In today's episode I am talking to Swedish homebrew hacker Konrad Beckmann. Around summer last year Konrad announced a project to create a Nintendo 64 flash cart by using nothing more complex than a Raspberry Pi Pico. Recently Konrad made big progress on his project to use a Pico to get a digital HDMI-like signal from the N64. His ethos is to find ways to hack these devices as cheaply as possible.
Konrad explains both projects to us in good technical detail. I do my best to keep up with such clever talk.
0:00 Start
2:00 Konrad's background
5:00 Why the Raspberry Pi Pico is excellent for embedded hcking
9:55 Using the Pico vs the raw RP2040 chip
14:30 The 2 versions of the PicoCart64: Easy and complex
20:00 Konrad's view on open source
22:00 When to announce an open source project?
24:00 Konrad's first computer
31:00 Sweden was rocking home internet in '95
35:00 Pico N64 digital HDMI mod
43:00 Konrad explains how 7-bit RGB works
51:00 HDMI via the Pico now has a real HDMI port
55:00 Is a external scaler the future of HDMI projects?
1:01:15 Do we need a generic N64 flex cable for other hackers?
PicoCart64 Github: https://github.com/kbeckmann/PicoCart64
N64 digital video mod work: https://github.com/kbeckmann/PicoDVI
Konrad's Discord: https://discord.gg/B8n57fGd
Twitter: https://twitter.com/kbeckmann
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Along with my friend Steve from RetroTech we maintain a blog about our projects "The Cathode Ray Blog"
https://www.cathoderayblog.com
You can find the audio on the web or your favourite podcast app
https://anchor.fm/zezretro
Catch us on Twitter
https://twitter.com/zez
https://twitter.com/usa_retro
For all your CRT repair needs, check out Steve's channel
https://www.youtube.com/c/RetroTechUSA
