Bacteria project: N64³: --abandoned--

[bacteria]

Good, I haven't tried a PSP joystick before, but it's the only analogue joystick that is small and slim I could think of. I don't want a joystick to stick out of the side of the case, would look bad and also be hard to use. I paid about £3 (inc postage) for one, coming from Hong Kong, so it should arrive in a few days time; well before I have chance to need it.

[64M320N3]

I wasn't talking about regular old soldering, I was talking about soldering directly to the CPU/RCP.
If you want to screw up the leads, that's fine with me.
PS, no I've not made a portable. It's just it was common sense to use a lower watt on smaller electronics.

[bacteria]

I didn't notice that problem on the NTSC board.
Sorry, i'm not a PAL boy.

Issue is that RGB was never available on UK PAL N64's as the RGB electronics are missing; some early French systems can do RGB, and Australian ones are fine. If you want RGB on a UK system, daftmike suggested replacing the NTSC PIF chip with a PAL PIF chip to make it PAL and look for PAL games - this I did, but only got a black and white image, and a bit distorted at the top of the image; not successful in other words. NTSC systems are fine, that mod isn't needed.

I will use a PSone screen as that takes composite happily.

[64M320N3]

Sorry to hear that .
Composite sucks compared to RGB, but at least you have a tiny N64 on the bright side.

[bacteria]

Composite on the N64 looks as good as it would on RGB; same as with the SNES.

[thewise1]

Yeah, just lessens interference lines if you have any with composite.

[64M320N3]

Ya, on older consoles you can hardly tell the difference.
I guess you're right. Keep us updated, bacteria!
If you accomplish this, you will be able to make a smaller n64p than Sifuf!

[bacteria]

I tried RGB with the SNES a while back and composite actually looked better - someone else then tried it and had the same thoughts. Composite on the N64 is crisp, no advantage to RGB - I only tried it recently as I had a screen I thought I might use that only took RGB - anyway, going the composite route with an official PSone screen.

If a accomplish this, it will be certainly smaller, however it will be thicker by about 20-24mm as he didn't include batteries in his system, which makes a big difference to overall thickness.

Aim, if successful:

[64M320N3]

The only problem I have with composite is that since the whole picture is ran over one wire, you get some interference, which results in a slightly garbled image. This, however, you can only notice if you lean in very close on your screen. Oh ya, and RGB isn't great on the SNES because the RGB chip thing (i have no idea what it's called) totally sucks. The SNES was not engineered to output RGB, rather to output composite or a signal to an RF switch. Thus the quality of the chip didn't exactly matter.
The difference between the two is negligable. Do whatever you like, I just hope in the end it looks totally awesome. (And it will, since I'm talking to the guy who made the IntoPlay .)

[jjhammerstein]

Any ideas on how you're going to organize the guts?

[bacteria]

64M320N3 - As mentioned, have to use composite anyway, although it doesn't matter which. Use a thicker wire and you get less interference anyway - I haven't noticed any interference in my projects to date.

jjhammerstein - Yes, some parts will be folded.

On the PSone screen mobo, you can happily remove some areas without any issue, as soon as you start to remove sections containing components, you need to know what you are doing electronics wise, which I don't; so the plan is to remove what I reasonably can, then look at the board and slice where it makes sense to and use thin wire to join it all up, then fold the part over to the back. I will use the same strategy on the N64 board. This means parts of one board in a similar place to other parts, but isn't an issue if 1) you work the sizing out in advance to fit, and 2) use electrical tape to prevent shorts.

For example, I am keeping the top part of the PSone screen as I will remain to use unmodded screens, so that portion will be rewired and folded onto the back of the board; most of the sides can be cut off but some again rewired and folded back; etc.

It will be interesting. I don't mind wasting a couple of N64 boards as I have spare ones, but of course this isn't the case with the PSone screen boards - more expensive. I will work on the N64 board first therefore.

I have a reasonable time available on Monday and Tuesday so will start work then. When I need a break, I will work on the TurboGrafx system; so in effect, am working on two systems at once. Once that board is finished being trimmed (a couple more hours work) the rest is plain sailing work: unlike the N64 board reduction which will be quite stressful! I won't document the work in a fully detailed structure, rather after each part is done and works; so there will still be a lot to document and hopefully encourage others to try too (IF and only IF I pull it off)!

[silver]

hi im new here,need some help
i had the exact same idea a coupla months a go i have the peices ready to go ,
one question though thats really puzzling is how to wire the cartridge slot straight into the cpu,
has anyone got a diagram cos i need to fit the mobo into a 10 by 15 cm casing.
why make your case so thick why not just use a casio 3" screen to save space?

[bacteria]

120 x 95mm is my aim for the N64 board to become.

You want 150 x 100mm - 150mm is easy by removing almost all the grounding (easy). 100mm tall means ripping off the cart contacts and rewiring (hard). I will be doing that part first, so keep a check on my WIP. Then comes the even harder part, slicing the board into two and wiring it together, to make it small.

No, there is no diagram or illustration on the net as yet; Sifuf made it work but didn't document for anyone else to follow; I aim to change that and make such a document, from ground upwards. Further board slicing has not been done to this board and documented, again, I will need to try this from ground up, and hope it works.

Thickness is easy to explain, silver - if you have a long system you can have a thin system - if the system is long enough, it only needs to be as thick as the thickest single component: the game cart - so you can end up 20mm thick - however, your system will be about 300mm long, or more. If your system is smaller, you need to layer boards and components, which makes everything thicker: so if each layer had to be put on top of the other, your batteries can be about 17mm thick, game cart 18mm, screen and mobo about 12mm, N64 mobo and heatsink areas 14mm, controller and TI card and overlaps, board separators, casing, etc - you end up with about 60-70mm thick. There is no option in the matter, a PSone screen and board are quite slim, using an alternative will not benefit.

Making a system as small as I am aiming for will mean you can't have controls on the front of the system, and need to mount them elsewhere, which will be an ergonomic nightmare.

Tomorrow I will spent time wiring it up, may well be able to complete the cart wiring in a day, directly to the pin contacts.

First job is to work out which connections are duplicated, so you only need to connect to one of them - then wire to all the corresponding contacts on the game cart slot. This helps to reduce the wiring and work needed.

Red in the diagram is ground, don't know what the others are, however, it doesn't matter.



The good news is that out of the 50 pins (actually 48 as the two yellow pins on the right in the pic above aren't used), only 32 connections need to be rewired, this is good news as saves work.

[silver]

i definitely understand what your saying and i to have plenty to exp. with(8 n64s for £19!)
i measured my case up and you were right, mines got a depth of 6.75 inc. the cart slot.
i chose to use a 3" screen so i could have the controls on the front .
but yeh tracing the lines is difficult,graetly appreciated if you could get this done in the name of thin n64ps.
thanks for the advice will be tracking your w.i.p.

[Skyone]

First job is to work out which connections are duplicated, so you only need to connect to one of them - then wire to all the corresponding contacts on the game cart slot. This helps to reduce the wiring and work needed.

How are you so sure that every game cartridge acknowledges all grounds/voltage lines? You're willing to risk that over an extra 18 wires?