Radica Genesis cartridge connection SUCCESS!!!!

Post by **gannon** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 6:52 pm

well, umm....maybe...

Post by **Gamelver** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 7:21 pm

ben usually puts his announcements in forum 42, I guess it's because it's where most people go!!!!! (I'm not sure of that, but look at how many topics and posts there are!!!!!!)

JackFrost22 · Post by **JackFrost22** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 7:32 pm

Yeah Ben puts everything here even when it was POLL-O-RAMA

Post by **Sparkfist** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 7:54 pm

But this is the place for things like Poll-o-rama.

I guess your right about it being more high traffic. I dont know about other peope but on other MB I'd stay out of the forums that taked about things I had not experiance with and no interest in. But a general subject forum would fix that.

MM007 · Post by **MM007** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 8:38 pm

benheckc wrote:Some notes:

First of all I realized I've made another DUMB mistake - when I relabeled the address lines on my drawing A0-A20 I forgot A0 when counting the lines! This means the Radica has 21 address lines allowing for 2 meg games (instead of my erroneous guess of 20). So the Radica can access 2 meg games. However I don't know why some older titles (like Afterburner or Ghouls and Ghosts) don't work, I highly doubt that are even 1 meg.

I should have realized this stupid mistake when games like EWJ2 and Batman & Robin (clearly not 1 meg games) were working.

So this DOES NOT invalidate the pinouts I posted, it just invalidates my ability to count

Does this mean that Sonic 3 will work? Will Sonic 3 and Knuckles work as well?

benheckc wrote: I was always a little confused by this until I started seeing the size of NES roms in emulators in the late 90's. 128k games (Contra, Zelda) were called 1 megaBIT games in the magazines. One 8-bit byte has 8 bits (obviously) so that's where it comes from. "128k" or "512k" are intangible terms, where MEGABIT sounds cool to a 13 year old.

Again, this isn't necessarily the reason they use the bit form of size measurement. Remember, even EPROMs(and likely many forms of ROM) use this measurement. ROM is a concept from the earliest days of computing, when sizes were small enough to be labeled in bits instead of bytes.

Since EPROMs(not just GAME ROMS) are also labeled in bit sizes (27Cxxx, where the xxx is the number of Kbits the EPROM holds, is just one of MANY examples), we can see it is a industry standard measurement that was VERY common, and not something just to impress the kiddies.

SgtBowhack · Post by **SgtBowhack** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 8:49 pm

Good points made. I thought about saying something along those lines too but I figured who really cares (aside from Ben, apparently). I think Sonic 3 won't work regardless (I don't think it works on some other Genesis clones too... which is why I mentioned that on one site I saw something where Sonic 3 didn't work but Sonic 3 & Knuckles did). I wish I remembered what that was. Maybe one of the TecToy Genesis models? If anyone could find this again, I'd have peace of mind...

Edit: Look at me being dumb. I found it.

It's worth mentioning that Sonic 3, although chiplocked, works 100% fine when linked onto Sonic & knuckles (which is not chiplocked).

JackFrost22 · Post by **JackFrost22** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 8:58 pm

oh I see and the games are basicaly the saem I think dont have them well ben now you gotta see if 32x is compatible

MM007 · Post by **MM007** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 9:04 pm

I wonder if there is a way to disable chiplocking....

Post by **benheck** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 9:09 pm

A few more things...

It's possible the last 2 address lines might be found on the back of the board around those OR and flip-flop gate IC's... I think if someone made a 68000-on a chip it would have all 23 lines.

Also, has anyone been able to hook an original Genesis controller up? I'm working with the IC from one on a custom PC board but haven't gotten it to work yet... The wire colors in the Radica are quite SIMILAR to the Genesis, but maybe that's not close enough?

It looks like Sonic 3 has 21 address lines making it 2 meg... Perhaps it doesn't work for other reasons? I have no experience with any of the later-model Genesis's (besides the Nomad which is cool)

MM007 · Post by **MM007** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 9:14 pm

They say that the Sonic 3 game is chiplocked if you look up further.

Maybe you can use a Sonic and Knuckles cart as a passthrough for the chiplocked carts. After all, you need to use a cartridge connector anyway, and those S&K carts may be cheaper than the whole genesis.

JackFrost22 · Post by **JackFrost22** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 9:16 pm

doenat work on my genny3

SgtBowhack · Post by **SgtBowhack** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 9:26 pm

I just explained why Sonic 3 doesn't work...
If we trust segasonicfan, pins 8-13 of the LS32 aren't connected, which means those aren't anything we can use, sadly.
One thing we might want to look into is putting the ROM into a cart and see if we can get it working, and work it from reverse? It's a 4MB ROM, so once we figure out how it works in an actual Genesis, that would help us work back and understand how the cart slot should work in the Radica.

I don't know if S&K works with other Genesis carts. Maybe a Game Genie or something would work?

MM007 · Post by **MM007** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 9:50 pm

SgtBowhack wrote:I just explained why Sonic 3 doesn't work...
If we trust segasonicfan, pins 8-13 of the LS32 aren't connected, which means those aren't anything we can use, sadly.
One thing we might want to look into is putting the ROM into a cart and see if we can get it working, and work it from reverse? It's a 4MB ROM, so once we figure out how it works in an actual Genesis, that would help us work back and understand how the cart slot should work in the Radica.

I don't know if S&K works with other Genesis carts. Maybe a Game Genie or something would work?

maybe... what I was suggesting with the S&K was to actualy gut it and use just the cart slot and make it unlocked, and maybe use the extra space to actually add some processing functions to make larger ROMs work with the Radica.

A GG may work well, though...

Epicenter · Post by **Epicenter** » Mon Dec 20, 2004 9:59 pm

I have my doubts they implemented a PROPER clone VDP given the horrible sound problems and bad-emulator-reminiscent problems on the Genesis 3's combo-chip. Would you mind playing some levels that use unique raster effects (Ecco 2: Tides of Time's SKY TIDES level) and Vectorman's areas with shadowing effects and the waterfalls and such..) and taking photographs? I'd be very interested to see if it pulls these off at all, or if they're omitted ..

It would be an obvious cost cutting measure to omit support for features not used by the bundled games after all.

As for 32x compatibility, I'd almost guarantee it won't work, as they omitted all the signals and pins they could do without. No reason to include some rather vital things like clocks to it..

SgtBowhack · Post by **SgtBowhack** » Tue Dec 21, 2004 2:06 am

The thing you're forgetting is that the processor will need a clock to work, I'd imagine. So I'm sure there is a clock signal to pull off and attach to the cart slot (which might be a good idea!... take the signals from whereever you can!) I'm working hard to get the Sega Toys one here (same as the Radica except says Megadrive instead of Genesis). One store I figured would have it here was sold out, so I'm hoping the other store still has them or else I'm screwed... and have to wait till I get back to America.

benheck.com Forums

Radica Genesis cartridge connection SUCCESS!!!!

Re: Oops! The Radica actually has 21 address lines!