nfg.forums

Lik-Sang iQue surgery...

A N64 on a chip (2 actually)... Pretty nice...
Where did the massive N64 heatsink go ?

I wonder what it would take to make a RGB conversion...

Anybody else find it pretty ballsy from Nintendo to release games on flash-cards ?
I mean, this is China, somebody must already be working on their encryption scheme...

CC

I think  Nintendo's counting on the ridiculously low price to deter thieves and pirates.  If you can buy a game for $5 why would you try and put effort into copying it?  This is a great idea, something that all manufacturers should investigate for their old hardware.

AS for modding it, I don't see any chroma encoder inside which might leave access to RGB signals.  (Actually I don't see any sign of the video output, lik-sang only showed the business side of the PCB).  And what about 2-player games?

I'm surprised tho Nintendo's giving up their branding entirely, settling for a gold seal on the box and no other recognition.  THere's no Nintendo mention on the PCB, chips, or controller or labels.  It seems more like a Chinese co licensed the Nintendo IP than Nintendo themselves making any kind of push.  And still no pics of the real kiosk?  What's with that?

I'm not excited about this console, because it's merely an N64, a console with the lowest ratio of quality games since the 3DO.  I am, however, excited about the prospect of Nintendo quality applied to cheap, 'throwaway' 2D titles that may be released to prop up the library between relaunches.  IF they start digging out the archives to provide unique content it might quickly become a must-have.

L.

Well I think iQue is also the name of the company set up by Nintendo to manufacture and retail the iQue system.
It would explain why there are 2 copyrights on the box (one for Nintendo and one for iQue).
I think this has more to do with the particularities of doing business in China. I seem to remember an international business course I took (I was young and crazy) where we were told that to do business in China you absolutely needed to have a chinese 'sponsor' and set up a joint venture with them. Most of the time your chinese associate is just a wicker-man that lends his name and takes some of your profit (oddly enough a lot of powerful politicians' simblings make a living this way...corruption you said ? not if everybody else is doing it...)

What's up with the large 'DOOKIE' on the memory card PCB ? It looks very homebrewy...

I'm with you on the whole 2D catalog but didn't they re-release almost about anything on the GBA ? If they did that they would kill the GBA titles. It's actually the reason why 'A legend to the past' is not on the Zelda Classics gamecube disc...

CC

Question. Why the battery on the main board?

I think the battery is there for retaining the system settings for a short time, just like the one that was on the dreamcast PCB.
After a week of not using the system you would have to enter the system settings like date,time...

Or it could just be powering up the RAM when the power is off, so as to retain the game in memory for a few moments.
According to Lik-Sang the load times are quite significant when loading up games for the first time or after having powered off the unit (it transfers the game from flash-ROM to RAM I guess).
This battery could be there for getting around this for temporarily...


Also I find the Nintendo seal on the box very strange. That's not the US or European wording they are using...

CC

Here is the reverse side of the PCB:

http://64.94.117.185/hunterx/ique_underside.jpg

And here is some pinout info I have collected. I am no pro, so I am not sure how to call the pins:



1 ... + power (input)
2 ... + power (input)
5 ... audio left signal
6 ... audio right ground
7 ... video ground
10 ... - power (input)
13 ... audio left ground
14 ... audio right signal
15 ... video signal

I have just used a voltmeter to check the connections between the pins on the card that is included. Please note that there are signals going in (the power from the power supply) and out (video + oudio).

The rest of the pins is probably used for the multiplayer hub.

So it only does composite then? Hmmph.

Well, at least they didn't include any other cable. It's very unlikely that there is anything else "out of the box". We'll see when the multiplayer adapter is out if there are any pins left.

Lawrence: iQue is owned 50% by Nintendo and 50% by that Wai Yen guy:

From Lik-Sang:

Who the heck is Dr. Wai Yen?

Dr. Wai Yen is not a newcomer to the videogames market. He was vice president of famous Silicon Graphics and also headed ArtX, where he was primary responsible for the development of the graphics chip for the Nintendo 64. The company is called iQue Ltd, or in China also Shinyu Technology Ltd, and located in the Suzhou's Industrial Park, near Shanghai. The company is Nintendo's software manufacturing arm in China, is capitalized at $30 million, with half coming from Nintendo and half from Dr. Yen.

Hunter: That explains pretty much everything, thanks.  I recall ArtX was responsible for the GameCube's video system, where SGI did the N64 chip.

There are several unlabelled pins on that connector, I'd not be surprised to find some are S-video and some RGB.  There's enough leftover.  =)

I wonder why I've received two email reply notifications for this thread in the last week.
Are you tinkering with the forum, or is it acting up?

V, there are a couple of spam-bots that are adding responses full of advertising links to a lot of old threads. It's occurred about two dozen times to many distinct and old threads. Sorry if that's a bother, you might want to reconsider if you have e-mail notifications in your forum profile.

-KKC, doing the moderator thing.