Ben Heck's Portable N64 Part 1 Episode -- Episode 275

Oh, I like the idea of a reading data sheets how-to. I'll add that to our list! Thanks!

Can't wait to see the finished product. Ben's mods in the early 2000s got me in to console modding. Just recently installed a HiDefNES. I've always wanted to make some portable consoles.

Awesome I'm a retro gamer and love the work you do I have recently bought a decent Arduino kit to learn from some of your tutorials. :-)

Just a thought can you put together a compilation of all the mess ups you have had when getting stuck I think that would be amusing to watch and maybe some narration through out and if they could be done in mid week as waiting a whole week for your next episode is pain staking.

Kind Regards,

Sean.

P.S. can you please do some more programming tutorials and some reading data sheet tutorials please.

Have I ever done a console mod? Well recently, I did install a XenoMods chip in my Gamecube, which allows it to play the tiny CDRWs that you burn off of your computer. I did this because I just bought a game boy player with no boot disc, and I figured I could burn my own.

Hi Ben,

There's a much better way to do the ram expansion mod than what you did and solve some problems you might have in the future.

You've got an older board (NUS-CPU-04 PCB) that has footprints for 2x 2M RAMBUS chips and a few expansion packs and a newer console (NUS-CPU-08 PCB) with 1x4M RAMBUS chip, from what we can see in the video. You can can remove the 4M RAM ICs (labeled RDRAM36) from the newer console or single-chip expansion packs and swap them with the 2M (labeled RDRAM18) chips on the older board with a hot air station. Putting two 4M chips on the same board will be just like having the expansion pack. Then you should just be able to terminate the bus with some surface mount resistors and capacitors after removing the jumper pack connector. If you're having trouble finding the 4M chips, the OEM Nintendo expansion packs all use 4M chips. I've had some luck finding New-old-stock 2M chips, but none of the 4M ICs or the "holy grail" 8M ICs, which are referenced in some datasheets, but don't seem to exist in the wild. I've also thought about making a mini flex-PCB to replace the jumper pack to make the console thinner, but I'm going a crazier route.

The problem with these RAM chips is that they get hot and use a lot of power. So, the more of them you have, the worse things will be packed into a tiny case. The reason they get so hot is that each RAMBUS chip, unlike normal DRAM, has a "controller" to serialize and deserialize the data for the bus. The controller uses a lot of power, and then gets warm. The fewer number of RAM chips, the fewer controllers and less power/heat. It should also reduce latency slightly, but likely not enough to matter.

I'm in the middle of doing some crazy work on n64 stuff, so I'll probably do this sometime in the next couple of weeks just for my own amusement, just don't have the 4M chips laying around.

EDIT - I have confirmed the suggested mod works.

Cheers,

Six_Volts

Hi,

What is the trick on using this NTSC screen with a PAL input signal ?

The screen works with an NTSC input but displays a deformed picture with PAL.

I've noticed the pal/ntsc switching capability on the mn5814a chip (pin 46) but it doesn't seem to do the trick when grounding it. (datasheet)

There seems to be an internal clock to this chip with an input and output on pin 36 and 37.

I'm not sure where to go from here. I was kind of hoping the switch would be enough. Any idea ?

Regards,

Good show.

I am not a gamer, but I like to see older technology modified and reused.

DAB