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PicoCart64: Nintendo 64 flash cart using a Raspberry Pi RP2040

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Re: PicoCart64: Nintendo 64 flash cart using a Raspberry Pi RP2040

#2

Post by mmastrac »

While this is interesting, the project page is a little light on what it can do. Can the RPi feed streams of instructions to the N64? Can it act as a co-processor?

EDIT: more info on Twitter apparently: https://twitter.com/kbeckmann/status/1539738410063208454

Re: PicoCart64: Nintendo 64 flash cart using a Raspberry Pi RP2040

#3

Post by alexk307 »

mmastrac wrote: post #2

While this is interesting, the project page is a little light on what it can do. Can the RPi feed streams of instructions to the N64? Can it act as a co-processor? EDIT: more info on Twitter apparently: https://twitter.com/kbeckmann/status/1539738410063208454

I had the same thought, tell us more!

Re: PicoCart64: Nintendo 64 flash cart using a Raspberry Pi RP2040

#4

Post by Lerc »

mmastrac wrote: post #2

While this is interesting, the project page is a little light on what it can do. Can the RPi feed streams of instructions to the N64? Can it act as a co-processor? EDIT: more info on Twitter apparently: https://twitter.com/kbeckmann/status/1539738410063208454

There are a bunch of potential ways that could go with varying levels of interest to myself.

The PIO of a Pico is quite fast and could theoretically be utilized to pretend to be a specific chip. The question is at what speed. That's what would interest me the most. It would be a fun project to make a Pico pretend to be an SRAM and measure what kind of access speeds it could support. If could be fast enough to hack into old 8 bit machines you could make some awesome Frankensteinian creations.

Re: PicoCart64: Nintendo 64 flash cart using a Raspberry Pi RP2040

#5

Post by bri3d »

mmastrac wrote: post #2

While this is interesting, the project page is a little light on what it can do. Can the RPi feed streams of instructions to the N64? Can it act as a co-processor? EDIT: more info on Twitter apparently: https://twitter.com/kbeckmann/status/1539738410063208454

The N64 flash cartridge feeds data to the N64 on a 16 bit parallel bus. It's used to store the game ROM.

I suppose by writing clever self-modifying "ROM" code, you could hack the Pi into acting as a coprocessor, but in this configuration, it's just feeding arbitrary game data to the N64 - emulating the ROM that would be seen in a normal N64 flash cart.

Unlike in older consoles like the SNES where cartridges often contained processors and other logic, N64 flash cartridges were by and large just ROM, save data EEPROM or SRAM, and a serial bus for simple peripherals like an RTC or modem that I think was only used in a few very rare games.

The particularly interesting thing about N64 flash cartridges is that they have a seed/key/checksum security mechanism implemented using a chip called CIC. There's a good video about it here : https://av.tib.eu/media/32818 .

Re: PicoCart64: Nintendo 64 flash cart using a Raspberry Pi RP2040

#7

Post by klodolph »

bri3d wrote: post #5
mmastrac wrote: post #2

While this is interesting, the project page is a little light on what it can do. Can the RPi feed streams of instructions to the N64? Can it act as a co-processor? EDIT: more info on Twitter apparently: https://twitter.com/kbeckmann/status/1539738410063208454

The N64 flash cartridge feeds data to the N64 on a 16 bit parallel bus. It's used to store the game ROM. I suppose by writing clever self-modifying "ROM" code, you could hack the Pi into acting as a coprocessor, but in this configuration, it's just feeding arbitrary game data to the N64 - emulating the ROM that would be seen in a normal N64 flash cart. Unlike in older consoles like the SNES where cartridges often con…

I'll add that this makes preservation a lot easier.

For example, there's the 64DD. It's a disk drive peripheral for the N64. It's Japan-only--for various reasons.

Some people thought it would be difficult to emulate. Nope, it turns out it's basically just some disk I/O. Games are just data.

Re: PicoCart64: Nintendo 64 flash cart using a Raspberry Pi RP2040

#8

Post by klodolph »

Lerc wrote: post #4
mmastrac wrote: post #2

While this is interesting, the project page is a little light on what it can do. Can the RPi feed streams of instructions to the N64? Can it act as a co-processor? EDIT: more info on Twitter apparently: https://twitter.com/kbeckmann/status/1539738410063208454

There are a bunch of potential ways that could go with varying levels of interest to myself. The PIO of a Pico is quite fast and could theoretically be utilized to pretend to be a specific chip. The question is at what speed. That's what would interest me the most. It would be a fun project to make a Pico pretend to be an SRAM and measure what kind of access speeds it could support. If could be fast enough to hack in…

For N64, in practice, it would only need to be fast enough for the N64 cartridge bus. Whether it can emulate SRAM at full speed is irrelevant, since the cartridge bus is basically just doing bulk transfer operations.

Re: PicoCart64: Nintendo 64 flash cart using a Raspberry Pi RP2040

#10

Post by yomkippur »

I really think this is the best way to enjoy retro games. Original hardware + cart/cd emulation with games loaded on sd card. Access to every single game in every region for the entire console that runs flawlessly.

The hiccups and bugs you experience with emulation totally ruins immersion. Also best played on CRT.

I still remember there used to be a Hong Kong vendor that sold these flash carts and you could load N64 roms on a CD drive attached to the console. V64

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