N64 - CD64 copier BIOS replacement

Hi,
i have had this code for quite a while now collecting dust on my hdd, plan was to make it bit more polished and with more features
before initial release, but cos of tight time schedule with uni and all, i decided to release an early beta and see if there is any interest at all in
this kind of obscure software.

It's essentially a bios replacement for the cd64 copier, that reads game files from hdd instead of cdrom.
Read the included text file for more details.

https://mega.co.nz/#!Hd1UmaKQ!cMFPjExwOtB8TKhtYwC-txIFOTsIlEsKHGtcwyUHkBw

 

Thank you. I will try this out when I get the chance.

 

I thought this had already been done? Or am I thinking of another copier or console?

 

I think that was the Z64.

 

Dr V64 and Z64 have had their bios modded for hdd, but not the cd64 yet.

 

Questionably-related, but would you need a BIOS update to upgrade a V64jr from 256 to 512 after shoving some RAM into it?

 

I still have my CD64+. You just increased its value, thanks. I'm a bit cautious to try it since I don't have the hardware to restore the original BIOS if something goes wrong. Did you test on a PAL or NTSC system?

 

Tested on PAL system only yet(euro), but yes i understand that. Would be awesome if some more people with hw to restore flashrom if something went wrong could test first before other people go and try it.
My CD64 is a CD64+, altho it doesnt have transparent casing, its solid black.

Edit:
The cd64 has two flashroms that it stores the bios on, one for odd bytes and one for even bytes, the chips are ATMEL AT29C010A.
In case someone wants to know if their programmer can reflash it and is too lazy to open it up to look.

 

That's one thing that sucks for the CD64, you can't update by CDROM.
Great mod though!

 

You can update the BIOS by CDROM but only if your current BIOS is working. If there's a bad or incompatible flash then you need an EEPROM programmer.

 

I can offer some preflashed - rather than overwriting your original. (assuming its socketed, can anyone confirm?)

 

There are three AT29C010A chips (9818, 9738, 9738). Two of them can be removed without opening the case (there's a small removable panel). What is the 3rd chip for? I'd have to remove the case to change that but assume I don't need to touch it. They are socketed but mine are glued down for some reason.

 

The third one that you need to remove casing for to reach contains cheatcodes for the action replay thingy built in to the original bios, the other two contains bios.

Edit:

The lower one(near clip) contains even bytes, the upper one odd bytes.

If people are afraid of overwriting the original and having to restore thinking they might lose something specific to their machine, no there is no risk for that. The original bios can easily
be downloaded from the internet to restore with flashrom programmer if needed.

The glue was put there in later revision of CD64 cos chips kept disconnecting from their sockets during shipment.
There are shitloads of it everywhere on the circuit board.

 

I'll take the small risk and try it. I just need to find some blanks CD-Rs. I haven't burnt a CD in years.

 

Good luck, im pretty certain you wont fuck anything up, i have done many reflashes during development, and have yet not had anything go wrong.
Let me know if you are having any troubles.

 

If anyone needs replacement chips (rather than risk flashing, so you can just swap)

Or screws it up and need reprogramming - hit me up. I can do both

 

Let me know if you plan to flash it directly on to any chips, the current z64 file has the bios embedded into itself with the flasher utility, so wouldnt be very smart to flash the flasher onto the bios rom.

 

Indeed and probably wouldnt fit anyway

If you care to share the raw rom (or roms, if you have them pre split), that would be good

 

Don't have any tools right now here to split it, but you can get the raw rom at https://mega.co.nz/#!zB8iER7b!HE3NhzpB4dVj4WOpClddhDQDzG0AKTc_WO9RNjfIYJQ
Its currently padded to 16mbit, but you can just cut off the end data to make it 2mbit(which i think the original bios size was..)

http://www.64scener.com/n64/bios/bios130.zip has the original bios split for eeprom, you can use that to compare if you want to make sure you split it correctly.

Note: if someone wants to test the bios before burning to make sure its compatible, load the above hdd64.z64 into cd64 ram, turn off the machine(make sure you have AC adapter connected so ram is kept refreshed)
and swap to hdd, then boot. You will have to wait 30sec or so for the original bios to go past the title screen when hdd is plugged in, but eventually you will get into menu where you can boot the new bios.

 

I can split and resize it no problem, thanks for the upload