We’re there any retail games that are 2MB in size? Fun project but for real use I would wait until v2 for larger rom sizes.
PicoCart64: Nintendo 64 flash cart using a Raspberry Pi RP2040
31–40 of 44 posts
Re: PicoCart64: Nintendo 64 flash cart using a Raspberry Pi RP2040
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
When the network adapter came out on the PS2, you could stick a standard IDE hard drive into the console and use a special boot disc CD to FTP games to it and load it from the hard drive. It’s pretty wild that in a span of ~10 years or so you had these devices go from floppy disks > CD drives > ZIP drives > hard drives.
This was also done before on the Dreamcast - it had a "BBA" (broadband adapter) peripheral that could also be used to read / write disc images to / from network locations iirc... so that was around 22 years ago :)
I think you are remembering Gamecube, which could load disc images using an exploit in Phantasy Star Online (PSO). You could point it to your local PC instead of Sega's servers, where a server could inject code (in this case to load games over ethernet). It wasn't a good experience for any game that had CD audio streaming or FMV (so most games).
Funnily, this exploit was based on a previous exploit in PSO for Dreamcast, which was used for cheating.
Back in the day a serial cable was used to rip dreamcast games, and people removed copy protection and FMV to get games working on CDRs (dreamcast discs held more than a CD but the drive could read both types).
Someone also got the BBA for dreamcast working to rip and load games, but I think this was only about 10 years ago.
Re: PicoCart64: Nintendo 64 flash cart using a Raspberry Pi RP2040
#33The UnoCart is the Atari 800 version of this:
https://github.com/robinhedwards/UnoCart
Uses an STM32, a tight loop responds to changes on the Atari's address bus to emulate a ROM, all through STM32 GPIO. Atari 800 has a 1.8 MHz bus, but it's still cool that microcontrollers are fast enough for this to work.
Alternative straightforward way is to use an FPGA, the UltimateCart:
Re: PicoCart64: Nintendo 64 flash cart using a Raspberry Pi RP2040
#34Here's an N64 memory pak that uses FRAM, so you don't need a battery anymore (original part uses battery backed SRAM):
Re: PicoCart64: Nintendo 64 flash cart using a Raspberry Pi RP2040
#35[deleted]
Re: PicoCart64: Nintendo 64 flash cart using a Raspberry Pi RP2040
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
This was also done before on the Dreamcast - it had a "BBA" (broadband adapter) peripheral that could also be used to read / write disc images to / from network locations iirc... so that was around 22 years ago :)
I think you are remembering Gamecube, which could load disc images using an exploit in Phantasy Star Online (PSO). You could point it to your local PC instead of Sega's servers, where a server could inject code (in this case to load games over ethernet). It wasn't a good experience for any game that had CD audio streaming or FMV (so most games). Funnily, this exploit was based on a previous exploit in PSO for Dreamca…
AFAIK, this has been the go-to method by scene groups to do their rips - this thread goes back to at least 2007: https://dcemulation.org/dumpcast/viewtopic.php?t=153
Edit: but yeah, you're probably right about the early dumping ways...
Re: PicoCart64: Nintendo 64 flash cart using a Raspberry Pi RP2040
#37We’re there any retail games that are 2MB in size? Fun project but for real use I would wait until v2 for larger rom sizes.
Not a retail release, but 2MB is plenty for homebrew development. For example, there is a clone of Flappy Bird[1] written for the open-source LibDragon SDK[2] that works great on PicoCart64. With FPGA-based flash carts increasing in price and decreasing in availability, I welcome any solution that lowers the barrier to entry for testing homebrew on real consoles.
[1] https://github.com/meeq/FlappyBird-N64/
[2] https://dragonminded.com/n64dev/libdragon/Re: PicoCart64: Nintendo 64 flash cart using a Raspberry Pi RP2040
#38We’re there any retail games that are 2MB in size? Fun project but for real use I would wait until v2 for larger rom sizes.
You could swap the flash to 16MB, or use a third party (almost) pin compatible clone with 16MB flash if you really want. I implemented a very simple compression scheme as well so you can load 16MB ROMs that compress to a few kilobytes less than that, leaving room for the firmware.
Re: PicoCart64: Nintendo 64 flash cart using a Raspberry Pi RP2040
#39Argh...I had an idea for this, looks like I was beaten to it.
The project has just started. I made the proof of concept, and now I am building the full project. There's tons of work left to do. We are building a small community around this and any help is appreciated, be it programming, testing or just ideas/discussion. If you're interested to join in, just come by and say hi in the discord. Everything is, and will stay, open source (BSD-2-Clause).
Re: PicoCart64: Nintendo 64 flash cart using a Raspberry Pi RP2040
#40We’re there any retail games that are 2MB in size? Fun project but for real use I would wait until v2 for larger rom sizes.
You could swap the flash to 16MB, or use a third party (almost) pin compatible clone with 16MB flash if you really want. I implemented a very simple compression scheme as well so you can load 16MB ROMs that compress to a few kilobytes less than that, leaving room for the firmware.
i thought pretty much everything on the pico was on the same chip including the flash rom (which is 2MB)?