I have a dream for the Genesis. Meet the "Sega Fusion Rising".

Hey every one. I'm new here. I signed on to share some ideas I have for the the classic Sega Genesis or Mega Drive for you outside the USA. The idea comes from a video on YouTube called: "Sega Fusion" by user thomas3120. The Fusion is a combination 16 bit Genesis, 32X, and CD system rolled into a Saturn case. I thought I would copy his design and improve it with some additional features. I don't have all the stuff right now but will get it over a few months. My project will be called the "Sega Fusion Rising". Here are the details as well as some ideas I may use. May not...

Remember having lots of games for your console and having to turn it off and switch the cart out for a new game? I sure do. Pain in the rear. Enter the Everdrive MD (for Mega Drive, the other name for the Genesis). This cart is a flash cart. You put up to a 32 Gb SD card in and put your ROMs or apps on it. A menu lets you select your game or app of choice. If done right, it is possible to put every Genesis ROM in the world on it. All of Sega's Genesis days in 1 cart. This cart also supports the Master System, CD system, and 32X system (with the correct add on parts). The only game this cart won't play is Virtua Racing because of extra video hardware the game cart has in it. I'm sure a lot of you know about it already.

I also want to make the Everdrive hidden inside the case. Make it to where it is connected to the Sega connector as well as the original slot connector is usable. After watching a NES mod video showing a Fanicom adapter being hard wired to the cart connector making both the original and Fanicom connectors usable, I realized that both slots can be wired up to the points on the main board. To combat the problem of having both slots filled when you turn it on and messing things up, the power and ground wires will be isolated and run through switches to only allow power to one slot at a time. If this works the way I think it will, then it is possible to have as many cart slots as you want on the system. Just make sure all the others don't get power while the one you want to play has power to it. Other planned things will be component video out, stereo out through the CD base, overclock, region mods, BIOS hacks, the 32X inside the main unit, one power adapter for it all, the still unreleased Mega Everdrive flash cart for the second cart slot or the current version if I get impatient (there will be no second slot, it will be hard wired in... I think...), custom paint job later on in the build (I'm no painter so it will be simple, give me some ideas), the controls for the console on a cord to a remote box, and if what I hear is right, then I will have every Genesis, 32X, Master System, and possibly Game Gear game in the flash cart on 2 very large SD cards. If it will support it, then the main SD card will be the new 128 GB one and the micro one will be 64 GB. Surely that will hold all the games in the Sega universe up to the Saturn. Hold both original and hacked ones. This flash cart may get an emulator for the '80s NES in it running on a FPGA (look it up if confused). If so, there's a whole 'nother world of ROMS that will need to be downloaded. The CD system will probably get an idea mentioned next.

I have another really cool idea for this project that can be implemented in any other optical disk based device. My idea is to make the disk drive into a changer. I don't mean one of those simple little 5, 6, or even 10 disc changers. Not even close. I'm talking like 200, 300 or even up to 400 disks (400 capacity is the largest I can find). This idea will take a lot of understanding of electronics and mechanics to work right. I want to use this as a second CD drive for my "Fusion Rising " project to hold every Mega CD game out there, original and hacked games each on it's own disk. Be warned, these changers are quite huge.

This works by taking all of the electronic controls off of the disk changer and leaving just the servos for the disk movement operation, the ones that spin the storage rack and drop the disk onto the player. Next, I will need to mount the disk drive out of a Sega CD system. I suggest a model 2 because they have a mechanical door that you open by hand, no electronics involved. The model 1 drive had an electric sliding drive door that was controlled by the Genesis console's reset switch and will be harder to make work. Using the model 2, the only electric that will need to be modified will be the connectors for the data transfer to the Genesis and the door open switch will need to be moved or replaced to work with the mechanism that lowers the disk onto the drive. This way, when a disk is loaded up, the Genesis see it as "door closed". When the disk is put back in storage and no other is selected, the Genesis sees this as "door open".

To control the movement of the disk rack, I plan on using an Arduino (look it up if confused). It will control the motors that move the rack and lower selected disk onto the drive. Still need to figure out the sensor for knowing what disk position the rack is at. Maybe a magnet based one for a full 360 degree rotation and no wires to bind up. Potentiometers have limited movement. Maybe I can use ones that have full 360 degree rotation capability. Control will be a standard 12 button keypad like in house alarm control pads with an LCD screen to display the # of the current disk selected and maybe even show the game title. Also plan on a remote to do the same thing from the comfort of the couch. Because I plan on using an Arduino, it will also be re programmable for if the collection changes or more disks are added.

As I already said, this idea can be used for any disk driven device. The ones that have a button and a motor to open up the disk tray will be harder to do because this ejecting function will no longer be used. Might be able to hook it to the Arduino as another control input to activate the changer's disk return to storage operation. May even be able to use the servo from the device for this operation.

Well, there you have it. Imagine your game console having 400 games right there able to load at the push of a few buttons. There are players with this high capacity storage for CD, DVD, and even Blue Ray already out there. This would be more for a computer drive or game consoles like the X Box, PS3, and maybe the Wii. You will also need a cheat sheet since remembering what game is at what position # will be impossible with 400 disks.

I know this is a very long post but there is a lot of things going on with this. I'll make updates once I get to building. Look for updates in a few months on my YouTube channel. Look for MegaSonicdude10.

 

Hum..

Removing the power from each slot is not enough. If the other signals are still connected to whatever is present on the slot then it's going to "steal" current from them and partially power the device that should be offline (or fully, if its just a simple rom). This is bad cause it will weaken or kill the signal making the entire system inoperable. You need to physically remove every signal using buffers or transceivers..

Also, replacing those old 7805s to a switching regulator is going to help a bit in terms of heat dissipation and allowing the power to be smaller.
:flamethrower:

Other than that... well good luck

 

Have any suggestions for a switching device for the slot idea anyone? I really want this to work and be right. My genesis is a model 2 revision 1.8. Any suggestions for upgrades to make it perform better? I already know about overclocking and the audio problems. I don't think I can overclock it with the 32X and CD attached, can I? The audio will be corrected by using the output from the CD. It seems to be corrected there and puts the audio out from 16 and 32 bit games as well. I don't know about the 7805. Need to look into this more and figure out what it is.

 

The 7805 is a 3 leg chip attached to a piece of aluminium. In your case its an MD2, it shouldn't get too hot (not as bad as the MD1) but it could be a problem if you stick a ton of things around the heatspreader

For giving/taking power from the slot, a PMOS transistor is the best. The other signals, you have buffers and transceivers from the 74HC series...
74HC244 and others, that disconnect the device from the bus.

 

And this should allow for the multiple cart slot idea to work?

 

Yes, maybe except the 32x. I don't know if you can power cycle it while the MD keeps on, or if it needs the entire system to boot again.

 

My plan was to have a switch to manually select the cart. The system would be powered off of course. I just need to know what lines will need to be disconnected from the cart to allow the second one to boot and function properly. I'm hoping it won't be all of them. That would be a hard to find switch. Even harder to make a circuit to do the switching. I can do it. I just need to understand every last bit of how the system runs. A complete breakdown of hardware and communication parameters. If anyone knows where to find these, then I will decipher them and see if it is possible to make my multiple cart slot idea work and if it does, I will share what II come up with. There was a pirated sega genesis called the Scorpion XVI that some versions of had this built in. Some models had a second cart slot hidden inside the unit. It was set up so that it would boot that hidden one by default. If another cart was plugged into the top, it booted that one instead of the hidden one. I want to implement that feature into my build. If anyone can find a Scorpion XVI or its brothers with that option let me know. I am willing to pay a good price for one. If anyone also knows how the hidden cart slot works on these models, please let me know. I would like to know the schematics, parts used, and if there is any special programming involved. I really want to make this a neat add on for any model genesis. If it is possible, I want this to work through the 32X connector.

 

<don't read if you're under 18, preserve your youth>



Since you're drumming up interest, why should I care? Anyone can dream up grandiose projects. Even should you finish this there's little chance people will care too much. Nobody can buy it. It's a little too complicated for an Instructable. People say "hmm, cool" and then go about their life. Will it be worth it then? Maybe you're doing it to further your skills. Certainly you'll learn a few things, but nothing that you couldn't otherwise learn in your first year of EECS. Maybe you'll make an easy site like Hackaday and impress a bunch of people by your obscure passion since clearly it's a lot of work which can always be respected. Something that you perhaps haven't considered is that you won't impress everyone on technical prowess and you might get some comments like "wow, look at this n00b hack monstrosity". Maybe today "Sega Fusion Rising" sounds like a really cool and original idea to you, but clearly you still have a lot to learn, more than a lot really, and by the time it will take you to learn this stuff I think there's little chance you'll still feel the same way about the project.

 

Of course not knowing exactly whats needed for a project like this to work helps having delusional ideas, like: "I want an epic saturn that can read a game out of a big collection from a bluray disc while having HDMI output and all sorts of shiny things, etc.." But after realizing the amount of knowledge/work/time required, projects like this usually end up ultimately canceled (most of the time with nothing or very little work done).

But hey, if he has strength to continue, gather peoples' interest and make a couple of units, maybe he could make some moneys here..


This kind of hapenned to me, I wanted to build an awesome neptune that had HDMI output without video signal conversion from the MD side, but after seeing the bigass FPGA I needed and the headaches I was going to suffer analysing the MD digital pixels and crap, I decided to make a standalone upscaler instead (and the neptune is done too)

 

Calpis, you know nothing about me. I'm not doing this to impress anyone. This is for me and sure, I'll be putting this on the internet for anyone else interested but that is not my main goal. My main goal is to create a better system than the monstrosity that the 32X CD Genesis was for my own use. To make it a little more portable and simpler to use. I am a retro gamer and these are the systems I game on. Been doing it for over 15 years and I'm only 22. My obsession with this idea dates back 4 years so there is no chance for me losing interest. One of my hobbies is collecting and doing stuff to classic game hardware. I'm also autistic and that helps to drive my interest. Yeah, I don't know much about this system's inner workings, but I WANT TO LEARN!!! So your comment is invalid. I just need some help on some of the more involved mods. If you don't like it or want to share ideas, then don't bother coming here or posting on my thread. This is serious and WILL be done despite what you say. I'm sure you have interests that other people will look at and ask "WHY?!" So leave me alone if your going to be negative. I don't care for it.

 

Thanks for that Jorge Nuno.

 

All lines used by each "slave" should be disconnected to prevent excessive loading. In case of the 32x is the entire cart slot basically..

However with a simple game cart, all you need to do is break the /CE_0 and pull it high. The game rom will then be in powerdown (powered, but in inactive state) You must not remove power in this particular case or else the rom will steal power from the data lines...

 

I'm thinking of using NMOS transistors so that the selected cart will be on when the power is on.

 

NMOS won't work so well unless you drive the gate above 5V+Vth

 

That was the plan. Have a +5V regulator dedicated to this. Maybe your right on using PMOS transistors. Use less current this way. It will also guard against any data signal that could possibly spike above +5V.

 

Indeed I don't, but I read posts like this biweekly. Maybe you're the exception to the rule, and if that's the case I do consulting.

Anywho, it doesn't make any sense to gate power for only two carts, or probably even 10 low-current MD carts.

The MD has an open-collector cart detect signal. That is how the Scorpion et al will switch slots. This signal can drive a decoder which further gates the secondary slot's control signals. Putting two cartridge buses in parallel doubles the bus capacitance which may or may not be an issue, if it is then you'll have to increase the bus' driving ability with buffers or gate the busses with buffers as Jorge mentioned. With a lot of slots you'd probably want to buffer each output, multiplex the inputs and decode transceivers for the data bus.

Data signal overshoots aren't a concern, and I don't understand how a power switching transistor will protect against anything. Generally power rails don't need protecting, I/Os do.

 

I just plan on 2 slots. One for the original connector and the other for the Everdrive flashcart. Would love the Mega version if whats his name would get it finished. I'm hoping that this simple detect signal can be manipulated enough to make this work just like the Scorpion. My "hidden game" will be the Everdrive. Top slot empty to function like normal. My only problem is that this will all be running through a 32X too. and I don't think it has the open-collector signal does it? If it does, then it will make thing easier. If not, time for a massive board of switching transistors to gate all of the I/O signals.

Erm, yeah. That's what I meant. God I hope I'm thinking right hereOH:

 

I hope this works out well for you and you might want to add a few fans because it's going to generate a hell of a lot of heat.

 

I got the idea for this from YouTube user thomas3120 who created the original Fusion. His has a fan in place of the battery holder on the Saturn case he used. I will be adding some fans in custom cut outs.

 

Look at the Gray saturn casing and you will see that the early machines have a spot for an fan there. :thumbsup: