Making SEGA Genesis cartridges

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pbj:
So, here's a BYOAC World Exclusive. ::)

I've been badgering the Red Miso team for months and finally got one of their programmers to indulge me. We went through..... many.... ROM revisions, but now we've got Sonic Hellfire Saga booting and saving on original hardware. Every EPROM I own is currently being rotated through my Easy UV Bake oven this evening.

Sadly it's not saving on my French Ultimate Console boards, but it works perfectly on my arch nemesis the World Series Baseball 96 PCBs.

So if you want to find out how much I love you, ask me to make you one.

:lol

They should be releasing the new version soon. There's some bug fixes bundled into it, too.

:cheers:

Malenko:

--- Quote from: pbj on May 01, 2023, 07:07:38 pm ---So if you want to find out how much I love you, ask me to make you one.

--- End quote ---
I cant wait till it shows up in the mail, and I love you too.

pbj:
So, I just spent a… lot… on World Series boards and it turned out the issue with my Ultimate Console PCBs was a lack of a reset line to the 74LS74 chip.

Still working with the Hellfire people to get it saving on these French boards but now I’ve got Sonic Complete and Cave Story saving correctly.

pbj:
So, I messaged the guy that designed the PCBs and he says he has a personal copy that’s correct and what’s posted wasn’t the latest revision. I found it simultaneously funny and sad that nobody has noticed this mistake in 7 years. Really drives home what a tiny niche I’m living in.

Anyway, he claims tying pin 1 of the 74LS74 to Vcc will also make it work, but that some games may require it be tied in to the VRES line found on B27 of the cartridge. I’ve already damaged my cartridge slot with jumper wires on the edge connectors (one of my female pins is now a folded over scrap of capacitor leg), so I am really trying to avoid doing that more. So I may revise the Gerber files to either add this line to the chip, or at least a decent solder pad for a jumper wire safely removed from the male edge connector.

That being said, there’s a million places to tap into Vcc, including pin 14 of the same 74LS74. I’ve done that and tested Cave Story, a new Hellfire Saga revision, and Sonic Complete. All three saving correctly. The poor Hellfire saga programmer is learning that the true hellfire was all the UV light I erased those EPROMs over and over in again along the way. They should be releasing what I like to call the “shut pbj the ---fudgesicle--- up” revision publicly soon.

What this means is that the… let’s call it… sure… $50.. yeah… just $50 I blew on more copies of World Series Baseball 95 and 96 this weekend wasn’t needed. And I also don’t have to desolder 84 pins unless I really want to.

But it also means I can make these from entirely new boards and components and no longer have to kill old games.

So here’s your first look at an entirely new (okay the eprom is 25 years old) Hellfire Saga. This has been fun and I’ve come a long, long way…

:cheers:

bobbyb13:
100% awesome.

Makes me want to buy a Genesis and support your fledgling business.

How much ya gonna charge per cart to recoup development costs on your (ahem...) what, $100 now total in otherwise old neglected pcb carcasses?!

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