What's new
By:

Seta Aleck jamma board to Nintendo 64

I need a few as I designed the casings now and also made a adapter to fit a normal n64 card 1CAAAD72-E4FE-455E-946D-22154DD509F2.jpeg96403B62-B4B2-4459-BF66-95EB220B3A77.jpeg6F42931A-C9B1-4493-9674-2B7CDDC5925D.jpeg
 
AMS said:
@twistedsymphony

also what I’m thinking is the following

burn the rom chip from the star soldier aleck64 dump, plug it in the aleck pcb with the lockout chip from the n64 game and maybe you can plug and play use the Jamma edge since maybe that rom is programmed to work with it! :)
Problem is it’s a chip we can’t burn right? Or have replacement for to use?

A23E1203-998D-4A53-800B-8537A415FBF2.jpeg
Click to expand...
There is a Chinese seller selling replica N64 carts on AliExpress. He uses a variant of this circuit to translate the N64 bus protocol for normal flash chips:
https://github.com/hww/N64-Cartrige/blob/master/doc/SCH Circuit.PDF
(Don't use the PCB dimensions from that site, they are quite a bit off... Also, the cartridge connector is a 2.5mm spacing, not 2.54 as you'd expect. You can get connectors from China. I ordered some recently, but haven't got them, yet...)

I tried to find a link to his store which had pictures of the PCBs, but it seems to be gone... he was selling replicas of some less common games.

This is the bus protocol:
http://n64.icequake.net/mirror/www.crazynation.org/N64/
 
Last edited:
Interesting, that solves the Serial EEPROM problem. I wonder how he got around the Security chip and save chip.
 
twistedsymphony said:
Interesting, that solves the Serial EEPROM problem. I wonder how he got around the Security chip and save chip.
Click to expand...
As usual, I guess they got cloned CIC, or CIC from cheap sports games. There is also a clone of the CIC code for PIC or Atmel microcontrollers.
https://github.com/mikeryan/UltraCIC

Here are pictures of the two games I bought (Sin & Punishment and Bangai-O):
IMG_20210205_210106.jpg

IMG_20210205_210335.jpg
 
  • Like
Reactions: AMS
Fluffy said:
I seem to remember hearing that the arcade version of the N64 uses a higher clock speed. Is that this board, or am I getting confused at my old age?
Click to expand...
To my knowledge this is the only N64 Based arcade hardware, but I have no idea if there are any clock speed differences.
 
Was there any Alek64 cart pinout out there?
I would love to have a KI Gold cart in it, but it's on 2 Serial flash and it's not gonna work on my repro pcb. I personally want to stick with the original flash since i have a box full of loose carts just sitting there
 
No there is no aleck 64 pinout out there . I’m now in the middle of writing a complete pinout from the chips to the 160 pin edge connector most is not used . About 60 pins are used on the normal cards don’t know if they use more pins on the bigger/extension cards tho
 
twistedsymphony said:
that's 2 of the 3 custom chips down :D
Click to expand...
I guess for the EEPROM you could use another microcontroller that implements the serial interface and stores the data in internal EEPROM or Flash memory, or translates for an external i2c EERPROM or SD card.
 
twistedsymphony said:
Oh nice! I wonder if that works with or could be adapted for the CIC on the Aleck64 carts.
Click to expand...
Yes, but requires significant changes. The 5101, bootloader, and checksum is not the same algorithm as all the retail variants.
AMS said:
No there is no aleck 64 pinout out there . I’m now in the middle of writing a complete pinout from the chips to the 160 pin edge connector most is not used . About 60 pins are used on the normal cards don’t know if they use more pins on the bigger/extension cards tho
Click to expand...
I have attached the pinout for the basic n64 functionality, which has all the same pins as the retail n64 cart (except 12v and audio).

What the rest of the pinout does is the fun and interesting part of the Aleck64.
1.) Video interface that allows a "2d layer" to be drawn over top of the 3d layer provided by the N64 RDP (reality display processor). There is an unreleased game that uses this feature (Variant Schwazzer), and Disney Magical Tetris also uses as well (E90 pcb).
2.) GPIO/Network interface that can be used to link games together, or control things such as cabinet lights or displays.

So I've been working on reverse engineering using the 2d layer so it can be incorporated into my flash cartridge. Ultimately I want to be able to support the unreleased game, but this would also allow us to add coin op text to insert coin or press start, without having to rom hack games. This would be limited to something like timed play, but still make it more interesting.

Network play would be very useful, for this hack http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/5062/ -- which I already talked to Zoinkity about and he wants to see multi cabinet game play.
 

Attachments

  • a64-pinout.png
    a64-pinout.png
    20.3 KB · Views: 251
brizzo said:
1.) Video interface that allows a "2d layer" to be drawn over top of the 3d layer provided by the N64 RDP (reality display processor). There is an unreleased game that uses this feature (Variant Schwazzer), and Disney Magical Tetris also uses as well (E90 pcb).
Click to expand...
that's interesting... so on Variant Schwazzer is the extra 2D graphics functionality built into the cart?
 
@brizzo awsome saves me the hassle :-)
Also cool how the system works with that 2D thingy. Are there more prototype games on the aleck that never been released on the n64 ?
 
Oke so my final concept is now ready .as all I wanted was a plug and play system

Well here it is . You just plug in the new aleck64 card and on the back you slide any of your n64 cards you have ntsc-j or ntsc USA

It uses the plastic from the mobo to have a support under the card :) so it won’t hang on the connector . I’m making a few of these once the edge connectors are in that plugs in the aleck64 mobo

06EE5A9A-A24E-4937-B50B-C30D4ACB9305.jpeg7DD373FE-CDC7-4D3F-B623-8F6D44D04DD6.jpegCE264D0B-AB3D-46EC-97B0-2948CA0E86FB.jpeg022929CF-A4A5-45A3-BF6D-6C317A632F85.jpeg3FEEDA0D-64B1-40BA-B3DB-9970DF51983D.jpeg


Now someone else needs to hurry and make a multi card :D:P
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top