Jacques Gagnon

youtu.beRare N64DEV SCSI DRAM cartridge demoYouTube video by DarthCloud

👀 Finaly some progress on that project! youtu.be/2q8YwuEP_rw

21 Sept

First time good ending on OG RE, chicken out a bit towards the end, I could probably restart from my third save and make it to the end.

27 Aug

Started reading T.H. White's The Once and Future King. Great quote from Merlyn: "He said you could not use magic in Great Arts, just as it would be unfair to make a statue by magic. You have to cut it out with a chisel, you see."

14 Aug

My original N64 games before I started collecting more years later, 98/99 was the peak, I'm a bit surprised at some of my purchases vs resale decisions 😅

26 July

Started to experiment with Zig on a CH32V305. I'll take notes as I go in the repo README. codeberg.org/DarthCloud/C...

codeberg.orgcodeberg.org

29 July

I had a fun bug working on this, my register write/read did nothing... sometimes, got bitten by trusting an example too much, poor naming of Zig @volatileCast builtin and mainly not defining my const type explicitly. Read more about it in the README of the repo.

29 July

What's up with all these retro influencers not reading the room and going out of their way to promote warretro crap 🤦

28 July

My morning routine these days: 1. Wow this is cool! 2. Look it up 3. It's LLM generated 🤮 4. Unfollow

codeberg.orgDFX3BRSNES Doom FX3 patch for BlueRetro analog axis support

20 July

Now that Mesen support both FX3 games and BlueRetro control you can play the game using my analog joystick ips patch very easily codeberg.org/DarthCloud/D...

Jacques Gagnon@darthcloud.blueretro.com

Finally done with my SNES Doom FX3 rom hack that adds BlueRetro dual analog joystick support while maintaining existing rumble support! Details in reply below!

17 July

OMG I wish I had Mesen last month while hacking Doom FX3! But kind of proud I pulled that off the hard way!

16 July

MesenCE now emulate BlueRetro SNES w/ analog inputs! Thank to @randallinden.bsky.social & Sour for working on this. Hopefully it help enable futher rom hack or homebrew to use it!

github.comSNES: Added support for BlueRetro controller (#220) · nesdev-org/MesenCE@1489d34Multi-system emulator (NES, SNES, GB, GBA, PCE, SMS/GG, WS) for Windows, Linux and macOS - SNES: Added support for BlueRetro controller (#220) · nesdev-org/MesenCE@1489d34

16 July

Find the latest dev build here: github.com/nesdev-org/M...

14 July

I take out the everdrive when I got the OG cartridge!!

Ported my test ROM to NES, you can use the FC expansion port to get dual joystick and rumble on Famicom too!!

github.comGitHub - darthcloud/blueretro_test_rom_snesContribute to darthcloud/blueretro_test_rom_snes development by creating an account on GitHub.

I updated the repo with both ROM & BR FW see latest release: github.com/darthcloud/b...

Ported my test ROM to NES, you can use the FC expansion port to get dual joystick and rumble on Famicom too!!

Unmute video to ear rumble btw

11 July

An old project of mine...

8 July

Sorry but I'm a bit annoyed seeing hardware targeting Retro system using Firmware made with AI/LLM sold without any mention of it whatsoever. wtv I guess no one care

8 July

Why not mention it?, since it the hot thing it should increase sales right?

5 July

First time using my glasgow (I know, I know 🫣) it's very satisfying building your own applet!

1 July

Finally done with my SNES Doom FX3 rom hack that adds BlueRetro dual analog joystick support while maintaining existing rumble support! Details in reply below!

codeberg.orgDFX3BRSNES Doom FX3 patch for BlueRetro analog axis support

1 July

While I did my best to make the install procedure safe, please understand this has been tested on a single cartridge only. So you have to keep in mind you might end up bricking your FX3 cartridge, lose the warranty, endup sad, etc... Full details at codeberg.org/DarthCloud/D...

1 July

Thanks again to @randallinden.bsky.social for the Doom FX3 cartridge! and thanks to @humblebazooka.com for the SNES BT prototype!

25 June

Setup ca65/ld65 to directly generate my IPS patch. It's such a big improvement in my rom hacking workflow!

23 June

Some good progress on my SNES Doom FX3 rom hack adding BlueRetro analog protocol support! Featuring @humblebazooka.com upcoming BlueRetro dongle! @randallinden.bsky.social

14 June

Got a nice smoke black shell for my FX3 cartridge. Always important to be hacking with style 😅

12 June

👀

9 June

Oh great they're gonna ruin another iconic game

9 June

Tested my port of BRX for the S31 finally (did so back in April!) The USB part works. BT not working yet, VHCI did not respond to one of my HCI cmd!

9 June

Also not sure where they got that idea to use a USB-A on their only OTG port!! I had to bypass the reverse power protection and use a dangerous A to A cable 🫣🤫

8 June

Thanks Espressif! ESP32-S31 😎

1 June

I'm always going back to the minipro over the Flashcat, auto chip detection is not a feature it's a curse, it only works in a happy scenario. On the other hand selecting the IC manual with no validation whatsoever let you at least figure the issues based on the data read!!

31 May

First time I need to use the Pythagorean Theorem to figure a grid size 😅 Nailed It!

Added a preset for Blueretro to map the SNES mouse on the right joystick in the CTRL + Mouse mode of Doom FX3. Best way to play IMHO 😎 @randallinden.bsky.social

You need a BlueRetro with two controller plugs for that.

I also added another preset for the single port BlueRetro to map the mouse on the left joystick. While you lose strafing you gain analog forward/backwards. One could use the mouse preset and just use a BT mouse aswell.

BlueRetro v25.10-beta-2 works well with Doom SNES remaster, rumble included. Infinite thanks to @randallinden.bsky.social for the gifts and the awesome engineering behind this remaster!

29 May

Fun rom hack I made, L & R items cycle in Classic NES Zelda 1. That turned out to be much more work than I thought originally 😅

29 Apr

I lol'd at Tindie AI generated excuse email. Tell me you don't care without telling me !!

28 Apr

BRX on a ESP32-P4 + ESP32-Pico cause why not. Swapping out the C6 for the Pico on the waveshare devkit was kind of tricky, the pitch is unforgiving.

29 Apr

This draws only 109 mA with a controller connected. That's 37mA less than the original BRX. I didn't expect that!

26 Apr

Regardless of all the subscriptions we pay we can't watch a free hockey broadcast online 🤦Had to improvise an HD antenna real quick!

youtu.beVCF Montréal Retrospective of 6 years working on BlueRetro - Jacques GagnonYouTube video by Vintage Computer Federation

15 Apr

My VCF Montréal talk on BlueRetro is online! check it out! youtu.be/aGbMPsk8fW8?...

14 Apr

2nd prototype of my Vectrex Bluetooth adapter, I managed to delete a trace between a hundreds DRC pass and generate the gerber. 🤦 Finally time to design the shell for it!! First time I designed a flex PCB. I'm very happy with how it turned out. Wasn't hard to spec the PI and FR4 stiffeners.

15 Mar

First working prototype of my Vectrex adapter!!

15 Mar

Example with a game that makes use of analog inputs

darthcloud.github.ioUSB Descriptor and Request Parser

17 Feb

Updated my copy of Frank Zhao's HID descriptor parser to HUT 1.7 darthcloud.github.io/usbparser/

29 Jan

😉