&W.
  It has mono audio though the built in speaker, but no headphone jack.
  You can buy an "adapter" which has a GOAC on it, and then plug "OneStation MD" multi-carts (unsure whether pinout matches actual Megadrive/Genesis carts) into the adapter to play 16 bit games.
  It's about $30-$35 for the console plus one 99-in-1 multicart (what I bought) from www.dealextreme.com.
  I've seen the MD multicarts on eBay.

The build quality is pretty crap. Mine flakes out if you wiggle the cart at all or even squeeze the unit too hard when playing. I suspect a cold solder joint on the mainboard cart connector and am planning on re-soldering the connector tonight. There's solder splash and flux spillage here and there, and you can see some of this crappy solder job in the pictures.

It takes 3 AAA batteries, so the voltage regulator on the mainboard on the right hand side expects that. I haven't gotten the multitester out and tried to figure out what's where on the board, but I can make a guess based on layout:

1. I think the right hand side of the main units mainboard contains the voltage regulation circuitry.
2. I believe the bank of resistors underneath the cart slot on the mainboard contains the audio circuitry.
3. I believe the bank of resistors and caps on the left hand side of the board contain the RGB -> NTSC conversion. Clearly color is lost since the output is B&W, so I'm thinking the RG and B must get added together somewhere in there.
4. The LCD driver seems absent here, so the LCD driver must be on the cart itself.

As for the cart itself:

1. The front side of the board has the crystal and NOAC glob, the back side has the ROM/Flash memory.
2. There are test points on both sides. These are potential tap-in points for signals coming out of the NOAC or to/from the ROM/Flash.
3. There must be an RGB signal coming out of the NOAC to the edge connector, how do you tell? Hacking the main unit to support full color NTSC might be possible as a first step.

[marshallh]

Can you type out the silkscreen on the Flash ROM chip? With some time you can have some tools to dump and re-flash the cartridges themselves.

You can try finding if the cartirdge itself outputs color NTSC. Get a yellow composite video cable and connect ground, then touch the other to each possible cart connection in succession.

Looks interesting.

[superspudz2000]

how about a pinout for the controller part of this. if its based on nes, which wires are clock, data, latch, ground, etc. would it be possible to wire in a nes controller port, so you could use origional nes controllers? also is there a way to wire a headphone jack?

[GoldenfrankO]

I'm buying one of these off dealextreme forr $34.29 + free shipping.

[vskid]

I'm buying one of these off dealextreme forr $34.29 + free shipping.

Nobody cares. Stop bumping old threads, its freaking annoying.

[hossrex]

Yes. Minimodding *is* annoying.

[vskid]

Yes. Minimodding *is* annoying.

True, but this guy is also averaging 9 posts a day. Most of those posts are in threads that haven't had a post in over a month, and it appears that no one else is doing anything about it. I'm ok if he posts a lot, just not a little crap sentence in a every thread thats three months old.

[GoldenfrankO]

Yes. Minimodding *is* annoying.

True, but this guy is also averaging 9 posts a day. Most of those posts are in threads that haven't had a post in over a month, and it appears that no one else is doing anything about it. I'm ok if he posts a lot, just not a little crap sentence in a every thread thats three months old.

Then should I start another topic? and Ig it's alowed then why complain?
regardles since I already bumped it... does anyone know if this would be easy to hack? I'd like to swap the B & A buttons. (Since there already swapped making SMB and other classics difficult to play.

[HotDog-Cart]

Theres 3 ways to switch the A/B buttons.

1)Don't post so much. The hacking fairy will then come and do it for you.
2) Open it up and change the A and B plastic buttons. Then you can pretend like A and B are switched, even though they arent.
3) I cant tell you the third technical way. Its too hard for you. Requires some knowledge.

[GoldenfrankO]

Theres 3 ways to switch the A/B buttons.

1)Don't post so much. The hacking fairy will then come and do it for you.
2) Open it up and change the A and B plastic buttons. Then you can pretend like A and B are switched, even though they arent.
3) I cant tell you the third technical way. Its too hard for you. Requires some knowledge.

Why do you have to be a P***k? I'm asking a question.

[HotDog-Cart]

Ohai.

Jooeyy

[GoldenfrankO]

Ohai.

Jooeyy

Who the hecks joey? Ok if you not going to post on topic, or your going to make fun please don't post here. I'm asking a question.

[GoldenfrankO]

Bump!!!

I just recieved mine in the mail today. I've only played Super Mario Bros, Pac-man, Donkey kong, Donkeykong jr, and Adventure mario; but it's as very cool little console. Some games emulate better then others, some games sound better than others, but It's defedently worth the $40 bucks. It smells kinda like cheap plastic, but It's not a horrible stench. It's quite comfortable to play, and even know the B and A are swapped it's nothing too hard to adapt to, just kinda annoying when playing Super Mario Bros. Over all I give it a B+. Very nice for people on the go, Good size, comfortable and easy to play.