Modern game consoles are hard to believe these days packing terabytes of internal storage, but there was a time when the whole of your gaming carrier was stored on an external memory card that stored only a few megabytes of data. Of course, you had to write a sequence of random letters and numbers to pick out where you left off earlier, but this is a story for another day.
While the memory card concept may seem strange to modern gamers, its modular nature provides some interesting ways for hackers to explore. For example, check out the very impressive PicoMemcard project [Daniele Giuliani]. In terms of hardware, it’s never been easier. All you have to do is grab a PCB from a cheap (or dead) PlayStation memory card and solder seven jumpers to the edge connector contacts so you can plug them into Pico. Then you need to upload the firmware to Pico and you’re done.
So what do you get for your troubles? For one thing, a fully functional PlayStation memory card. More importantly, a memory card with a USB interface that lets you back up your saved games to your computer.
Naturally you can also write new save files from computer to Pico, which opens up all sorts of possibilities. As we’ve covered in the past, there are ongoing efforts to use PlayStation’s copy protection system using carefully crafted save games. PicoMemcard will allow you to easily get these reservations on your own console, allowing you to join the fun.
Don’t want to trash an existing memory card? [Daniele] Working on a custom PCB that applies a suitable edge connector, which means you will no longer need a Sacrificial Card. Although not currently implemented, the board design also has an SD slot, which will eventually allow PicoMemcard to hold more data. If you’re still rocking the original PlayStation after all these years, we strongly recommend ordering a Pi Pico and keeping an eye on this project. We would recommend the same for all your Game Boy lovers.
Thanks [Andrea Campanella] For the tip