NES Radar 0.4.4

0.4.4

Note

Coming from an earlier build? The cable changed with 0.4.3 — OUT0 now goes to RXD through its own series resistor instead of straight to CTS. Full pinout and upgrade steps are in SIGNALING.md and CHANGELOG.md.

• Paired 16×16 aircraft targets now keep flickering through LINK RECEIVING.
  In its known-idle time the server sends a one-byte display heartbeat that
  advances the ROM's OAM-priority rotation and nothing else; scene data,
  sequence state, and CRCs are untouched.
• Needs the matching 0.4.4 ROM and 0.4.4 server for the visible fix. A 0.4.4
  server against a 0.4.3 ROM is safe — the heartbeat byte is ignored as
  pre-marker noise — but the sprites will still freeze on one priority in
  RECEIVING.
• There are no additional wiring, cartridge, or protocol changes from 0.4.3.
  Calibrated receive and reverse-UART routines and the sprite CHR are
  identical to a clean 0.4.3 build.

Downloads

File	SHA-256
nes_radar_0_4_4.nes	0c08c2bd7ad6f50474b8e56f1814d12570b9b2e7d2789050dcc0d2c8179ba47a
NES-Radar-0.4.4-macos-universal.zip	8bad401b36a9510a2bacc7541a2e92beaadb8e90b67f9f6011a8bfe6856efd9f
NES-Radar-0.4.4-python-source.zip	a0431c55982f36c46b63df8d204f8d3d8c407f2631e549d8fa6a2cc34f27bc01

SHA256SUMS is attached; verify with sha256sum -c SHA256SUMS.

NES Radar 0.4.3

0.4.3

• Reverse channel is now 9,600 8N1 UART on OUT0, read on the host as RXD.
  Replaces the pulse-width channel that 0.3.1 read as FTDI CTS. A location
  request takes about 7 ms instead of about 4.3 seconds.
• Requires a two-resistor cable. OUT0 goes through its own 1 kΩ resistor
  to RXD; D0 keeps its 1 kΩ resistor to TXD. See
  SIGNALING.md
  for the full pinout and an upgrade checklist for an existing 0.3.1 cable.
• Forward path holds a 30 ms chunk gap after every eighth packet byte, so the
  ROM can wait for vblank and repaint the selection during reception. Display
  window drops from 448 to 360 fields to pay for it.
• Four LINK states instead of three: IDLE while the ROM owns the display
  window, RECEIVING while it is listening to the wire (the controller
  works here), WAITING, ERROR. WAITING no longer blanks the scope; it
  leaves the last complete scene up.
• ERROR shows the receiver's own numeric reason as ERROR 1 through
  ERROR 5 (framing, header, CRC, record validation, sequence).
• Source and native server builds carry a pinned Certifi CA bundle for HTTPS;
  users do not need to install certificates or set SSL_CERT_FILE.
• macOS Universal binary rebuilt with python.org's Python 3.14.7.

Downloads

File	SHA-256
nes_radar_0_4_3.nes	22ae6a93c3ff060d05b7f8ac844c0e029376b8cde07587f9c7d3d47b31068c30
NES-Radar-0.4.3-macos-universal.zip	caf6dd0c898dcd77883874fdfb53fe34190c5b3202188ade53cfc541de6e1eec
NES-Radar-0.4.3-python-source.zip	ec454c129b628dce3cc61f0405954bd3531799fcc9659a6b74e09c9defba7f06

SHA256SUMS is attached; verify with sha256sum -c SHA256SUMS.

NES Radar 0.3.1

NES Radar turns a real Nintendo Entertainment System into a live air traffic scope.

Type any airport's four-letter code on the NES controller, press Start, and the aircraft actually flying near that airport right now appear as moving targets on your TV.

It works for airports worldwide. Point it at your local field and watch the approach traffic line up, or at KLAX and watch it get busy.

What's new

The splash screen now shows the name and version, so a ROM file or a flashed cartridge tells you what it is and which build it is on its own.

The server is unchanged apart from its version, which now matches the ROM — a 0.3.1 ROM and a 0.3.1 server are a matching pair.

Downloads

• nes_radar_0_3_1.nes — the ROM, for a flash cartridge
• NES-Radar-0.3.1-macos-universal.zip — the Mac server, self-contained with nothing to install
• NES-Radar-0.3.1-python-source.zip — the server as Python source, for Windows and Linux
• SHA256SUMS — check your downloads against this

The Mac binary is ad-hoc signed but not notarized, so macOS will warn about it. See the README for the one-line fix.