I need some technical information on the N64, specifically an outline of the communication protocol with the cartridge. i can find a bunch of technical documents out there, but most all of them deal with the processor and dont mention the cartridge.
marshall already linked me to http://crazynation.org/N64/n64_cart_info.htm . is there any other good place to find stuff like this? even a forum is good, but all the forums i found are filled with posts like "name your favorite games!" and "name your favorite games again!" (kinda reminds me of this forum... )
What more do you need? A look at the page given seems to give just about all the info needed if you couple it with the basics of memory reading with data/address lines.
yeah i guess it looks like that at first. but my goal is to write code to dump roms of n64 games, and its definitely going to involve some trial+error, as well as some scoping if this is all i have to go on.
for instance, i might be able to figure out how to read a word, but what memory range can i expect to find rom data in? wheres the battery-backed ram etc.
the information itself is a bit ambiguous... the cart pinout has two pins labeled /READ, and on the timing diagrams its called READ. so is that the inverse? or is it just inconsistently labeled...
or where it says the upper 16 bits are 0x10xx which dosent make sense to me either...shouldn't that say 0x1xxxx?
it would just help me a lot to have some paragraphs of explanation to supplement these graphs
As for dumping, the original guide gives some important info. Like:
The first word read is in the cart header address 0 [0x80371240] which sets the bus speed for subsequent cart access.
byte 0:device latency
byte 1:release
byte 2: pulse width
byte 3:page size
it could be uS or it could be nS. or it could just be via a LuT for all i really know.
eventually i want to make a flash cart. i also just want to expand my knowledge of computer hardware, because thats what i'm taking in school. (also: apply what i have learned so far)
maybe ill even dabble in developing some code, if i have a way to run it on the hardware (emus are no fun). not even to make a game. just something cool or useful.... maybe i could even hack some serial data over the controller ports. that would be neat.
Also, look at the schematic for the flash cart. That explains a lot of it.
I have the NOA tech docs, they don't really explain the low-level workings because programmers don't need to know it. So those aren't much help.
I just got my PIC16LF877s in the mail yesterday so I'm starting to cobble together a cart dumper
hey that second link looks interesting I may give it a read
Marshallh where is a good site for some back reading I really do not have that much knowledge in programming could you direct me to something else before I do tackle that read?
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