N64 collecting dust

[daywane]

any thing cool I can do with it?
I just wish some goo roo would come up wit hard ware and soft ware to plug into USB and read off hard drive
same with other systems
plug in a cart. Usb cable goint from cart to PC
load a loading or boot program and play

seems just a wast to let these systems go to wast
I do not see it as pirating since the systems have NO SUPPORT other than ebay or some other used game store and find out the stuff is only 1/2 working
too many time I have bought a used game and 3/4 or less into game it quits working

about to toss all systems and just stay with emu's

[rumpelstiltzkin]

You must be unlucky i have a big console collecton and none of the games have died. Have you never tried cleaning your carts the n64 isnt really an old console.

[daywane]

none of my original store bought carts are bad.
but must of ebgames are. Yes I have cleaned them.

[ChadTower]

Buying used games is always a crapshoot.  Too many people only trade them in when they don't work and the stores have such a high profit margin they don't care if they work or not.

[lcddream]

if i recall correctly there used to be flash carts for the n64. i believe one was called doctor64  or something of the sort.

[ChadTower]

Those used Zip disks, not flash carts... it was a zip disk interface for the N64 that included backup/loading software.

[Stingray]

Those used Zip disks, not flash carts... it was a zip disk interface for the N64 that included backup/loading software.

Never heard of that, but I sure would like to get ahold of one.

-S

[ChadTower]

The one I was thinking of is the Z64 at the bottom here.

[tommy]

I have a N64 but i would rather use the great emulater PJ64. This emulater is as good as it gets for N64 emulation and not to mention the games look a hell of alot better on your PC running off your video card, i use an LCD screen and that only adds to the graphics detail.

The PJ64 devs are also updating their emulater sometime in the next few monthes and will only add to the 80% game compatibilty that they already have.

[ChadTower]

Erm, LCDs don't add to anything.  Much of the time they detract.  The best LCD is only as good as a mediocre CRT.

[tommy]

Erm, LCDs don't add to anything.  Much of the time they detract.  The best LCD is only as good as a mediocre CRT.

My high resolution screen adds nothing to the way games look compared to any old rinky-dink standard monitor?

[ChadTower]

The source is the same.  So no, it doesn't.

A display is not better than the source it displays.  Cannot be. 

[Silver]

The one I was thinking of is the Z64 at the bottom here.

Yeh, I've got a Z64 for my N64, it was(is) great - looks sleek and fits with the N64 design.

I've modded it to take a 2.5" notebook hardrive instead of a Zip disk - some clever chaps modded the bios to include a generic ide driver (not as hard as you think - this Z64 is basically a i386 running Caldera-Dos, allowing some dos-drivers to be used.)

It can only see 8gigs (in 2gig chunks) of the HD but thats space for loads of N64 games. There were quite a few homebrew apps - demos and mp3 players if I recall - but it never took off in a big way - just too hard to write for I think.

Can't think of anything else to do with a N64.

[ChadTower]

I have an N64 modem and keyboard.  That's another use.

[SithMaster]

make a handheld out of the system?

tommy-do you use an adapter to use a n64 controller? or stick with keyboard.

[Silver]

Yeh handheld is quite a cool (and advanced!) mod....

http://www.techeblog.com/index.php/tech-gadget/another-portable-n64

[daywane]

Yea hand helds are real cool but way out of my skills and price

I never knew the N64 had a modem and keyboard.
I guess I am looking for something like the stores had.
A cosole system behind glass., a gamepad mounted to a flexable bar,
a small menu on the screen ( small meaning 4 to 6 games to pick from)

I will try the emu's for N64 again.... been a few years since I did
never got very far last time I tried
super nes is the most advanced Emu ( console that is) I have running unless you call the GBA emu's more advanced.
had a PS1 emu up for a wile but I seemed to have lost that emu do to a hard drive crash

I have not tried atomics plug and play yet for N64 or much more than sega genesis.
getting the sega genesis and all the pics just right seems to take a BOAT LOAD more time than I thought.
 I thought I would be done with all consoles by now, and I only have 3/4 of the sega Genesis done 

[tommy]

make a handheld out of the system?

tommy-do you use an adapter to use a n64 controller? or stick with keyboard.

I use the XBOX 360 windows controller.

[hutch1980]

There were 3 main backup units for the N64. The Doctor64, CD64, and the Z64. Both the Doctor64 and CD64 used CD-Rs which could hold about 50 N64 roms per disk and you would select the game you wanted to play with the units own built in OS, while the Z64 could hold about 12 or less games on zip disks. It was easier on the Z64 to backup games as it would just copy the cart to the zip drive, while both the D64 and CD64 had to have extra hardware to connect to the computer to transfer carts for backup purposes.

For homebrew development, I believe the CD64 and Z64 were easier to make your own games/programs on. I'm not sure now, but in the hayday of N64 Backup units, the Doctor64 was the most expensive at around $300 i think and Z64 was pretty close to that too. The CD64 was the cheapest of the bunch, and it showed in the first generation of units (horrible Honk Kong manufacturing). They have since fixed the problems though with the 2nd generation.

Towards the end of the N64's life, the company responsible for the Doctor64, release the D64 Jr, which was a small cart like device that had to be connected to the computer to transfer roms to the device, but it had the benefit of being really cheap (about $70) and it was the only unit with 64Mb of ram which was required for games like Resident Evil and Conker's Bad Fur day, which are unplayable on the other 3 units because they only have 32Mb's of ram and are not upgradable.

I personally had the CD64 1st Generation, and after i solved the problems i had with it, it worked great and was fun to try the demo's and other homebrew games/applications on the device. I remember playing the german version of Turok: Dinosaur Hunter and seeing that they removed all the dinosaurs and replaced them with robots. It was the wierdest thing i've seen in a game.

[tommy]

The source is the same.  So no, it doesn't.

A display is not better than the source it displays.  Cannot be. 

Games are much brighter and colors are more vivid.

[ChadTower]

Then your old display was just old... not manufactured worse.

The source is still the same so unless your LCD is changing the signal in the process it cannot be displaying any better.

Of course, can't tell you how many times I've gone to see someone's "awesome new LCD, isn't this thing the best, so much better" and when I actually look at the thing it's no better than a good CRT while also having a worse refresh rate.

[Angry_Radish]

I've got an old z64 I hacked apart and mounted in a pc case, along with the n64 and mounted the controller ports on the back and added a HD for the roms. It's been collecting dust in my son's room for awhile now, any idea what I could get for something like that?

[ChadTower]

I'd be interested in that... not sure on price, I'd have to see it first.

[Silver]

Radish.... Hmmm, that seems to ring some bells regarding Z64's......

Anyway, that sounds like a nice mod.

In the right market there are some people who will cough up fair sums for backup units as they are quite hard to come by nowadays. Partly because ebay (the obvious marketplace for such devices) clamp down on them so there is nowhere easy to sell them.

[ChadTower]

Primarily because it allows the use of ROM images on the real hardware... which is the best of emulation and the best of the real thing.