"SEGA Tera Drive" dev-kit and exe files working on old PCs and even DosBox :)

Heya,

I wanted to announce that (most) programs and the "dev-kit" (which sadly isnt the very real dev kit, which never got fully released) of a "SEGA Tera Drive" will run on any old PC and even in DosBox. Im still learning about this old machine and wanted to share my experiment here.

Even better if you install japanese PC DOS V on an old PC.
Even more will work then.
Thanks to Trimesh for this hint !

Below you can see screengrabs of Level, Stage, Graphic and Rule Editor and the Quadtel Memory Manager.
Loading files via the file browser of the dev-kit(s) is hard, as everything is just black.



Booting the Kanji DOS V v4 & v5 disks on a Toshiba Satellite 220CS with 120MHz, partly works, but it wont find / install the DBCS font file(s) and the fontsubsytem and still crys for Japanese DOS, even if it already (partly) booted. Probably a BIOS related problem. Ill try again.

As it is a IBM 3270 PC (Typ 5271), you cant just "flash" its BIOS to any oldskool PC EEPROM.
I already found emulators of a IBM 3270...they all cost money and Im not sure it will be of any use (yet).

Feel free to check some info about IBM 3270 on wikipedia :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_3270
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Kanji_System​

This is how the DOS V disks will look when booting :



As you can see, 1st thing it checks is the mainboard.
On v4 I will get even further booting, but you cant read anything and get some red symbols (warning?) where the boot process stops.

Feel free to read more about DOS V and its fonts here :
http://elm-chan.org/docs/dosv/fontx_e.html​

A menu.bat that starts right after booting. It will start different exe files, but not all of these exe files will work and some result into screens like this :



I will look for sounds, graphics and hexedit the exe files some more and will also try to boot a full system from HDD on a retro Sony VAIO laptop, if I finally recieve the new power adaptor for it, already expecting the "Not a WD76C10 Board" error. ;p

Anyway, I hope to be able to start up the original menu one day.

Nemesis made a TeraDrive HDD dump public here :
http://assemblergames.com/l/threads/dos-v-tera-drive-hdd-image.58953/

 

WD76C10 is an old system controller chip - I guess it wanted to fiddle with something to get the expanded memory working.

The (pre DOS/V) Japanese kanji package needed 480 line EGA support - it won't work on a standard 350 line EGA display or on VGA, although I vaguely remember someone patching it to enable it to work with the 640x480x4bpp VGA mode. DOS/V should work on any machine that supports VGA.

 

I wonder how that patching looked like, because it says :

The font driver ($FONT.SYS) manages the Kanji font. It loads the font files to the memory on start up and it works as a font server via system BIOS (INT 15h). The font data amounted to 200K bytes is placed on EMB memory, so that it does not consume conventional memory but the DOS/V requires 80286 or higher.

So, "just" a font server beeing loaded...but via BIOS. Maybe univesa can help here ? I need to read more.

There also was PC98 by NEC, even as Laptop :
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC-98

it was using :
FONTPSE.EXE (EMS Loader for Kanji Font)
FONTPSX.EXE (XMS Loader for Kanji Font)
NEC16X16.FNT (as font)

I also had these disks ready once...need to google again.

 

I think there are two distinct issues:

1) The expanded memory manager you're loading was designed to work with that specific system controller chip, and since it can't find it the expanded memory is disabled. Since the font loader loads the data into extended memory, you will have to find an extended memory handler that will work on the hardware you have.
2) The font driver used that non-standard 480 line EGA mode - so if the video card/monitor can't handle it, it can't set the video controller to the correct display mode, and hence won't load.

This patch addressed the second issue - it patched the init code to use the VGA 640x480 16 color mode, and also changed the font drawing routines to work with VGA (which, at a hardware level is similar, but not identical, to EGA) - it still needed a compatible expanded memory driver simply because the font data is large.

If you can find PC DOS5.x/V then it should work without patching on any machine that supports VGA.

 

Thank you TriMesh, I have the 5 disk version of PC DOS 5.x/V here. Even MS DOS 6.22 which I didnt know that it existed in japanese.

I will try the installation of PC DOS 5.x/V as soon as the power adaptor for the VAIO arrives.

p.s. (I had to try the 1st disk on the Toshiba)
Already looking good. But I dont want to torture this old fellow anymore. The graphics look strange, as if vertical lines are missing and the Toshiba is my beloved DOS machine already, that I dont want to loose, as it has SB Pro.






Now I can try all the non working exe files from the Tera Drive!

 

It looks like it's putting the video card into a mode which doesn't match the resolution of the panel - ugly, but not likely to harm anything.

Looking at the first screen, it seems to be loading the display driver and IME correctly, so the hardware must be compatible.

 

Ok, 1st quick tests of the applications that asked for japanese DOS :

After booting : (Shift-F9 exits to command prompt)





A texteditor, if I googled right :






Not sure :




The working Tetris game example, that didnt look correct in DOSBOX :




Memory Manager fails to install :




IBM Multiplan (later Microsoft Excel):






Another folder with 4 game exe files will just reboot the laptop.
Next step will be trying to boot the original HDD image.


p.s.
"Normal" DOS programs and games run just fine, but Norton Commander for example will show a crazy ANSI flickering massacre.

 

I have a question a little off topic but How much would you consider a good deal for a teradrive computer system?ive been looking on ebay and yet they are worth thousands of dollars.

 

To be honest, I dont know what would be a fair price. But I also see them for 1500 $ to 3000 $ on eBay now and then.
Probably not the best idea to buy around christmas.

back to topic :
DOS tool "ScreenThief" is working and I could save some art in its original resolution :




I also stumbled across the cdram.exe :



Now I know the CD ROM (Mega CD) never was released for the Teradrive and only 2 prototypes existed according to http://segaretro.org/Teradrive.

So what about this tool/loader and who would SILKA (Lily of The Valley) be ?

The exe file says :
PRODUCED BY OR UNDER LICENSE FROM SEGA ENTERPRISES Ltd

 

Several sources on the net say no known dev software was known to exist for the Teradrive, so I'm surprised to see there's all these programs here. Is this new?

 

When I learned about the TeraDrive for the 1st time in the 90s, an ad in a german computer magazine, called ASM - Aktueller Software Markt (Current Software Market), it was announced like something around the lines "Even create your own game"...or so...but I could be wrong.


This thread also says it is true and does show magazine scans of the SDK :

http://assemblergames.com/l/threads/teradrive-sdk.22709/

All the screens I post are indeed "old" programs from the 90s, but it seems noone has done so before.

Nemesis made a TeraDrive HDD dump public here :
http://assemblergames.com/l/threads/dos-v-tera-drive-hdd-image.58953/

Its all spread fragments and a mess, but it is fun to explore the "deleted" stuff and very interesting :

#isho.dic
contains the mentioned serial numbers and all kind of TeraDrive Models enlisted.
Probably fragments of a IBM Multiplan format, like some of the others, if not the japanese Lotus 1-2-3.
The word SONY shows up a lot...

#gbdosv.sys
contains all text from the game SIM CITY and enlists the TERRAIN EDITOR as well.
There are many references to the assembler and C files enlisted, probably the whole source code of SimCity.
Which got released in 2008 anyway, but this 90s version could be truly different.

Its a "DOS-V Version By Kiyotaka Kono"


#agepro.exe
references to:
C:\123\DAYLY\MASTER'S.WJ2
C:\123\DAYLY\INPUT'S.WJ2 (jap. Lotus 1-2-3)
C:\HG3\DATA\ROCKTOP.PCC (HGcopy utility)

_________________________________________________________________________


The music files dont look like the MegaDrive CYM format. The file header starts right with the instruments. Anyone got an idea ?






There are many many patterns that look and feel like parts of graphics, layouts and / or music...but as mentioned, it is a mess.

 

Perhaps this is a stupid question that has already been asked/answered, but all these dev tools... Are they for producing actual binaries that work on a Sega Genesis/Megadrive? Or are they just unique tools for creating games that only run on the computer?

 

All these screens show "Puzzle Construction".
1. Background graphics / 2. Characters (blocks) / 3. Screen layout / 4. Sound / 5. Rule settings / 6. Stage settings

In "Cominng Soon" at the bottom it talks about "Page Pro", "communications" (online) software, and mentions that "Shooting Construction" (ie. for shmups) is being planned.

http://hello.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/i4004/1008492375/
Here it says there was no SDK released, and that, as they were licensing it to developers, Sega wouldn't make the documentation publicly available. It also says that libraries allowing the MD functions to be accessed by Turbo C, etc, were made available unofficially via TERA NET.

 

Thank you for posting that information dr.slump.

Be aware, some of the links are not safe for work as they consist of softporn. ;p
http://hello.2ch.net/test/read.cgi/i4004/1008492375/

Even if I could only do a rough translation via google, the word leakage and TERA-NET could be found close to each other, together with an old TERA Drive Site by sega, that can still be viewed by using "waybackmachine" :



http://sega.jp/community/segahard/md/tera.html

Im not sure of the rest as I only did a quick check and I expected to find some sega video when trying to open the link from the discussion (fuzokudx.com) for example, but it was some japanese soft pornographic material.
A lot of the links are dead or no longer accessible because of robots.txt.

You are probably right with the puzzle construction set NOT beeing the dev kit, hmmmm...



A lot of "Page Pro" and "Modem Software" remnants can be found inside the harddisk image as well.



p.s.
It seems to be there was a life after TERA-NET called "http://www.after-tera.net/". But you can only find remnants via waybackmachine. Still, very interesting !

So, this probably was the login page of TERA-NET:

 

I found a file-index on after-tera.net and was able to rescue some files (red area, lower left) and tried to contact "craftmade" via mail, hotmail and icq :




p.s.
meehhh, User compmike19 posted about these files in 2011 already :

http://assemblergames.com/l/threads/sega-teradrive-software.34507/

 

No problem. "leakage" is a mistranslation, that's not what it says.

Mentions of TERA-NET:
- One guy implies he downloaded a Sonic game from it
- Someone asks if anyone played the Dragon Quest clone with Sonic music
- "If you used the VDP libraries from TERA-NET (which was run directly by Sega), you could output to the MegaDrive VDP from the DOS/V side. If you fiddled about with it a bit it was a very interesting machine."
- Wherever possible everything was moved to after-tera.net
- A few people mention learning a lot from "a certain Mr. F"
- Someone mentions using info from it to add a 486 accelerator, more RAM, etc.
- Even at the time, a lot of people were unaware of the possibilities for the machine that TERA-NET granted

Good luck contacting craftmate!