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Thread: [GUIDE] Make a Reprogrammable Genesis Cart

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    Quote Originally Posted by jxmx View Post
    Hey guys .. hoping for some help here. Ive done nes and snes repros and making the jump to sega, running into a bit of a speed bump im sure im just missing something somewhere. the tutorial is pretty simple to follow. i have my GQ-4x with the ADP-054, and using ST m27c160-100 eproms ... Roms seem to burn fine (Read and Verify all 100%, no errors) i have a few games i want to do, but the 2 i tried were wily wars and zero wing. Wily Wars was patched (headers removed) with the s-ram fix plays fine at 60hz with the "fusion emulator" (however it does say checksum error) zero wing the same (headers removed, ntsc patched, plays it at 60hz) (also has the checksum error tho) seems all good. i found a ton of "NFL Football '94 Starring Joe Montana" carts. board has a battery and a few extra chips which i assume is s-ram? down loaded the joe rom and it says that it is 2048. so i assume the board will support 2MB. i thought i should be good to go. took my wily wars and zero wing (both in .bin format) burned with my programmer all seemed good. soldered to the board eprom going left.... and they both boot to black screens .. nothing... i tried with my sega2 with 32x attachment, just the sega 2 and a sega 3 all black screens.

    so i guess my questions are
    1. does the rom in .bin format need to not have the checksum error when tested with fusion (i didnt think so, i had no prob with translated snes's with checksum errors) however this is sega so it might be different. if so how is that fixed ?
    2. are my NFL Football '94 Starring Joe Montana boards usable with my m27c160s? does it support 2MB and have S-ram on it.
    3. do sega rom need to fill the eprom ? like zero wing is only 1MB so i just doubled it up to 2MB in my HEX editor. did i even need to do that ? i saw somewhere that you dont have to but i didnt think it would hurt.
    4. from what i understand in the tutorial if the board is 2MB and your eproms are 2MB .. there is no need for any rewiring ?

    im sure its something little im missing, and there are a few other things i was gonna test like seeing if i can burn the joe rom to the eprom and putting it back on the board and see if it works.
    any help or info would be appreciated. Thanx guys.
    Sorry I missed your post.
    1. No, some systems have an internal BIOS which checks the checksum byte in the header (gameboy for example) but Genny does not do this.
    2. If the Mask-ROM (original ROM) was 2MB, then it will support a 2MB EPROM without rewiring.
    3. No, they do not need to be filled, but you must make sure you do not leave any address pins unconnected. You can do it if you want to though.
    4. correct.
    Quote Originally Posted by jxmx View Post
    ahhhhhhh byteswap
    Did that fix it for you? It is the easiest to miss, but must be done with all EPROMs taht have a UV window. If it is a flash ROM, then you do not Byte swap.

    Quote Originally Posted by xIceMan View Post
    Just wanted to say that Oh Mummy is working now. The problem lies within their boot code (might be a different version for the game that's being sold). Either way, using a game genie and then starting the game somewhat bypasses the BIOS and the game works. This method might work with other protected games, too.
    Cool! I don't have a GameGenie to test something like that out on, but this reminds me of something... The Bubble Bobble game required a byte to be modified before it ran on real hardware. I should locate that old info and find out if the same fix can be applied to Oh Mummy.

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    That would be great, since I ran into a similar problem with Elf Wor/Super Magician from Gamtec. The game itself works fine in Kega Fusion (when the ROM is 1MB, since the game itself has a build in checksum routine, so it's not recommended to autofix it in any way). However, after burning the game to a 1MB EPROM it kinda glitches on the real hardware (same happens in Gens and Exodus with1 MB ROM, too). I've tried disassembling it but I'm not good with the 68k machine code yet.
    If you could figure that problem out as well, that would be great. I was about to buy the game but can't find it anywhere.

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    i have a doubt
    i burn some games on 27c400 ,others,bigger ones don´t boot ,do i need to ground A18,A19 or A20 to make them work?

    best regards

    JOSÉ

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    Only on the EPROM, do not ground pins on the carts edge. If your EPROM has left over address pins, they must be pulled low or high. Inputs can oscillate and read between different banks than the console wants.

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    Does the region of a rom have to match that of the donor cart to work?

    For instance, would there be any issues with using an NTSC rom with a PAL donor cart?

    I was going to make Pulseman (NTSC rom) using a PAL donor cart.

    Awesome guide btw, dude. Just what I've been looking for.

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    I can't see that being an issue but some games are region protected and will not work in the incorrect region, that region protection is in the rom file itself not the cart

    You can test a rom file first via emulation and manually setting the region to the same as what your real console is

    Saying that you can always mod the actual console with a region switch http://mdpal60.net/wiki/megadrive/regionmod/start

    I'm sure Jazz will verify that when he gets the chance
    Last edited by Zorlon; 15th-June-2014 at 18:58.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Zorlon View Post
    I can't see that being an issue but some games are region protected and will not work in the incorrect region, that region protection is in the rom file itself not the cart.
    I assumed as much. Just thought I would ask before I go ahead with it.

    Thanks for the link to the console mod, looks very simple to do.

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    Quote Originally Posted by SUPERABOBO View Post
    Does the region of a rom have to match that of the donor cart to work?

    For instance, would there be any issues with using an NTSC rom with a PAL donor cart?

    I was going to make Pulseman (NTSC rom) using a PAL donor cart.

    Awesome guide btw, dude. Just what I've been looking for.
    Nothing to worry about. All of the cart technologies are the same from cart to cart. As Zorlon said, all of the region checking will occur in your console itself.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jazzmarazz View Post
    Nothing to worry about. All of the cart technologies are the same from cart to cart. As Zorlon said, all of the region checking will occur in your console itself.
    Great stuff. That also makes hunting for donor carts much easier too

    Do Genesis roms not have any headers that need removing before programming like SNES roms?
    Does it matter what format the file is in? Is .Bin fine?

    Thanks again for your help.
    Last edited by SUPERABOBO; 15th-June-2014 at 19:44.

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    Quote Originally Posted by SUPERABOBO View Post
    Great stuff. That also makes hunting for donor carts much easier too

    Do Genesis roms not have any headers that need removing before programming like SNES roms?
    Does it matter what format the file is in? Is .Bin fine?

    Thanks again for your help.
    No stripping required. The Genesis actually requires the "header" to be present since it checks for the SEGA string.
    Just be careful with MD/SM/BIN converters. They make modifications specially for emulators and could render the ROM file unplayable on real hardware. I prefer BIN format.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jazzmarazz View Post
    No stripping required. The Genesis actually requires the "header" to be present since it checks for the SEGA string.
    Just be careful with MD/SM/BIN converters. They make modifications specially for emulators and could render the ROM file unplayable on real hardware. I prefer BIN format.
    Ah nice, Good to know.

    Is it best pad out a rom to fill out the Eprom?

    Looking at Panorama Cotton which is 2.5MB, should I pad it to 4MB to fill a 27C322, or does it not matter?

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    Quote Originally Posted by SUPERABOBO View Post
    Ah nice, Good to know.

    Is it best pad out a rom to fill out the Eprom?

    Looking at Panorama Cotton which is 2.5MB, should I pad it to 4MB to fill a 27C322, or does it not matter?
    Short answer, no; only if you want to.
    Long answer, : the Genesis, unlike the gameboy, does not read every byte to create a checksum of sorts. Granted you have all of the addressing pins on your Eprom connected to an output, those bytes will never be accessed, so the data is unimportant.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jazzmarazz View Post
    Short answer, no; only if you want to.
    Long answer, : the Genesis, unlike the gameboy, does not read every byte to create a checksum of sorts. Granted you have all of the addressing pins on your Eprom connected to an output, those bytes will never be accessed, so the data is unimportant.
    Well thats a switch. I'm that used to padding roms for NES and SNES I thought Gen games would need padding also.

    Thanks for your help, dude.

    Having some problems programming 27c322 chips. 27c160 programmed no problem, the 322's seem to program ok yet gives me an error when they try to verify. But yet looking at the data buffer it seems like they programmed ok? Really strange.

    Everything is setup correctly, dip settings, jumpers, the lot. Only thing I can think of is that maybe it's the AC adaptor, just checked it and it's 9V. Using the same software as you btw.
    Last edited by SUPERABOBO; 17th-June-2014 at 16:48.

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    Quote Originally Posted by SUPERABOBO View Post
    Well thats a switch. I'm that used to padding roms for NES and SNES I thought Gen games would need padding also.

    Thanks for your help, dude.

    Having some problems programming 27c322 chips. 27c160 programmed no problem, the 322's seem to program ok yet gives me an error when they try to verify. But yet looking at the data buffer it seems like they programmed ok? Really strange.

    Everything is setup correctly, dip settings, jumpers, the lot. Only thing I can think of is that maybe it's the AC adaptor, just checked it and it's 9V. Using the same software as you btw.
    Im sure you did everything correctly, the problem is the programmer itself. I for example, never got a 322 programmed successfully. The Willem does a few things well, and other things terribly. If you plan to do this much more often, I suggest buying a different programmer. GQ programmer or Willem "True-USB" are apparently much better than the Parallel programmers. I wish I could sell mine and buy a more expensive one.

    hIt seems like half of my 1MByte 16-bit eproms burn correctly and 0% of the larger ones program successfully. When programming 8-bit eproms, all work perfectly well. It is just that your programmer is cheap. :/

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jazzmarazz View Post
    Im sure you did everything correctly, the problem is the programmer itself. I for example, never got a 322 programmed successfully. The Willem does a few things well, and other things terribly. If you plan to do this much more often, I suggest buying a different programmer. GQ programmer or Willem "True-USB" are apparently much better than the Parallel programmers. I wish I could sell mine and buy a more expensive one.

    hIt seems like half of my 1MByte 16-bit eproms burn correctly and 0% of the larger ones program successfully. When programming 8-bit eproms, all work perfectly well. It is just that your programmer is cheap. :/
    Yep, the programmer is complete junk and so is the software.
    I bought the Willem as it was the only programmer I could find that had a 16-bit 42dip adaptor. I usually use my Genius G540 for programming NES and SNES eproms, it has never never failed me once, but sadly it doesn't support 16-bit 42dip Eproms. After hours of messing I managed to get only a few 27c322's programmed with the Willem. The settings are all correct yet it seems total hit or miss if it programs or not. I have not had any problems with 27c160 eproms so far.

    The verify step after programming is also completely useless. A chip will fail to verify, remove it and pop it back in and it will suddenly verify without any errors.

    The GQ's are very expensive but seem like they are worth looking into as the Sivava Willems are complete junk.
    Last edited by Zorlon; 19th-June-2014 at 20:58.

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