You Can Now Use RetroArch to Back Up Your Video Game Cartridges

Retro gaming is more popular than ever before, with younger gamers exploring the massive library of games that were hits before they were born and older gamers revisiting old favorites or classics they missed. While I am a huge fan of playing on original hardware whenever possible, that isn’t practical for a lot of people. Thankfully, emulation is a great alternative and RetroArch has made it easy to run emulators. The challenge is where to get ROMs, which are the digital copies of game cartridges or discs. That’s why RetroArch has designed a device that you can use to create ROMs using original Nintendo 64 game cartridges.

You’re probably already aware that you can go online to find ROMs for most video games. The problem with using those is that in many places it is considered piracy to download ROMs. The specifics vary depending on where you live, but generally you can only legally download ROMs for video games of which you already own physical copies. Even if you do, you may find that it is difficult to find some games. This device lets you quickly and easily copy the ROM from an N64 cartridge. And the N64 is just the start, with plans to design similar devices that work with cartridges from other consoles. The device integrates seamlessly with RetroArch with the goal of eventually being able to play any cartridge directly, like a universal home console.

Unfortunately, details on the actual device are purposefully limited at this time. RetroArch is an open source project and it is safe to assume that this device will be released as open source hardware, too. But it isn’t quite ready from primetime yet and the developers aren’t currently revealing many details. We do know that the device is small — about the size of an N64 cartridge. Current versions of the device enclosure are 3D-printed. Inside of that enclosure is a custom PCB with an edge connector socket for the N64 cartridge to slide into. The PCB contains a powerful STM32F7 microcontroller, which is able to copy the ROM from a cartridge to a PC via USB at about 4 megabytes per second. The plan is to push that up to 4.5 megabytes per second on the final device. Those are all of the details we have for now, but be sure to follow us so you get an update where more information is released.