MemCARDuino
Arduino PlayStation 1 Memory Card reader
Supported platforms:
- Arduino Uno, Duemilanove, Diecimila, Nano, Mini, Fio (ATmega168/P or ATmega328/P)
- Arduino Leonardo, Micro (ATmega32U4)
- Arduino Mega 2560
- Espressif ESP8266, ESP32 (requires additional board URL)
- Raspberry Pi Pico (requires additional board URL)
Various other boards can be supported if they have Arduino core available with SPI library with minimal or no editing to the sketch.
Warning
Some Arduino boards use 5V logic and are not recommended. Connecting it straight may shorten lifespan of your MemoryCard or damage it permanently as it is a 3.6V device. Use a lever shifter for data lines and power the memory card with 3.6 power supply.
Connecting a Memory Card to Arduino:
Looking at the Memory Card:
_________________
|_ _|_ _ _|_ _ _|
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
| Memory Card | Uno, Nano, etc | Leonardo, Micro | Mega 2560 | ESP8266 | ESP32 | Pi Pico |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1: Data | D12 | ICSP MISO | D50 | GPIO12 (D6) | GPIO19 | GP16 |
| 2: Command | D11 | ICSP MOSI | D52 | GPIO13 (D7) | GPIO23 | GP19 |
| 3: 7.6V | See 7.6V note | See 7.6V note | See 7.6V note | See 7.6V note | See 7.6V note | See 7.6V note |
| 4: Gnd | Gnd | Gnd | Gnd | Gnd | Gnd | Gnd |
| 5: 3.6V | See VCC note | 3.3V | 3.3V | 3.3V | 3.3V | 3.3V |
| 6: Attention | D10 | D10 | D53 | GPIO15 (D8) | GPIO5 | GP17 |
| 7: Clock | D13 | ICSP SCK | D52 | GPIO14 (D5) | GPIO18 | GP18 |
| 8: Acknowledge | D2 | D2 | D2 | GPIO2 (D4) | GPIO22 | GP20 |
VCC note: Memory Card is a 3.6V device. Connect it to either 3.3V provided by the board or use external 3.6 power supply.
Old Arduino uses 5V logic and it is not recommended. It may shorten lifespan of your MemoryCard or damage it permanently.
7.6V note: This is only required for 3rd party Memory Cards and knockoffs.
Use external 7.6V power supply or if you are lucky you can get by with using 5V provided by the USB.
Reading saves from a PC:
To read saves from the Memory Card to your PC use MemcardRex if you are using Windows.
Make sure to use the latest version because MemCARDuino now runs at 115200bps while older releases used 38400bps.
For other operating systems you can use a provided Python script.
Before using install pyserial:
pip3 install pyserial
Usage:
python3 memcarduino.py -p,--port <serial port> , -r,--read <output file> OR -w,--write <input file> OR -f,--format , [-c,--capacity <capacity>] , [-b,--bitrate <bitrate:bps>]
<serial port> accepts COM port names, or for linux, file references (/dev/tty[...] or others)
<output file> read from memory card and save to file
<input file> read from file and write to memory card (accepts both windows and linux file URI's)
<capacyty> sets memory card capacity [blocks] *1 block = 128 B* (default 1024 blocks)
<bitrate> sets bitrate on serial port (default 115200 bps)
This requires a serial port (/dev/ttyACM0 for Arduino uno's, /dev/ttyUSBX for others, COMX for Windows, and various for macOS).
Thanks to:
- Martin Korth of the NO$PSX - documented Memory Card protocol.
- Andrew J McCubbin - documented PS1 SPI interface.