"RARE" 64MB N64 Dev Card

Thats interesting, I wonder if they just removed the cic chip from the flash cart and the dongle was just a glorified cic chip pass through? Thats kind of the route they took with these by putting the cic chip on a separate pcb that plugs into the dev cart through the d connector.

 

Do you mean that?
http://images.gamekult.com/blog/imgdb/000/000/593/506_3.jpg

 

bad link

 

Then if they had a plug in CIC for your carts too possibly a game is on them (albeit unlikely) and you need to try all of the dongles you can find with them, or the dongle was needed in addition to the temporary flashing of games to the RAM drive for ROFLcopter levels of security.

 

Damn, this sucks. I thought Twelve Tales got find since a couple of the carts Willis got had the text "For Conker 64 only" written on them. Well... Shit. My signature still applies.

 

??? No more than a retail cart/anyone else'd find it useful as a mantlepiece.

Not really, FPGA and CPLD are extensively used as ASIC in low production devices.

 

yeah I've tried all the dongles a 1000 different ways and got nothing. I'd like to get my hands on that dongle jimmy130 posted. wonder who took that pic and who has it?

 

Nice this would explain one weird thing about that flash cart, because if you look at a Nintendo 256mbit flash card, a wideboy CGB or AGB you will notice one or more power regulator that convert the 12v power line to either 3.3v or 5v.

They do this because all those board draw a high level of current due to use of so many IC and FPGA.

If you look a that Rare board they don't look to have any (not sure can'T see all the IC part number).

While it's possible to power those cart with the N64 3.3v line it would not be a good practice because the ~1A that the system don't use (N64 draw ~1,7A of the 2,7A available) is normally reserved to peripheral. (Worst case scenario exemple: 4 controllers using 4 transfert pak loaded with 4 GB cartridge being used simultaneously) So to make sure nothing wrong happen it'S always good to have more power than the worst scenario.

That small card look to have a power regulator so maybe this is what power that board, and the Altera CPLD might be the interface needed between the N64.

Also that power regulator is maybe just for that CPLD and the RAM cart draw is power directly from the N64 3.3v supply.

Anyway even if those small cart are require to use the RAM cart, it's still just RAM so it would not help to get any data from those cart.

They are only great piece of Nintendo/Rare history

 

yeah I would like to have it for the collection, I know it would be of no use unless I found a RARE flash cart! It's a neat piece that would go well with my RARE dev card.

 

Yeais, those RAM cart are still very nice if you ask me, just imagine all the beta build of perfect dark, conker , banjo-tooie got loaded on those cart in the past.

Without those we might not had so many great game in our N64 library!!

 

Yeah, would be awesome, would love to play those titles.

Conspiracy in the background.

 

Okay, shall respect that.

 

Will dump the flash later, it runs a 68020 with DMA (A1200)

Backside is boring passives, along with footprints for up to 128mb of DRAM

Also present are 4MB of 16bit wide NOR flash, two 128Kx8 SRAMs, 64K dual ported SRAM, SCSI FIFO and active terminators

6-layer PCB

 

You make it sound as if there's game data on the cartridges.

 

There is 68k code, and at the very most a small N64 debug stub. It needs a PC to even show anything though. Can't say anything else definitive without doing a disasm

 

Okay. Well, I hope something can get found. Good luck.

 

Thanks for the sweet pics. I'm not much of a photographer lol. I'm anxious to see what you come up with!

 

Yeah, those pictures are really awesome. Didn't know about the outputs/inputs on the back of the cartridge. Are every one of them like that?

 

some have one others have two like the one pictured. Correct me if I'm wrong marshall but I think those are to access the FPGA?