Saturn proof-of-concept bootloader Pseudo Saturn

Found the time to flash this thing onto a MemCard Plus and I basically had to do it blindly.

Here is my report on the experience.

My main Sat is a US model 2 with modchip and VCD card (RG-VC2) which was kept out during the flashing.
I have 2 MemCard Plus and with cafe-alpha flasher both give me 5345-4741 no matter how many times I reseated each of them.

Eventually I used Atlas SGM and blindly flashed one of them because SGM couldn't recognize the card either (5345-4741 as well but luckily it has SST29EE010 on board [they both do]). It worked.
Yay, just baffled at the 5345-4741. Even funnier once I boot into Psuedo 0.831 and select "Flash AR" I also get Unknown 5345-4741 ... go figure .... given it just booted from there I seriously doubt there are "contact" issues" more likely detection issues (code?/timing?).

Anyway region free works and of course backups work.
I tried it on another Saturn I have around and it all worked like a charm.
(only thing now I cannot go back to the original MCP code as it is not present in the Atlas disk I downloaded, maybe I should learn how to add all the files to it myself [EDIT: nevermind just made myself an Atlas SGM with the MCP.bin from cafe-alpha flasher])


Now onto VCDs, if I put a VCD in and select "Start Game" I can see that Pseudo states "attempting to start as VCD" then I get into a register dump page with "invalid instruction" or something to that regard .... guess VCD card support is not working yet.

Also not working is the "FDD Operator disk" backup (I do not have the original) .... it seems to boot fine then for a moment it flashes something on screen in japanese (pinkinsh screen like for internal Mem) and it locks onto a black screen .... something goes bad I Guess. As a general description the "FDD Operator" screen looks a lot like the default system mem manager, just in Jap only and with full support for the FDD (green screen) in addition to internal mem (pinkish screen) and cart mem (blue screen)..... and yes I do own a Saturn FDD (bought it as "broken" but it turned out it worked).


EDIT:
Finally, is it possible to have an "Exit" in the menu to go back to the "CD player"? Or it is not possible due to the way the exploit works.

[once more impressive work].

EDIT2:
I have an AR4in1Plus and that one also fails to be recognized by cafe-alpha flasher: BFBF-1212 [the onboard chips look like a pairs of 29LE020 to me ... according to here
http://www.metatech.com.hk/datasheet/sst/standard_mem_pdf/307-29xE020-3-DS.pdf
].

EDIT3: asked cafealpha to take a look, hopefully his health is improving:

http://ppcenter.webou.net/devblog/a...ash-utility-small-update-2.html#c1420415329-1

 

I'm modifying Pseudo Saturn sources to add "backup on cartridge" feature. Please give me time ... and HP ^^; and it will be ready for release

> 5345-4741


It shows the first bytes of your firmware (the first 4 bytes of SEGA SEGASATURN string), so
1. existing firmware is probably not corrupted
2. flash chip is read-only, or some address pins are not correctly connected
-> please re-try after removing and inserting your cartridge.
(please turn off your saturn before doing this)

> I have an AR4in1Plus and that one also fails to be recognized by cafe-alpha flasher: BFBF-1212 [the onboard chips look like a pairs of 29LE020 to me ...

I just made yesterday a fix for chips with BFBF vendor ID that should work for all flavours of cartridges available.
Are you OK for testing it ? If yes, I will merge changes to the latest flasher, and send firmware to you for testing.
Testing is at your own risks, but should be safe. It is not a major change, whatever.

> EDIT3: asked cafealpha to take a look, hopefully his health is improving:

Thank you !
I hope my health will improve too

 

I did, plenty of times, even the Atlas SGM flasher gives me the same 5345-4741, I simply ignore the warning and flash anyway and it succeeds, which means the cart is fine (or flashing would not work ... right?) likely an hiccup during detection.

If you can make your flasher available as an ISO I can test the detection but I will not flash my AR4n1, I need it the way it is for now, that is the reason why I am messing up with the MCPs, once PS FW has also a "go to player" option then I can consider flashing it, but for now I can at least test that your flasher does recognize the chips.

Once more, the most important thing is to take care of your health so take your time, this can definitely wait, heck it took 20Y to have the whole no-chip boot thing, it can for sure wait a few more months to be perfected.

 

This is great news! Thanks for the update!

Do you think it is possible to mod the original AR and GS firmwares to allow for using cheat codes and booting burnt images?

Hope you get better soon! XD

 

Anybody taken a look at patching multi CD games to work with Pseudosaturn or know if a patch like that is even feasible? I guess you'd be patching actual Saturn assembly. I know many would like to see Panzer Dragoon Saga eventually work with it. I wish I had the time to take a look at it...

 

Just to say that I updated my flasher utility.
BIN (for uploading without the need to burn CD-R) and ISO are available here :
flasher_20150109_beta.7z <- 2015/01/18: Removed buggy file. Please PM me if you want to me to improve this utility, and are ready for beta testing.

Changelog :
- In the case of unknown SST flash device, use default device instead of preventing from flashing.
(Atlas flasher does this, so it should be safe in most of case)
- In the case of Vendor=0x5345, Device=0x4741, display warning message and allow to flash considering it is a SST device.
(Same behavior as Atlas)
- SST device erase/write functions modified to be more like original stuff in Atlas sources.
Hope it would improve reliability when flashing to theses chips ... testing and feedback is welcome.
If it doesn't work with my flasher, but work with Atlas, I will try to modify even more to be more Atlas-like : please let me know if it is needed.

Please feel free to report if it worked (or not) with your Action Replay cartridge !
If it doesn't work, I can try to fix.

After confirmation it works fine, I will release sources and updated readme.
When reporting feedback, picture (from digital camera, smartphone, webcam, whatever) of screen displaying success/failure informations is higly appreciated.

Thanks a lot for testing !

Even if you don't want to flash your cartridge, a picture of TV screen showing vendor/device IDs and device string would help me a lot in verifying it works fine.
Changes in the flasher should fix "BFBF-1212" problem and "5345-4741" problem too.
Thank you in advance

No problem about time, I actually had some free time this morning while waiting at hospital, so I could prepare this flasher

Thank you
Since it is "only" software stuff, it may be possible, but I'm personally not interested in such a patch.
Rewriting theses features, and improving them is more interesting I think.

 

I was able to test the new flasher successfully on my MCP ("5345-4741") and it works great, I managed to go to GS1.96 then back to PS
[yeah MCPs can run GameShark 1.96 and cheat codes work too] .... success.

With AR4n1 it says "Cheap SST" and it let me proceed, I didn't flash it but there's no reason to believe it wouldn't work.

Anyway thanks a bunch, now I just need PS to support an "exit" in the menu so I don;t have to pull out the card if I want to go to the Saturn System settings/mem manager.

 

Thank you for testing, phoenixdownita !
It is good that you could fix your MCP ... on hardware side, it is just like an Action Replay without SRAM chips and paraller connection stuff, so codes/etc functions should work.

Do you confirm what was displayed ? And a picture would be appreciated too.
The flasher is coded in order to display as follow :
"5345-4741" -> "Cheap SST" (probably counterfeit chips ?)
"BFBF-1212" -> "Unknown", but allow flashing anyway


> Anyway thanks a bunch, now I just need PS to support an "exit" in the menu so I don;t have to pull out the card if I want to go to the Saturn System settings/mem manager.

Latest version supports this. Please be patient until release.

 

Try holding the L & R Shoulder Buttons on the controller before turning the Saturn on. Should put you straight into the Memory Manager menu

 

Curious as to the status of getting a compiled 0.832 bin, or if we're going to be waiting for something from CafeAlpha instead.

Also, whoever ends up working on this, is there any possible way to get a higher contrasting selection indicator for the menu system? That carat/arrow is way too close to the background color for my tastes

 

If someone flash the AR with pseudo saturn, is there a way to flash AR back to it's original firmware?

 

Yep, if you use either Atlas SGM or cafealpha flasher they both usually include original FW for AR (and GS as well, cafealpha also has MCP).

So apart from losing saved games and game codes you may have added, it's a 2 way street with no limitation (I've been back and forth with my MCP to PS, GS1.96 and MCP firmwares that I feel is easy as cake).

 

S_A_K_U_L > If you use flasher utility in post #526, I will be glad if you could report if it works correctly or not.
Flasher utility in post #526 contains Pseudo Saturn firmware, as well as various Action Replay firmwares.

 

I've been trying a couple different ones without luck so far. The Atlas one has been the closet, but when I've flashed the cart with the 831 it says "829" on the boot menu and doesn't launch any discs.
I just tried your ISO from post 526 and it has the same issues I've had with other flashers. Finishes, but then says "Write Verification Failed". Upon reboot it doesn't boot the cart.

 

Sorry for the trouble caused ! And sorry for your wasted CD-R too.
As making beta publicly available doesn't help anything about beta testing, I removed the file in post #526..
So if somebody can/want to test on real HW, please PM me.

 

Maybe your AR is using EEPROMs that the flashers do not understand.
Can you report the VendorID and ProductID that the flashers report on the screen before you actually start the process?

At worst you may need to open up your AR (it is only 2 screw) and tell us what those 2 square chips are.

Cafealpha can likely whip up a correct flasher for a new EEPROM if he knows what that is, Atlas SGM has not been updated in a while so I am not sure who to tell.

Example, my AR has "BFBF-1212" which means they are a pair of SST29LE020. I have not tried specifically to flash my AR as the flasher do not fully support it (it would work if the chips behave like a std SST29EE020 but I do not know if that is the case
http://www.metatech.com.hk/datasheet/sst/standard_mem_pdf/307-29xE020-3-DS.pdf
)

Anyway knowing what the tool report for your case would help in finding out what is going on.

 

Maybe your AR is using EEPROM that the flashers do not understand.
Can you report the VendorID and ProductID that the flashers report on the screen before you actually start the process?

At the worse you may need to open up your AR (is only 2 screw) and tell us what those 2 square chips are.
Cafealpha can likely whip up a correct flasher for a new EEPROM if he knows what that is, Atlas has not been updated in a while so I am not sure who to tell.

To cafealpha, pulling your version is not helpful because in any case the SGM would proceed assuming 29EE010 or alike so there are other avenue to mess up beside your flasher which I like very much as it states what each available FW is.

I attach here a GS 1.96 with codes that I believe is missing from your list.

 

No worries, I have a stack of CD-Rs and the Atlas disc has been perfect for always getting my AR 4M+ back to normal.

Flash Vender: BFBF-SST
Flash Device: 1010-SST29EE020

Link to a picture of the PCB
http://imgur.com/izPvN1X

 

Were there any updates that may have happened while the forum was down?

 

Nope Cyber Warrior X has not updated the source or released any binary release while the forum was down

Nothing to miss out on just yet