Besides all the enjoyment that I get from playing all the awesome games on the Evercade VS system these days, I have also been interested in the hardware that runs these games. Some time ago, I opened up the Evercade VS system, to take a closer look at the hardware inside the console, for which I also wanted to take a closer look at the cardridges that the Evercade system uses.
Since I think it's fun to play a bit around with hardware mods and a soldering iron, I thought I could open a cartridge with the purpose of seeing what the inside looks like, and try to find a solution where I can control which software I want to run on the Evercade hardware. That would open op the possibility to test how strong the hardware is, and to play with some game development.
Some time ago, I had become acquainted with the EverSD concept, for which I thought it might be fun to see if I could possibly make my own similar solution.
The Evercade cartridge itself is relatively easy to open. There are no screws, but instead 3 plastic pins that may hold a bit of glue. I followed the edge around, to which I pulled the 2 shells apart. Here it is important to be aware that the PCB itself is relatively thin, as well as glued to the bottom part, to which this can quickly bend.
Once the cartridge is opened, it's clear how little there's actually going on, on the PCB. Despite the many pins on the Evercade cartridge (that actually shares the same connector as the Game Boy), only a few of these pins are actually in use. The reason for this is that Evercade games are basically just an SD card mounted in an oversized adapter. The games themselves are located on an Embedded Tailor SD Flash chip, which basically acts as an SD card. This chip has a similar pinout, which makes it easy to replace it with an SD card.
From here, I removed the original SD chip (MKDV1GCL), after which I modified the plastic shell itself, so I could fit in a microSD adapter firmly. I glued this SD adaptor to the bottom shell with some superglue. With this in place, I connected the 8 points on the board to which the chip was previously connected, to the corresponding places on the microSD adapter, so that they end up being connected to the micro SD card.
With this in place, as well as tested for short circuits, the hardware part itself should be in order.
From here I still need to get a handle on the software. It is possible that there are restrictions regarding the size of the SD card, as well as other things that I have not yet familiarized myself with. I have briefly tried to play a little with the EverSD software, to see if it makes a difference, however, the feedback from respectively my Evercade Handheld and my Evervade VS so far have been that there is no cartridge in the machine.
>>>Update 5/3-2022
I updated the handheld with the official firmware to version 2.02, which is done by downloading the firmware updater from the official Evercade website, and after connecting the handheld to the PC with a USB cable (with data connections!), turning on the handheld console while holding down the menu button. This boots up the handheld in Flash Mode, enabling the possibility to update the Firmware.
Afterwards, I patched the 2.02 firmware with the EverPatcher 4.2 from the EverSD website. This unlocks the official capacity cap of 512 MB, that is the current maximum on the official cartridges, which makes it possible to use larger SD cards. In my case, I am currently using a 4 GB microSD card.
With the microSD card connected to the PC, I used EverFixer to prepare the microSD card, and afterwards EverLoader 2.0 to transfer ROMs to the microSD card.
At this point, I can now confirm that the microSD adapter that I have build, is compatible with the EverSD software, which let me believe that the EverSD units is basically a similar unit with similar pinouts, just with a beautiful finish!
I can also confirm that the Evercade handheld is capable of running Tomb Raider III quite well!
My next goal is to get my microSD adaptor working on the Evercade VS console!
Update 25. april 2022:
With the installation of the custom EverSD VS firmware, featured in the EverPatcherVS 1.3, I was able to update my VS, that was previously running the newest official firmware (2.1.0). With the new custom EverSD firmware in place, the games on the micro SD card showed up on the screen.
Finally! Mission accomplished!
Afterwards, I decided to make a custom cover for my unit. Now it fits perfectly in the shelf with the rest of my complete collection! I created the cover in MS Paint btw :)
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