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MegaGenesis

A collection of projects for the SEGA Genesis/Megadrive, including homebrew software, custom cartridges, hardware utilities, and experiments around SGDK.

The projects were built around the SEGA Genesis Development Kit, a very useful toolchain for creating software for the console. SGDK can be found here, and helpful tutorials are available here.

Basic Game Cart with 2 MB ROM and 8 KB RAM

To start off, I built a simple game cartridge with a 2 MB flash ROM IC and 8 KB FRAM to act as save RAM without the need for a battery. Basic game cartridge PCB
It has a 3D printed case and a custom double-sided PCB. Basic game cartridge in case
Unfortunately, the M29F160FB5AN6F2 flash IC does not support simple programming via the /WR line. Once programmed, however, it works like a simple addressable ROM IC. To program it, I built a custom flasher that uses one of the VCC and GND pin pairs on A31 and A32 for the /WR and busy lines of the flash.

Custom Cart Flasher

Custom cartridge flasher PCB
The cart flasher consists of a custom PCB and a 3D printed case. Custom cartridge flasher case
Cartridge flasher connected to a cartridge
A small Python GUI tool makes it accessible from the PC via USB. The quick-buttons area can be used for different personal macros. Cartridge flasher GUI
For simple debugging, and for checking how the console actually accesses the cartridge, I made a small sniffer adapter. Cartridge sniffer adapter

Games

I have only just started making software for the Genesis/Megadrive, so the homebrew games are not ready to show yet. I do plan to make something that uses the RTC feature.
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