N64 Power Adapter Works Around The World

October 29, 2020 by Lewin Day 6 Comments

Modern electronics such as phone and laptop chargers are pretty versatile no matter where you find yourself in the world. Capable of running off anything from 100-250V, all you need is a socket adaptor and you’re good to go. Video game consoles of the 1990s weren’t so flexible however. [MattKC] was tired of messing around with step down transformers to run his US market N64, and decided to rectify this, building a universal adapter to run the console instead.

It’s a proper hacked build, assembled out of a jumble of old parts. An broken N64 power adapter was harvested for its case and unique DC plug, which carries 12V and 3.3V to the console. Few compact power supplies exist delivering this pair of voltages, so [MattKC] got creative. An old router was sourced for its 12V 2A supply, and was combined with a 3.3V buck converter to supply both rails. With some creative bodging and plenty of mounting tape, the supplies were crammed inside the original case and wired up to the original jack and a figure 8 cable, allowing easy socket changes in different countries without the use of ugly adapters.

While few of us routinely travel with 25 year old Nintendo consoles, for those that do, the convenience of a single universal supply can’t be overstated. Fitting a step-down transformer into carry-on luggage simply isn’t practical, after all. We’ve featured similar hacks as far back as 2006, or more recently, a project seeking to rebuild a new PSU for the venerable Amiga 500. Video after the break.

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Cube64 Puts The Good Controllers On The GoldenEye Console

October 1, 2020 by Lewin Day 7 Comments

The Nintendo 64 was lauded for bringing quality 3D graphics and analog stick controls to the console realm, way back in 1996. Unfortunately, those analog sticks were never very good; if you’ve ever played four player Mario Kart 64, you know how it feels to be stuck with that controller. For a superior experience, consider building an adapter and upgrading to the GameCube controller instead.

Cube64 is a project that allows GameCube controllers to work with the original Nintendo 64 hardware. Using a PIC18F14K22 in its DIY version, or a PIC18F24Q10 in the SMD version, it’s the product of much work by [scanlime] and [darthcloud] to reverse engineer the N64 and GC controller protocols. The GameCube’s many buttons and sticks allow for easy mapping to the N64’s original button layout, and the hardware provides plenty of calibration options and maps to get things working exactly the way you like for the game you’re playing.

Given that original N64 controllers are getting hard to come by, a GameCube upgrade is a great way to go. They’ll likely be in production for years yet, thanks to the commercial influence of Super Smash Bros. Of course, the two consoles have been fine friends for years, as evidenced by this mashup console we featured back in the distant, peaceful past of 2013.

New Controllers On Old Nintendos With USB64

September 29, 2020 by Lewin Day 13 Comments

The Nintendo 64 made a big splash when it launched in 1996, not least of all for its innovative controller. Featuring a never-before-or-since seen trident design, and with an analog stick smack bang in the center, it changed what gamers expected from consoles from that day forward. Of course, those controllers are now much worse for wear, and technology has moved on somewhat. The latest development from [Ryzee119] aims to rectify this somewhat.

The result of that work is USB64, a tool designed to allow the use of USB controllers on the Nintendo 64. Using a Teensy 4.1, it builds upon earlier work to get the Xbox 360 controller working on the platform. However, the feature set has been greatly expanded, covering almost any use case imaginable. Mempacks are now efficiently emulated, and save files can be backed up to a PC via SD card. Additionally, the GameBoy Transferpak is emulated, meaning data can be transferred between GameBoy ROMs on an SD card and games on the N64. Even the N64 mouse is supported, and can be emulated with a regular USB mouse. Capable of doing all this for all four players, work is ongoing to increase the number of compatible aftermarket controllers for the utmost flexibility. [Ryzee119] also coded up a useful test ROM for the N64, which is invaluable when debugging controller hardware.

Console controllers take a lot of punishment, particularly from serious gamers, so we’re always eager to see projects that allow modern replacements to be used with old hardware. We’ve featured other great projects in this area before, too!

Remote Code Execution On The N64

July 6, 2020 by Lewin Day 4 Comments

Some like to garden in their spare time, while others prefer to smoke cigars or fold complicated origami figurines. Security researcher ~~[grifter]~~ [CTurt] seems to enjoy cracking consoles instead, and had a go at exploiting the Nintendo 64 over an obscure modem interface.

The 1990s were a wild time, where games shipped in cartridges. This format opened up crazy possibilities to add additional hardware to the cartridge itself. Perhaps most famously, Nintendo packed in the SuperFX chip to enable 3D graphics on the Super Nintendo. Later on, the N64 game Morita Shogi 64 shipped with an entire telephone modem in the cartridge itself. The resulting exploit is therefore dubbed “shogihax”.

Armed with a dodgy GameShark and a decompiler, [CTurt] set to work. Through careful parsing of the code, they were able to find a suitable overflow bug in the game when using the modem. Unlike more pedestrian savegame hacks, this not only allowed for the execution of arbitrary code but also the modem interface means that it’s possible to continually stream more data to the console on an ad-hoc basis.

It’s a great hack that takes advantage of a relatively accessible cartridge, rather than relying on more obscure hardware such as the N64DD modem or other rarities. We’ve seen other N64 homebrew hacks before, too. Video after the break.

Thanks to [grifter] for the tip!

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No, The Nintendo Leak Won’t Help Emulator Developers, And Here’s Why

May 21, 2020 by Erin Pinheiro 34 Comments

If you haven’t heard from other websites yet, earlier this year a leak of various Nintendo intellectual properties surfaced on the Internet. This included prototype software dating back to the Game Boy, as well as Verilog files for systems up to the Nintendo 64, GameCube and Wii. This leak seems to have originated from a breach in the BroadOn servers, a small hardware company Nintendo had contracted to make, among other things, the China-only iQue Player.

So, that’s the gist of it out of the way, but what does it all mean? What is the iQue Player? Surely now that a company’s goodies are out in the open, enthusiasts can make use of it and improve their projects, right? Well, no. A lot of things prevent that, and there’s more than enough precedent for it that, to the emulation scene, this was just another Tuesday.

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The Boxy All-In-One Nintendo 64 Your 1990s Self Always Wanted

December 15, 2019 by Jenny List 16 Comments

In 1997, chances are that if you didn’t have a Nintendo 64 already, you wanted one. (Never mind that the games cost the GDP of a small country.) It gave you both the supreme game designing talent of Shigeru Miyamoto and graphics that left the Sony behind. The trouble, though, was that like all consoles, the N64 required a large TV set and a load of wires. There was never a compact all-in-one version that integrated console, display, and speakers in the same package, and that was something [Mason Stooksbury] evidently considered to be a shame. A couple of decades late, he’s created the all-in-one Nintendo 64 appliance that the games giant never made in the ’90s, and we’re lucky enough to be able to take a look at it.

The starting point for the build is entirely in-period, the shell of a late-1990s Compaq CRT monitor. In the front goes a laptop display panel with a monitor conversion board, leaving plenty of space behind for a pair of full-size speakers. On top of the speakers sits a bare N64, with the controller ports brought out to the front panel below the screen. It’s not all retro though, there is also an HDMI converter and an HDMI output to drive a modern TV if desired. The N64 itself has an interesting backstory, it was his original console from back in the day that died following a lightning strike, and he brought it back to life decades later after some research revealed that the N64 PSU has a fuse.

Would an all in one ’64 have sold like hot cakes in ’97? Probably, and we’d be featuring all sorts of hacks on them today. As it is, portable N64s seem to feature most often here.

Perfecting A Bluetooth N64 Controller

August 17, 2019 by Tom Nardi 1 Comment

Love it or hate it, the Nintendo 64 controller doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. Dedicated fans are still looking for ways to use the unique trilobed controller with modern systems, and they won’t be satisfied until they perfectly replicate the original experience. [Shyri Villar] has been working on perfecting a blend of original and modern hardware that looks very promising.

The project started when [Shyri] found that you could take the internals from a modern third party Bluetooth N64 controller made by 8BitDo and put them into the original controller’s case. This would give you the original buttons back, and overall a more authentic weight and feel. Unfortunately, this usually means dumping the original N64 joystick for the 8BitDo’s.

What [Shyri] wanted to do was install the 8BitDo PCB into an original N64 controller, but adapt Nintendo’s joystick to communicate with it. Unfortunately, since the original joystick used optical encoders and the 8BitDo version uses potentiometers, there’s something of a language gap.

To bridge the divide, both the X and Y dimensions of the joystick get their own PIC12F675 microcontroller and X9C103S digital potentiometer. The microcontrollers read the X and Y values from the original joystick’s encoders, and use the digital potentiometers to provide the 8BitDo with the expected analog input. Right now the electronics are held on two scraps of perfboard tucked into the side “wings” of the controller, but hopefully we’ll see a custom PCB in the future.

If you’re more interested in going back in time with your trusty N64 controller, then you might be interested in learning more about how one hacker managed to hook it up to the MSX.