8mo ago

Anybody tried one of these RPi based N64 cart dumpers off Aliexpress?

Looking to ROM dump just a handful of games, so I’m trying not to spend hundreds on a Sanni or Retrode. I saw this on AliExpress for $15.

I’ve personally had good luck with Alibaba and Aliexpress, but I recognize that this could just straight not work. There’s no documentation, but it claims the game data will show up like files on a USB flash drive.

Anybody know where this design came from?

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A sketchy USB device from Alibaba with 0 documentation is significantly less safe than grabbing a ROM, which are widely available and have known file hashes. The security risk alone from a no name USB device is probably not worth it unless there's a save file you reeeeeeeeally care about, as another user mentioned.
- N64 cartridges rely on a battery inside it to keep the storage alive, and all those batteries are likely all dead now, so there will be no stored game in there any more
  
  I have a super Mario world cart that has retained its save data. 20 years old now…pretty nuts
  
  Stop making me sad. I have hundreds of hours poured into VPW2 customizations on a cart that hasn't been powered up in 20 years at least. In my heart, that save is still alive.
  _Don't _take _this _from _me _dammit.
  
  Speak for yourself, all my saves seem fine (for now!)
  
  Nope! All of my NES, SNES, and N64 games have retained my saves. N64 games are going to take a while before they stop saving.
  (Okay one game I have died—Final Fantasy for the NES.)

Why dump roms when you can just download them faster and free
- Could be to get their save that's on the cartridge backed up?
  
  I think any n64 cartridge has long since had the battery inside the cartridge die, which is what kept the game save info stored. So there won't be any saved game in there any more.
  https://howchoo.com/nintendo/nintendo-64-cartridge-save-battery-change/
- Call it a hobby. Having the data from the physical cart brings me joy. Also, I’m looking to rebuild my collection from childhood for when the Analogue3D finally comes out.
  
  The binary blob is essentially just a number stored in a fancy configuration of electrons, OP. In the best case scenario, this device is just e-waste.
  
  Enjoy your ewaste
- Some people don't want to do something illegal even if they think the law is stupid
  
  Stares are 1100 DVDs on the wall 👀
  (This is an old pic)
  
  Most people are stupid
  
  About as threatening of a law as jaywalking.

The basic concept seems to be floating out there, and I've bought many empty RP2040 boards from AE without issue, but if you're determined to do this, maybe disconnect from any networks, back up your PC, and start with an expendable cartridge. :-)
I don't THINK a Pi Pico clone could send enough voltage back up into a board to fry a cart, but it's your risk. 98% chance everything is fine, but you're spending money on what should have a 100% chance of being fine.
Or, accept the almost-inevitable and just grab ROMs of your carts. If you really want to experiment, maybe build the dumper itself as a DIY project. Buying someone else's device to create files somebody already ripped twenty years ago doesn't quite pull the right nostalgia or hobbyist levers for me, but we have to go where our nerdery takes us, and from that perspective, I understand.

https://youtu.be/V0CPjHO_3Yo?si=Gnzc1ZDAaEBHZDIh
You can build one out of an Arduino.

Am I the only one bothered by the cart being censored?
- Absolutely not
- It's a bit odd, but I don't have more than a passing familiarity with the N64's library and I still got it on the first guess. If you know the N64 library inside-out and you can't place it, it's the Japanese cartridge for a famous worldwide release.

I wasn’t able to find anything definitive online, but its specs and functionality sound pretty close to BennVenn’s Joey N64 cart reader/writer. https://bennvenn.myshopify.com/products/joeyn64-cart-flasher
- That’s a great link. Also looks like the cheapest option for what I’m trying to do, so I might just buy it from there.
  It’s a bummer that the Sanni reader parts are so expensive despite the design being open source.
  
  Unfortunately most of the PCB fab companies only print off PCBs in at least batches of 5. I bought enough parts to make two cart readers and split the costs with a friend to help drive the price down into the low hundreds.
  I don't know which number you were looking at when you saw the Sanni was "so expensive". You can get an assembled Sanni v3 for about $150 online. https://savethehero.builders If you join their Discord, there's also folks selling Sanni v5 DIY part kits for $110-130 depending on what add-ons you go for. https://store.starshade.dev/product/oscr-hw5-complete-kit-diy It's still a pretty penny, but significantly less than some of the $250 pre-assembled stores online.

Any link to the item? Or name if links are not ok here
- https://a.aliexpress.com/_mtsayi0
  
  Seems fishy to me. But they are saying to message them for more info.
  Maybe theres some local club or makerspace where you could ask if anyone have a reader they can lend you. If its just a few carts and a one time job that would be enough

Stick yer rarest cart in there and let her rip

Sounds fun if it works, benign if it doesn’t, tragic if it cause harm to any of your hardware.
Ali is a gamble. I’ve had successes and failures but it’s mostly leaned toward, "you get what you pay for."

This resembles the old revision of the DreamDumper64
https://dreamcraftindustries.com/collections/n64
The new revision has an integrated RP2040

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