I'm making progress on my portable Nintendo 64 project.

I got curious about my Eyoyo monitor. It's been flickering. Is there something wrong with it? Lemme void the warranty and open it up.

Eww, what's that yellow and black goop around the capacitors? Are those capacitors leaking, or is that factory glue? It doesn't look like glue to me. IDK if I should repair this, or just buy a new display. This one cost me $35 used. They go for $60 new. Would I be paying that much in capacitors? IDK. It still works and it only flickers when it's not displaying video so I'm putting that off for now.

Also I got thinking, could I automate the display input switching? It's kind of a pain in the ass to switch inputs on this thing. There are four inputs. AV, VGA, HDMI, and Ypbpr. Switching inputs takes about 5 seconds inbetween cycling through each input. Painfully slow, and I often click too many times and miss the input I want so I have to cycle through them a second time.

Could I perhaps hack into this thing using what looks like a JTAG or UART header above the composite connector? Maybe send some commands to jump directly to the input I want? I have never done something like that, but I want to try. I would need some tools. A logic analyzer and a multimeter, I think?

Might be more trouble than it's worth, but it would be super cool to be able to automatically switch to the HDMI input when I activate keyboard or mouse mode on my Cardputer.

Oh yeah, my custom cardputer firmware! I'm super proud of this. It's purpose is to keep me informed of the recording status, because I can't see the recording computer's display while I'm playing games. (The recording PC is on the HDMI input, the N64 is on the AV input)

I split the Cardputer's display into 4 quadrants. Top left shows the currently active Open Broadcaster Studio (OBS) scene. Top right shows when OBS is recording, IDLE, or waiting for a connection. Bottom left shows audio input levels. Bottom right shows recording duration, and disk usage.

This thing is awesome! It already saved me from losing a recording session, because the live display helped me notice that the game audio source was muted.

The Cardputer has a magnetic back, so it sticks right on my recording PC, or the metal table that holds the Pelican case.

There's more! It also has shortcuts to shutdown the computer, start/stop the OBS recording. AND it has keyboard/mouse mode so I can use the Cardputer as a tiny keyboard and mouse for the recording computer. That way when I go portable, I don't need to lug around extra peripherals.

I also picked up one of these monstrosities-- Super GB Booster.

See how there's a MarioKart 64 cartridge back there?

Yeah, it's actually connected to the Super GB Booster. that's how this unlicensed hardware adapter tricked the console into booting. N64 cartridges have little chips in them that was like Nintendo's DRM. If the console doesn't detect the authentic chip, the console won't boot the game.

Super clever of the devs who made the Super GB booster, without having to pay Nintendo for licensing. Super weird to look at, though!

I had my eye on these for awhile, because it's been a fantasy of mine to play physical GB carts on a TV via N64. It works pretty well, with one huuge caveat. No gameboy audio whatsoever! Instead, you get this annoying looping song.

It's like, annoying to listen to the music, and it's annoying to play the game in silence. Ahhh, I can't win!

Anyway, the Super GB Booster is a tangent. Not work, it's just a fun distraction. I'll probably make a video about it eventually.

I FINALLY GOT A PLAN FOR POWER!

Right now, I'm tethered to the wall. That was never the goal with this project-- I want to go outside and touch grass with it!

So here's my plan. We use one of these battery power stations, which outputs DC. They are small enough to fit in the case, and have enough Watts for a few hours of play. Either a Ecoflow TRAIL 300 or Anker Solix C300. Haven't decided yet.

Then with the battery, outputting via USB-C, I can eliminate all the bulky AC wall warts and the power strip that's currently inside the case.

The monitor will need a USB-C to 5.5mm barrel connector.

And a USB-C conversion for the N64, which conveniently is super tiny compared to the original!

Finally, I managed to find a Lenovo power supply which should work with the PC. This one looks like it's designed for using a Lenovo laptop in a car, but it's the right specs for the PC in this setup so we're gonna give it a go!

Once I got the power all contained in the box, that means I can wheel it out in a random forest and play games, or find random people on the local walking trails who want to 1v1 me. No more outlets, no more extension cables! And apparently DC setups are more efficient than having to invert AC, which will be great for maxing runtime.

I'm excited about this progress!

#include "esp_app_desc.h"
#include "esp_log.h"
#include "esp_wifi.h"
#include "freertos/FreeRTOS.h"
#include "lwip/sockets.h"
#include <sys/param.h>
#include <sys/stat.h>

Rewriting Python routines into my Fortran production code. It's going well, special thanks to Claude.

Hopefully: typing shittons of git rebase -i and then some push and open some PRs for work done the past month and half.

Unfortunately also very likely, having an eye on my queue: reading lots and lots and lots and lots of diffs of 3rd party code.

tryna win the zap war

Finishing my write-ups series.

Also writing some drafts for posts and thoughts about the whole experience and generally thinking a lot about the old idea of the "desert of despair", a concept that went around a decade ago at the peak of the learn-to-code MOOCs era, and that was very relatable as I started my journey as an autodidact, and revisiting the concept in the age of LLMs.