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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

#41
post #19
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Data which, with fairly simple patches, can be run from the same flashcarts you can run normal game data from!

64DD is something we would like to support fully eventually. Since the cart code is all written in C (+PIO), it opens up a lot of flexibility for implementations like this. Not everyone is well-versed in verilog/HDL, but there's plenty of C-coders out there, and iteration time is really fast (build-depoly-test cycle).

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

#42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Oh cool, goes back farther than I thought!

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

#43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)?

No, the flash is an external QSPI part.

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

#44

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…

Probably Lik-Sang. [0]. RIP. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lik_Sang

Most likely it was Bung Enterprises: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bung_Enterprises
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