The Nintendo 64 Partner-N64 Development Kit

(behindthecode.ca)

46 points | by paulgerhardt 17 hours ago ago

8 comments

  • nubinetwork 3 minutes ago

    Ugh, how the heck am I blocked, I don't think I've ever accessed this website before.

  • snvzz 5 minutes ago

    I wonder if M64 / miSTer N64 core have the necessary wiring to the FPGA so that this could be supported there.

  • Agentlien 3 hours ago

    This is really cool. The full tower of cartridges in each other with the last one sticking out horizontally looks so comical.

    This whole system feels so quirky and fiddly to work with compared to modern dev kits.

    • bob1029 3 hours ago

      If you want to target the N64 today, the tooling is considerably more advanced.

      https://github.com/HailToDodongo/pyrite64

      • Agentlien 13 minutes ago

        It's fascinating to see how much tooling and reverse engineering fans have managed to create for various systems. This looks very good and tools like emulators and TAS systems are incredible.

        It's also interesting to see how much of the developer only systems and documentation has been recreated via reverse engineering. For some consoles I've worked with professionally it's a lot more than I would have thought.

  • ginko 3 hours ago

    The article mentioned this needed a modified N64 to route the extra debug signals from the cartridge to the CPU. That got me wondering since afaik there are no unused cartridge pins on the N64.

    Turns out it's actually a bit more complicated. The Partner-N64 uses some little-used analog input pins (LAUDIO, RAUDIO, VIDEO_SYNC) for this. The modification also requires cutting the lines to the system's DAC chip to work.

    https://ultra64.ca/tutorials/make-your-own-partner-n64-conso...

  • Founderarcstone 16 hours ago

    Love it! N64 was amazing in its prime!

  • jackjeff 4 hours ago

    > Sorry, you have been blocked

    Right. On Mobile Safari on first attempt to view the site

    https://archive.is/WCnLA