The N64 Advance

Sun-Wukong · Post by **Sun-Wukong** » Thu Sep 11, 2008 10:44 pm

Gamelver wrote:Then I'll definitely buy it .

Thanks for finding that for me! If portables had credits I'd put you in this one's ...

You could always give him an honorable mention in the news thread for it. More on topic, that looks like it will be pretty sweet. Nice work trimming down the mobo.

palmertech · Post by **palmertech** » Thu Sep 11, 2008 11:02 pm

Gordon1 wrote:
Why is it making fun of you? well lets back up a month or so and think about the fact that you had a post in almost every thread. Your better now though.

Although, with a silly statement line the n64 in a GG the signature stays. Also, I have provided sufficient evidence that mine will work.

To be honest, I have no doubts your N64 wip will work (Sorry ShockSlayer). The GG comment was a bit dumb, I suppose, just jumping on the bandwagon.

Glad to hear you do not loathe me for my long ago past, I will admit that when I returned to the forums, I was certainly quite a spam monkey. As you said, though, I am getting better.

Lets be BEST FRIENDS!

Gamelevr, have you talked to Skyone about his N64 flashcart project? I think he mentioned it a while back. (Was it even him?) It would make this beast CRAZY small! I am absolute awe at your skillz, this is gonna be one epic portable. One thing, though: I thought the N64 had inner traces? Is there any way for you to test if your cut down board even works?

evilteddy · Post by **evilteddy** » Fri Sep 12, 2008 12:27 am

It was Marshall who was talking about making a flash cart but maybe Skyone is as well I don't know. You know this could be smaller than the sixtyfreelite and that would be freaky. If this works its going to be one hell of a new standard to live by.

Post by **Skyone** » Fri Sep 12, 2008 1:00 am

evilteddy wrote:It was Marshall who was talking about making a flash cart but maybe Skyone is as well I don't know. You know this could be smaller than the sixtyfreelite and that would be freaky. If this works its going to be one hell of a new standard to live by.

Definitely marshallh, I don't remember committing to anything like that.

grossaffe · Post by **grossaffe** » Fri Sep 12, 2008 1:07 am

Skyone wrote:
evilteddy wrote:It was Marshall who was talking about making a flash cart but maybe Skyone is as well I don't know. You know this could be smaller than the sixtyfreelite and that would be freaky. If this works its going to be one hell of a new standard to live by.
Definitely marshallh, I don't remember committing to anything like that.

well now that you've been volunteered for the project, get crackin'!

Post by **Gamelver** » Fri Sep 12, 2008 10:39 am

As far as I can see, the only inner traces are ground. Everything else is either power, AV, cartridge input, or the expansion slot (which is, of course, useless

).

and I'll know the board works when I finish wiring the cartridge and power it on

(which should be later today, as I'm done wiring to the mobo....the hard part's over

).

evilteddy · Post by **evilteddy** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 6:06 am

Gamelver wrote:As far as I can see, the only inner traces are ground.

I remember someone told me something to that effect when I started my project.

I hop this works. I can't see any reason why not so good luck.

palmertech · Post by **palmertech** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 11:21 am

Now that I know the inner traces are ground, I can cut even more off!

Have you seen my smaller-mobo speculation thread, gamelevr? http://forums.benheck.com/viewtopic.php?t=25933

What do you think? Several of my ideas seem to be implausible, but the fact remains that that model has lacks the expansion port.

Post by **Gamelver** » Sat Sep 13, 2008 2:16 pm

yeah, the Pikachu N64 is normal sized, it just has a Pikachu added to an extended side. Why would Nintendo remake the board if the case isn't smaller? They wouldn't, so I would say that, logically, it is likely the N64 is the same size. Still, the size I got it to really isn't bad...practically an SNES mini in terms of area.

HazmatB · Post by **HazmatB** » Sun Sep 14, 2008 9:28 pm

Could you post pictures of the chopped board?

bacteria · Post by **bacteria** » Mon Sep 15, 2008 1:15 am

... and an illustration of which pins you need to connect to what and which pins you can ignore in the relocation as not needed?

Post by **Gamelver** » Wed Sep 17, 2008 10:36 pm

yeah, I have all the pinouts and stuff already. The first board didn't work, though I admit I soldered a bit sloppily. I know the connections on the pins were good, and everything seemed to match up, but I think I screwed something up. The 7805 stopped working, I know that much

...

But I still have another board to try it on, and this time I won't cut the board until the cart relocation works. This way I can still the board with the regular cartridge slot

. It was rather arrogant of me to cut it before soldering to it

...

evilteddy · Post by **evilteddy** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 5:06 am

Bad luck with screwing up the board.

You can't really expect to do something this great without mucking up at least one system. I can't wait to see this working. It would be great for making a portable smaller than the sixty-free lite with batteries.

Post by **Gamelver** » Thu Sep 18, 2008 10:34 am

yeah, I don't feel so bad about breaking one board, even Ben went through a bunch before he finished his portable

.

Electric Rain · Post by **Electric Rain** » Sat Sep 20, 2008 7:05 am

...Anyone ever thought about re-designing an N64 PCB? Like, rebuilding the whole thing way more compact? A schematic would have to be generated, which would really be the hardest part. After that, it's just laying out parts and running an auto-router... Transferring the chips from an original N64 board to the new one shouldn't be too hard for someone with the right equipment. There aren't THAT many chips...

This has been done with Atari's. There are only three chips, and they're small (low pin-count, that is). Schematics are simple and all over the place, because the 2600 hardware is very simple, comparatively. Gannon as well as a few other people I think have designed a 2600 PCB... I was working on it, but then gave up after realizing there weren't that many 2600 games I would ever care to play.

Just a thought... don't want to stray too far off topic. Can't wait to see pictures of your crazy cart slot re-wiring, Gamey.