Wow, this is going to be the coolest flashcart even created. I had no idea you were doing capacitive touch controls but it makes sense given the form factor.

Did you ever sort anything out with self-powered re-flashing, or is that still going to require 5v external via USB? (You never actually listed that as a feature or even a potential feature, it’s more of a thing I’ve been hoping you would surprise us with.)

Since panic over the COVOID-19 virus is causing pandemonium with all the things, any idea how the timeline for this has been impacted? I would be astonished if these were still on track to start shipping at the end of March at this stage.

Curious to know how things are progressing and whether these are still on track for March. Really looking forward to trying out Hyper Fighting!

Somewhere along the line (around page 4 of this topic) I picked up the notion that the HyperFlash 32 was going to have some mechanism for loading new ROMs into the flash slot from the SD card without requiring the use of a PC – just a USB power source. I imagined it would be a button or an input on the touch screen. Is that still the plan?

It seems like things are moving quickly. If all goes well, what’s the ETA for actually holding one of these in my hot little hands?

Good ideas. Not sure I can increase the BOM cost any further. It’s all ready too high. USB cable will probably have to be the solution for now.

Absolutely understand. You just put a call out for alternative ideas for powering the cart outside the VB and I thought those might be feasible. I would LOVE to see the cart be able to power itself through a couple dozen game switches and recharge through the VB while it’s in use. That would make it more self-contained and mass-market friendly. It might be worth plunking the charging circuit and battery into the BOM just to see what the impact would be for sure. However scope creep has a way of killing these things, so I think the design is fine as it is.

Personally I have one of these:
https://www.totallypromotional.com/square-power-bank.html

It’s not much larger than a VB cart so I’ll probably keep it with a short USB cable next to my VB so I can switch games without having to fuss with a PC or wall socket.

Have you considered something like this to power the display when the cart isn’t plugged in to USB?

https://www.powerstream.com/thin-lithium-ion.htm

OR

https://www.mouser.com/new/Murata/murata-dmh-supercaps/

As long as there’s _some_ room in the case you could add either of these. You could charge it with USB or even siphon some power off of the VB while the game is running to keep the battery or supercapacitor topped off. Unless people are sitting around flipping through screens all day without ever playing a game, there might just be enough power in one of these to operate the e-ink and game switching function the way most people would use them. When the power’s about to be exhausted, have it switch to a screen that says “plug in USB to charge”.

Would the price for the in-between solution still be > $100?

Personally I’m not in a hurry for this, and the current Flashboy option isn’t much more inconvenient than what you’re describing. I bought something like that for the Lynx and it was really annoying having to flip switches to change games and remember what bank was what. In the end I found myself just using it like the Flashboy where I would just leave the selector in one spot and USB load new games as I wanted to play them.

From my admittedly pedestrian viewpoint the only real advantage to the multi-slot Flashboy you’re describing is that it could theoretically support Hyper Fighting whereas the the Flashboy can’t. I say theoretically because the full Hyper Fighting ROM has not been released (at least not that I’ve ever been able to track down) so it’s an academic distinction.

That said if you find yourself at a point where you’re just no longer interested in dedicating the time to finish the original design and it’s a multi-slot Flashboy or nothing, well obviously that’s preferable.