How To Use Xd Card In Gp32!


Deep Thought posted on Mar 26 2005 at 12:16 AM said:
It certainly is an interesting possibility. Also, people who don't really know whether or not it's possible should NOT sit here and say it's not possible. Difficult and complicated, maybe, but I sincerely doubt it's impossible. I think we should give more credit to the incredibly talented and innovative people we have in this community.

But would it be practical ?.

As i said in my previous post about the 32-64mb upgrade being possible. But how many people have had their GP32`s modded with that upgrade even though it is possible ?, Two possibly three people ?. Why is that, Becauce it is not practical, And because no one who is capable of performing the mod would risk offering a service because of the potential risks invoved concerning other peoples property.

Same could be said for the 128mb SMC boundary.

Trooper
 
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Deep Thought posted on Mar 25 2005 at 11:16 PM said:
It certainly is an interesting possibility. Also, people who don't really know whether or not it's possible should NOT sit here and say it's not possible. Difficult and complicated, maybe, but I sincerely doubt it's impossible. I think we should give more credit to the incredibly talented and innovative people we have in this community.

most of them know and understand the limits of the gp32 - thats why they are able to code for it... this is just a noobie thread "ive just bought a blu+ and i want to use an external firewire hard drive, can I?" etc etc it belongs with the "I want to see TMNT on mame, or else it sucks" posts

your username is most ironic

go buy a psp


sPaCe :ph34r:
 
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BTW If you don't know the answer don't answer the post. The question is fine it is the poor answers that are annoying.

well i dont trust someone who dont take their own advice!

:D
[/quote]

Yawn! - find me one with a real answer about the bios or relevant to the device identitfier problem! I still see little real information only opinion and guesses.

e.g.

"Asked and answered. mr. spiv says the bios can only handle 128MB **SOURCE OF THE QUESTION**(which wouldn't surprise me as the bios is also hard-coded for 8MB of ram **MODIFIED AND WORKING WITH 32MB**). So unless you want to modify the bios ** I DO** AND find a voltage adapter to lower the SMC to 3.3v **AVAILABLE ON XD**, it ain't going to happen.

While the discussion is interesting, it could be done in a different thread as it is off topic. I don't want people to have false hope of using 256MB SMCs. If you can give us proof that 256MB SMCs work, then I'll make a sticky. Until then, Topic Closed."


Regarding all the other rubbish and confused posting about Malloc requests etc. and recompiling all software, I am not asking about the memory mod just storage access.

Let's examine the Facts and not opinions

1. The Bios can be flashed to alter hardware support e.g. 32Mb Ram

2. Other devices can read memory cards of different sizes e.g. digital camera

3. XD adapter exists for Smartmedia slot

4. 3.3v 256 and 512 Mb XD cards exist

5. Device ID's can be found out usually from data sheets otherwise no hardware would support them

Is the only remaining problem is the bios support for a big device?

I would like to understand the ins and outs of why this is a problem.

If the answer were 'the processor cannot access an address bus due to physical pin connections' then fine but if it is Bios support only I would like to know a little more.

Thanks
 
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trooper posted on Mar 25 2005 at 11:29 PM said:
As i said in my previous post about the 32-64mb upgrade being possible. But how many people have had their GP32`s modded with that upgrade even though it is possible ?, Two possibly three people ?. Why is that, Becauce it is not practical, And because no one who is capable of performing the mod would risk offering a service because of the potential risks invoved concerning other peoples property.

Same could be said for the 128mb SMC boundary.

I don´t think so... The reason for the RAM upgrade not being successful is: <<NOBODY NEEDS IT>>.
And this is (so i think) the very reason for the inexistance of alternative (e.g. bigger) data volumes/carriers for the GP32.

Yes, i do agree that it must be possible somehow.
No, i don´t agree that it would be useful or, in the end, popular.

vic20-ian posted on Mar 25 2005 at 11:29 PM said:
Asked and answered. mr. spiv says the bios can only handle 128MB **SOURCE OF THE QUESTION**(which wouldn't surprise me as the bios is also hard-coded for 8MB of ram **MODIFIED AND WORKING WITH 32MB**). So unless you want to modify the bios ** I DO** AND find a voltage adapter to lower the SMC to 3.3v **AVAILABLE ON XD**, it ain't going to happen.

Mr. Spiv was also the first to come up with a firmware that DOES support 32MB RAM. Everybody may be mistaken sometimes, but what Mr. Spiv is saying, is that more than 128MB are impossible without heavy hardware modifications.

Whereas you, me and a couple of other people would be capable of doing such a mod (if properly instructed), most GP32 users wouldn´t. And thats´s the point where this whole discussion grows useless.
 
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Pidda posted on Mar 26 2005 at 06:38 AM said:
lol2232 posted on Mar 25 2005 at 11:51 AM said:
Theres no big trick just buy this $5 adapter: http://www.coolerexpress.com/xdtosmad.html :D

I think SMC is the best. Those things are so slim. I have four for my digital cam and it is so practical.

Is my Firefox acting up, or is your signature picture actually friggin' HUGE?

No no no...
 
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Ok, now to throw a spanner in the works :)

Yes, the BIOS has SMC access routines built into it, however these are only used to load a application of the SMC into memory. They are *NOT* used by the application programs themselves, so patching them only allows you to load and execute programs from a >128mb card. Applications compiled with the GamePark sdk or Mirko's sdk both contain there own SMC access routines (yes, right down to the bit banging hardware routines - no bios functions here), so would need to be patched in order to work on >128mb cards.

If you don't believe me, go disassemble libgpstdio.a in the GamePark sdk, or look at Mirko's sdk source code. The way they work is slightly different, but they both hit the hardware directly.

END RESULT:
It *is* possible, but with every application having to be recompiled with new routines would make it impractical. The best we can hope for is a big card, like a 1gb SD card, and some kind of bank switching to give multiple, virtual, smc's.
 
Squidge posted on Mar 26 2005 at 10:59 AM said:
[snip-snap]
END RESULT:
It *is* possible, but with every application having to be recompiled with new routines would make it impractical. The best we can hope for is a big card, like a 1gb SD card, and some kind of bank switching to give multiple, virtual, smc's.

Amen! This has been discussed and thought many times.. If backwards compatibility is required (as it seems usually to be the case) the best that can be made is "virtual" SMCs that actually work only via some dedicated launcher/menu.
 
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Squidge posted on Mar 26 2005 at 10:59 AM said:
Ok, now to throw a spanner in the works :)

Yes, the BIOS has SMC access routines built into it, however these are only used to load a application of the SMC into memory. They are *NOT* used by the application programs themselves, so patching them only allows you to load and execute programs from a >128mb card. Applications compiled with the GamePark sdk or Mirko's sdk both contain there own SMC access routines (yes, right down to the bit banging hardware routines - no bios functions here), so would need to be patched in order to work on >128mb cards.

If you don't believe me, go disassemble libgpstdio.a in the GamePark sdk, or look at Mirko's sdk source code. The way they work is slightly different, but they both hit the hardware directly.

END RESULT:
It *is* possible, but with every application having to be recompiled with new routines would make it impractical. The best we can hope for is a big card, like a 1gb SD card, and some kind of bank switching to give multiple, virtual, smc's.

Many thanks Squidge - that was what I wanted to know.

Thanks too to Mr Spiv for the reply below and to my email.

In summary

>128mb card support is possible though unlikely to be adopted due to incompatibility with the user software as compiled today. Until such time as bios is patched and SDK updated to recognise different card sizes >128mb it is not going to happen. Even then unlikely to be adopted due to legacy software not recompiled.

I will look into the code you mentioned as I find it an interesting problem.

Personally as the software base is open source and dynamic (look at the constant updates, blu+ support, overclocking mods to code, different reflashes available) I think if someone did it it would take off.

Also any software not updated to support the new card size could still reside on one of our 128Mb cards couldn't it.

Thanks to all for the participation in this thread - I am happy we managed to get to a conclusion driven by data and not so much by opinion.

Just because a topic is old does not mean something new cannot come out of a fresh discussion - a fresh viewpoint is how things develop and also proves we have a community that is still hungry for more out of the GP32.

Best Regards,
Ian

p.s. any more nuggets we can suggest for a new thread anyone? ;)
 
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Thank you for the illumination Squidge. What we SHOULD do is pester GamePark to make sure they make higher-capacity cards the default choice for the next system. Not that they will understand what we are saying anyway...
 
mr.spiv posted on Mar 26 2005 at 02:39 PM said:
Squidge posted on Mar 26 2005 at 10:59 AM said:
[snip-snap]
END RESULT:
It *is* possible, but with every application having to be recompiled with new routines would make it impractical. The best we can hope for is a big card, like a 1gb SD card, and some kind of bank switching to give multiple, virtual, smc's.

Amen! This has been discussed and thought many times.. If backwards compatibility is required (as it seems usually to be the case) the best that can be made is "virtual" SMCs that actually work only via some dedicated launcher/menu.
this is what I wanted to hear :), a real answer.
 
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