Bacteria's Portable Multi-Platform System - Phase 1: N64

[bacteria]

Ok guys, major project started; please feel free to have a look and keep up with the project as it develops. This is a major project, and a multi-system project.

http://forums.benheck.com/viewtopic.php?p=276214#276214

I started with a basic discussion thread on this recently,

http://forums.benheck.com/viewtopic.php?t=22943

...however the link to the first link is the project proper.

 

[Razgriz_wing]

you need a donation or anything man?

[bacteria]

No thanks, why would I need a donation?? This is my hobby!

Progress is slow at the moment as I have been sick lately (getting much better now) and I am in no rush; this project needs lots of forward thinking so I don't get major issues to rectify later on. It is progressing.

[bacteria]

Progress going well on this project, I got the screen and all the controls in place and managed to get the height of the screen section 14.5mm high, including 4mm of perspex. This is as thin as it gets.

On Tuesday I will be at the stage of making the other half of the system casing and getting the first of the console systems working in it.

[MattZani]

Looking good, not sure about the amount of controls, but whatever you want i suppose.

[bacteria]

No choice really:

SNES - D-pad, shoulders, 4 buttons
N64 - joystick, 6 buttons, shoulders (plus extra 7th Z button, at back of case)
PS1 - both joysticks, 4 buttons, shoulders
GameCube - both joysticks, 4 buttons, shoulders
MegaDrive - 3 or 6 buttons, D-pad, shoulders
NES - D-pad, 2 buttons
GBA (with TV out) - 2 buttons, shoulders, D-pad
Plug 'n' play - 2 or 4 buttons, shoulders, D-pad

I therefore had to have two joysticks, D-pad, 6 buttons, shoulders for the system to be universal. I have given the layout a LOT of thought.

System will look far prettier tomorrow as the casing covering will be applied! 

[MattZani]

ahh, i see.

Waiting for more pics.

[bacteria]

Sure, base unit finished, third-half way through the N64 hacking job; should be finished my end of week as I have some project days coming up. My pics were down for a few hours (host provider moving servers), up again. Fighting to get everything really really thin. Hardest job coming up, relocating the expansion pack (memory); very very fiddly work.

[gavie]

Bacteria, I admire your work!
The GP32X community, then this site, then the Benheck forums really motivated me on my own mods, it's a virus you know :P..
WIP topics are awesome (this site needs more of them), as many people (including me) learn a lot from them, they save a lot of troubleshooting aswell. Too bad the benheck forum is offline due to a change of servers.

Btw; why not add Sega Mastersystem and Atari Jaguar aswell

[bacteria]

I may add SMS, won't do Jaguar; may add Amstrad GX4000 to list.

When the new Benheck server is up (today/tomorrow hopefully), it will run fast, so none of the slowdowns we have been getting to date.

My project has come on a long way in the last days, once the site is back again I will post it all in my topic.

In the meantime, here is a teaser - the N64 system part is only a few modding hours away from testing stage - I just need to do the game cart slot relocation. The part at the bottom right is a JoyTeck memory card and rumble pack.



The traces mobo at the top (hacked N64 game cart mobo) fits nicely into the universal adapter (screen and controls section). The total thickness of the screen and controls half is 14.5mm - 15mm and the N64 system is 17mm thick (inc perspex top and bottom) at the moment, although this can be reduced to about 15.5mm thick; total will be 30mm - 31mm thick overall. This is about as thin as it gets!!

Work done on pic above (from scratch):

N64 mobo extracted
Perspex base ground down to make N64 mobo flush with it
Heatsinks added
Fan installed (not in casing yet)
N64 controller hacked and modded
Memory card / rumble pack wired directly to controller
GameCube rumble motor used as better motor
Wiring done to traces mobo (hacked from N64 game cart), including lines for 7.4v and 3.28v lines
Expansion port removed, game cart connector removed
Traces mobo secured to system

To do:

Connect wires from cart slot solder joints to relocated game cart slot
Add heatsink to expansion pack (memory pack) and fit in case.
Cross fingers, and test , hopefully it works first time   

[bacteria]

   BenHeck's new server is online now - much faster than the last one - at least 6 times faster!     The site should now be far better to access.

[gavie]

Woah, looks like a lot of work! Especially soldering the memory card and the N64 connector..
Hope it works, I know N64's can be tricky, even Ben says they might fry if you sneeze or something :P ...
I hope the forums will be up soon aswell..

edit: forums are back

[bacteria]

Yes, a LOT of work. Getting the N64 mobo out, removing all the heat dissipation plates, removing all the video, power and controller plugs, wiring this up and adding heatsinks took about an hour - doing all this soldering took nearly 5 metres of cable and about 12+ hours to finish.

Just turned system on; had to rewire most of the cart slot as I got the wires the wrong way around, anyway, it works now, including with a heavily reduced expansion pack. I think the memory pack works, but I will need to try some other games with the system to check (I really hope it does!), and the rumble too.

When I get the perspex back on and the cart slot firmly in place, I can test the system in earnest, all the controls, etc. At the moment it needs securing.

Anyway, it works - the first (and one of the hardest systems to do is the N64) of many systems for this click'n'play universal system project! 

I salvaged the expansion pack from my previous effort, removed most of the solder, Dremelled down the grounding as far as I could - comparision:



This modded expansion pack was tested in my N64 in the lounge (unmodded one), took a couple of boots but then worked with three carts I tried, including Donkey Kong 64.

About 2.5 hours later I finished the wiring for the relocated cart slot, however I needed a bit of a break, so made the following notes:

On a side-note, I am going to make definately make my system work for the following consoles:

I)    N64 (this project)
II)   SNES (next project)
III)  Amstrad GX4000 (I just won one on e-bay, I remember playing this when it first came out)
IV)   Megadrive (I have a MegaDrive 2 now)
V)    NES (if I get one cheaply, otherwise may not bother)
VI)   Atari 2600 (maybe, depends on e-bay price, not sure yet)
VII)  Sega SMS (maybe, but will wait to see if I get one cheaply on car boot sales)
IX)   GameBoy Advance (will try my other TV out board before dismembering my old project!)
X)    PSone
XI)   GameCube
XII)  TV plug 'n' Play games - I have GameZone (128 old type arcade games, a dozen or so I really like); Namco Ms Pacman (I love Galaga, Ms Pacman and Mappy), Intellivision (25 games, a couple are good), Casino (17 games including slots, poker and blackjack). Incidentally, the reason you see a battery connector on the Intellivision is that I discovered that by using 4 x AA's as the system needs, using rechargables gives a garbled screen, using alkaline cells gives a black and white / colour image, bt rigging it to 7v gives a nice full colour image!


And probably:

XIII) NES (if I get one cheaply, otherwise may not bother)
XIV)  Atari 2600 (maybe, depends on e-bay price, not sure yet)
XV)   Sega SMS (maybe, but will wait to see if I get one cheaply on car boot sales)

As you will have gathered, a lot of modding!!

This stack represents most of my games and some of the consoles - I have 3 more N64's, 2 more SNES's, 2 GBA's, two spare PSone screens, GBA TV card (boxed). I got fed up with having big boxes in my room, so got some cheap stacking boxes. In the pic are approximately the following amounts of games (mostly from car boot sales and e-bay): 8 x MegaDrive, 55 x SNES (and rising), 83 x N64. Some of the SNES games are rare and hard to get.



Right, back to finish soldering the last wires. I bought a reel of wire for the cart slot relocations - good thing I did, between the cart slot and memory card (>controller), I have used up nearly 5 metres of this (blue) cable!



Turned the system on, and ...nothing... checked power, ok, red light on, ok ...did some more testing my my multimeter - oops, wired most of the wires from the cart slot the wrong way around! Corrected this, all works. I got Super Mario 64 working on the jumper pack; then removed it and put in the expansion pack; Super Mario 64 worked; then I tried Donkey Kong 64 (an expansion pack only game) - also works fine. Sound is lovely too!

I tilted the system to check all is fine, which it is. I now need to get the perspex on the back so that I can secure the cart slot in place firmly; then I can turn the system over properly and take pics. I don't want to reverse the system to take pics at this stage, take my word that it all works fine at the moment! (Monday morning I should be at this stage to take pics).

Anyway, the point is it works, it proves my principle is solid.

The cart will be back on the casing, the game logo will be showing out the back (similar to pic).

I am resting the system on two books; the system is fairly heavy and this takes the weight off the system.

It works!




This is my latest update - you can read the article on the BenHeck site if you like. At the moment the server is being changed apparently, the old forum is up but the new one is still being debugged, so I might need to copy my new posts across again to the new server when up!

[MattZani]

This looks really good, yet all this work for just an N64P? Adding all the other consoles will make this so complicated, unless i have the wrong idea....

[bacteria]

All the work for the N64p, yes (all the work on the N64 side is necessary); however all the work for the screen, controls and case covering is only a one-off. I only need to make a system section, with contact board (like a large cart slot basically) for future systems - far less work.

[MattZani]

ahh, so you plug a console in, i see it now.

[bacteria]

Yup, think of the console system as a large interchangable cartridge, that is what I have done. The "system cartridge" is slim, so the whole thing, screen + control sections and console is about 32mm thick; easy to hold and use.

[IndyChav]

I cant find any pics of the casing Thats the bit I want to see most jsut now, that is at least until you have a working video of you interchanging and playing this crazy machine =P

[bacteria]

IndyChav - pages 4, 5 and 6 have this info (build to completion). Page 6 shows the internals of the N64 (you were interested in this before).

http://forums.benheck.com/viewtopic.php?t=23137&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=45

[IndyChav]

quite simply awesome 

And thanks with the detail youve gone into on the N64 part it will help me with my little project ...... when I get the time to get round to it