Genesis/Megadrive Development Hardware

Discussion of development of software for any "obsolete" computer or video game system. See the WSdev wiki and ObscureDev wiki for more information on certain platforms.
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Doommaster1994
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Genesis/Megadrive Development Hardware

Post by Doommaster1994 »

Hello,
A long time ago I received some SNES development hardware from a programmer and decided I'd share pics of the stuff with you all. Here are the pics: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/81 ... e224y.jpg/
As far as I know this is just music dev hardware. Feel free to ask any questions but I'm not a programmer.
Thanks.
-Nick
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koitsu
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Post by koitsu »

First and foremost: what you have is not for the SNES or SFC. The SNES/SFC has a 62-pin cartridge connector (31 pins per side), while what you show in your photo has 64 pins (32 pins per side).

Guess what console has a 64-pin cartridge connector? The Genesis/Megadrive. This also explains why the PCBs have "Sega" silkscreened on them. So I'm curious why you posted this in the SNESdev forum -- did someone who sold you this tell you it was for the SNES/SFC? If so they either lied or were wrong.

Next: you appear to have at least two PCB/carts (I can tell from the silkscreened model numbers as well as the blue vs. black EPROM sockets). Can you please upload some higher resolution photos? The ones you've uploaded look like they were taken from a mobile phone in what I would classify as low resolution (the pictures are 640x480). I'm left wondering if they chips are either FM synthesis chips / OPL chips, especially with your claim that it's "music dev hardware". We really need to see the silkscreening, clearly, on all the non-windowed (non-EPROM) chips to know what's what. :-)

Finally, the double-ended cable you have is a 37-pin cable. Not sure what it connects to, given that I don't see a break-out socket or dongle that attaches to any of the PCBs. Possibly it went to an input device (keyboard, sequencer, etc.) if the PCBs are in fact specific to music development, or possibly it went to a special Genesis/Megadrive unit that had such a dongle on it. I only got to see later development kits (for systems like the Saturn and the original PlayStation) when I worked at Z-Axis (gaming company) briefly.

EDIT: I renamed this thread from "SNES Development Hardware", and moved it to the "Other Retro Dev" forum given that these PCBs aren't SNES/SFC dev boards.
Last edited by koitsu on Tue Aug 30, 2011 12:53 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Doommaster1994
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Post by Doommaster1994 »

The guy who gave it to me said that they were both SNES and GEN. That cord connects to the silver box not the SNES. When I get the time I can make some more pictures.
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koitsu
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Post by koitsu »

The guy who gave it to you is crazy then. The cartridge connectors on all the carts in the photos are 64-pin (32-pin per side). :-) It really is that simple.

My guess would be you have some kind of development carts -- what it's for (music vs. actual game PRG/CHR) is unknown without higher resolution photos of the non-windowed chips.

And I have no idea what "silver box" you're talking about (I see no such photo on the site), so I can't really comment on that.
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Post by Doommaster1994 »

I thought for sure that I did but looking at it, I guess I didn't. I don't know if I took pics of the boards that had the Nintendo logo on them but yeah I'll have to post that soon. The guy's supposed to give me a music program for the SNES too. That one cart says Chip Level Designs Super NES MusiCart and the other one, while it says Super Mario World is actually a prototype of Bart's Nightmare.
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Post by 3gengames »

Looks like a genesis board to me. :) Pretty cool looking one, too!
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Post by tepples »

As for the last pic: 4 pins, small gap, bunch of pins, gap, 4 pins means SNES.

The outer sets of pins are used for mapper sound, the B-Bus (separate address bus used only by addresses in $2100-$21FF), synchronization to RAM refresh, and the 21.5 MHz master clock.
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Post by Doommaster1994 »

Oh cool. I'm trying to get that MusiCart dumped. Gil said he has most of the software for it, but I turn the game on and it's giving me graphic problems. I haven't put alcohol or any liquid in it, the worst I've done is blow on the cartridge.
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Post by B00daW »

Take pictures of your graphics problems. Doesn't sound good. I saw that MusicCart with the RS-232 port on the back of it... My guess is that you have a corrupted ROM. What does it look like on the inside of that cart?

I have a Tototek SNES Flash/Dumper. I've been able to dump pretty much anything I want with a combination of UCON64 and NSRT to trim and reorder the banks of the overdumps. I'll tell you right now that standard dumping software will not allow you to dump pirates or prototypes.
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Post by Doommaster1994 »

Would a video be better?
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Post by B00daW »

Whichever is more convenient. Also pics of the inside of that MusicCat.
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Post by Memblers »

I saw pictures of some chip level designs "Art Downloader" cartridge on the Nintendoage prototype forum (don't bother looking for it, when I checked back the pictures were removed..). Wasn't able to see the top-side of the board, but from the bottom side I could see there were only narrow DIP ICs on the board, so almost definitely no ROMs were on that one. Seems it required an external control of some sort to do anything. The music one could be different, but I can only guess.

Good pictures of the board would help, video, not much.
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