Question Expansion pak workarounds.

[skywalker75]

I'm in the process of designing an N64 portable, and have stumbled on the dreaded obstacle known as the expansion pack. Not wanting to cut up a genuine one, and not wanting to fork out too much, I looked and seen some guy who soldered later revision N64 ram to the older revision, but these chips are pretty much impossible to come by. I think I know what the general answer may be, but any other workarounds that are readily available?

 

[cy]

The only real answer for this right now is to take apart two expansion paks, use their RAM and swap out the original console's RAM, or to take apart two newer revision N64s that only have one RAM chip and swap that in place of the expansion pak RAM. There has been talk in the community of purchasing these chips from a source that still makes them, but doing so would be a huge investment as they are only sold in bulk.

 

[skywalker75]

I've tried looking at motherboards, but unfortunately they're not easy to come by in the UK.

 

[cy]

Yeah, motherboards are going to be the more expensive option of the two. I've been able to get two expansion paks for around $40 USD a piece. The expansion paks should be the cheaper option of the two. Just make sure you get OEM Nintendo expansion paks and not third party expansion paks as third party paks don't usually have the 4MB RAM chips you need.

 

[skywalker75]

I guess I just find a console which includes dk64 and or mm on vinted or Facebook, just ask if they'd sell the console and pak on its own, or maybe car boot sales, easy to get a bargain because most sellers have no clue what something's worth.

 

[cy]

Yeah, that can work. Remember though that the expansion RAM does draw more power than the console's stock RAM (this will reduce your battery life by a bit). It's also only needed for like three games and a few niche homebrew apps, so you may opt to skip it if you can justify not being able to play Majora's Mask, all of Perfect Dark, DK64, and some homebrew apps on your portable.