I Only Had ONE Intellivision Game… So I Built This

I had one filthy Intellivision game, Frog Bog, and a console I'd never used. So I restored the cartridge, tested the 40+ year old Mattel Intellivision, then built a Raspberry Pi Pico-powered PiRTO II multicart with microSD storage. Big thanks to PCBWay for supporting this build: https://www.PCBWay.com/ - They make the BEST PCBs! The only Intellivision cartridge I could find was Frog Bog, recovered from my house fire and still covered in soot, smoke and water contamination. First we'll open it, clean the cartridge contacts, replace its ruined label and find out whether both Frog Bog and this remarkably tidy boxed UK Intellivision still work. One game doesn't make much of a software library though, so then it's time to warm up the soldering iron. I'm building the PiRTO II, an open-source Intellivision multicart based around the Raspberry Pi Pico. This version is SukkoPera's variation of Andrea Ottaviani's original PiRTO II design and adds microSD storage. Before building it I also test the three 74LVC245 bus transceivers at 3.3V, 2.5V and 1.8V. The project specifically requires LVC devices, so this gives us some confidence that the chips aren't HC parts wearing a small electronic false moustache. For firmware I'm using Minty by Gennaro Tortone, which supports this PiRTO II SD hardware and lets us load Intellivision software from the microSD card. Games tried include Frog Bog, Vectron, Astrosmash, BurgerTime, Demon Attack, Donkey Kong Junior, Carnival, Defender and Dig Dug. And yes, I definitely need a better video solution than RF... ===== BUILD THE PiRTO II ===== PiRTO II Original Raspberry Pi Pico version on PCBWay: https://www.pcbway.com/project/sharep... ===== PROJECTS & CREDITS ===== Original PiRTO II project Andrea Ottaviani / aotta: https://github.com/aotta/PiRTOII PiRTO II original Raspberry Pi Pico + microSD variation SukkoPera: https://github.com/SukkoPera/PiRTOII Minty firmware Gennaro Tortone / gtortone: https://github.com/gtortone/Minty A8PicoCart Robin Edwards: https://github.com/robinhedwards/A8Pi... PiRTO II cartridge case / remix xAD / Nightfall Crew: https://www.nightfallcrew.com/26/01/2... I used the Nightfall Crew case as the starting point for my enclosure and modified it further in Tinkercad to suit this particular PiRTO II board. Huge thanks to Andrea Ottaviani, SukkoPera, Gennaro Tortone, Robin Edwards, xAD and everyone else who has contributed to these open-source projects and made builds like this possible. Please refer to the latest project documentation before building your own. Use game ROM images only where you are legally entitled to do so. No copyrighted game files are supplied with the projects linked above. ===== SUPPORT MARK FIXES STUFF ===== Patreon:   / markfixesstuff   Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/markfixesstuff Patrons help keep Mark Fixes Stuff going and get ad-free videos, usually early access, plus the exclusive Damage Report vlog. ===== CHAPTERS ===== 00:00 House Fire Intellivision Game: Frog Bog 00:56 UK Mattel Intellivision Unboxing & First Look 02:42 Restoring a Smoke-Damaged Frog Bog Cartridge 06:30 Recreating the Frog Bog Cartridge Label 09:07 Testing the Mattel Intellivision 09:33 Playing Frog Bog on Intellivision 10:08 Building a PiRTO II Intellivision Multicart 10:56 Testing 74LVC245 Logic Chips 11:42 Soldering the PiRTO II microSD Socket 13:17 PiRTO II PCB Assembly 15:36 Soldering the Raspberry Pi Pico 18:27 Completed PiRTO II Multicart Build 18:37 Installing Minty Firmware on Raspberry Pi Pico 19:08 Loading Intellivision ROMs onto microSD 19:35 First PiRTO II Multicart Boot 20:18 Intellivision Games: Vectron, Astrosmash & BurgerTime 21:16 Demon Attack, Donkey Kong Jr & Carnival 21:57 Defender & Dig Dug on Intellivision 22:24 3D Printing a PiRTO II Cartridge Case 23:30 PiRTO II Multicart Final Test 23:41 Intellivision & PiRTO II Final Thoughts 24:51 Abstract Band Names Quiz Did you own an Intellivision? Tell me which game I absolutely need to play next. And if you know a really good way of getting a clean video signal from a UK Intellivision without unnecessarily butchering the original hardware, I'm all ears. #Intellivision #RetroGaming #RaspberryPi