Raspberry Pi Pico Replaces PlayStation Memory Card

It’s nearly laborious to imagine lately, what with trendy recreation consoles packing terabytes of inside storage, however there was a time when the totality of your gaming profession could be saved on an exterior reminiscence card that held just some megabytes of save knowledge. After all, earlier than that you just needed to write down a sequence of random letters and numbers to choose up the place you left off, however that’s a narrative for an additional day.

Whereas the reminiscence card idea is likely to be quaint to the fashionable gamer, its modular nature does present the hacker with some attention-grabbing avenues to discover. For instance, take a look at the very impressive PicoMemcard project from [Daniele Giuliani]. {Hardware} sensible, it doesn’t get a lot less complicated than this. You simply take the PCB from an inexpensive (or useless) PlayStation reminiscence card, and solder seven jumpers to the sting connector contacts so you’ll be able to plug them into the Pico. Then you definitely’ve simply received to add the firmware to the Pico, and also you’re executed.

So what do you get on your troubles? Nicely for one factor, a completely useful PlayStation reminiscence card. However extra importantly, a reminiscence card with a USB interface that means that you can backup your saved video games to the pc.

Naturally you too can write new save information to the Pico from the pc, which opens up every kind of potentialities. As we’ve coated prior to now, there are ongoing efforts to exploit the PlayStation’s copy protection system utilizing carefully crafted save games. The PicoMemcard will let you simply get these saves by yourself console, permitting you to affix in on the enjoyable.

Don’t wish to trash an current reminiscence card? [Daniele] is engaged on a customized PCB that implements an appropriate edge connector, which means you’ll now not want the sacrificial card. Whereas not at the moment carried out, the board design additionally consists of an SD slot, which ultimately ought to enable the PicoMemcard to carry much more knowledge. In the event you’re nonetheless rocking the unique PlayStation in any case these years, we’d strongly suggest ordering a Pi Pico and keeping track of this undertaking. We’d recommend the same for all you Game Boy aficionados, as effectively.

Because of [Andrea Campanella] for the tip.