Saturn CD Block ROM dumped

I understand you want to add features funnier than USB FIFO
USB dev cart is 20-30 times faster than Action Replay parallel port, but doesn't allow things like breakpoint, read/write logging, etc, but as your design has by far more resources than USB dev cart, there are no reasons to add more dev features.

Oh, so it is really a clever design from you !
If it was me, I would have added physical RAM/ROM, and then messed up for months in order to get them working with Saturn ^^;


Don't hesitate to post more pictures of your work ! It is very exciting to follow its progression

 

So is this device going to be SD only?

 

maybe an option to use externally powered usb storage devices could also be added?

 

The SH-2 loads CD/MPEG data into RAM and executes it. So none of those features are any easier with my design.
This sort of functionality is more about using the UBC - like Piratero's GDB stub, which is really what you want.

That would be nice; I'll see what I can do.

 

Not to contaminate this thread but Deunan has posted a picture of his Saturn ODE prototype.It be will a CD-ROM replacement so completely different from MPEG solution :

http://gdemu.wordpress.com/2014/09/30/enter-rhea/

 

If I'd had one of those to start with I never would have started down this path ^_^

 

In my opinion your solution is more smart, as far as I understood it will be able to patch also the region while Deunan ODE will require a modchip or AR cart to do it.

 

I don't see why Deunan's design couldn't do region free just the same as mine.

 

I guess he could patch the initial program dynamically?

 

Apparently his design is already doing a LOT of things on the fly due to compatibility with 1 billion different image formats, so it just doesn't have the resources.
edit: nevermind - it was implemented just now.

 

Would the MPEG Solution care about the 20 vs 21 chip debacle? Honestly I find the idea of the MPEG Solution a lot nicer, especially if it could some how be paired with an Auto-Ripper to rip directly to the SD Card.

 

No, the drive pinout is irrelevant. You don't have to unscrew anything either!

 

Honestly then that seems to be the way to go. For me personally I can't imagine a use for another VCD Player, was there any other use for that slot?

 

I second the use of the VCD slot, in the end it will be more user friendly especially for those not keen on soldering or opening their systems. What is the progress so far on the project?

 

Success! I achieved successful boot last Thursday. Played my way through some Saturn Bomberman, Street Fighter 2, and Daytona. All work well.

At the moment, disc data is being streamed into the device from a computer over USB for dev purposes. This means I can't quite hit the full 2x CD speed yet, so there are some audio glitches in the Bomberman video intro. Otherwise, everything plays great.


So, now it's clear the core technology works, comes the road to making it into a usable product. This includes a lot of things, like:

• USB drive support
• Boot menu
• Region free support
• CD audio
• Filesystem CDB commands
• Firmware upgrade system
• New board design
• Enclosure design

This is going to take a while -- and I'm extremely busy at the moment trying to write up my thesis. Updates will be few and far between; please be patient.

 

^ wow AWESOME news!!!! so excited now!
take your time , I am sure this will turn out to be pure awesomeness in the end

 

That's awesome. It sounds like it'll be worth the wait.

 

Before you get too far down the design path, can I request from a hardware research/development point of view that your device always be able to have a mode on your device where it can be as close to running a real disk as possible. This means even if you add boot menus to browse a usb storage device for example, where you can select a game from a list of disk images on the storage device, you still support some kind of mode where the boot menu is never used, and your device will boot a single disk image as close to the way the real system would have booted a game from a CD as possible. You might be able to do this simply if only a single disk image is present on a storage device for example. Also, USB streaming of images sounds awesome, please keep support for it in the final design! If I'm running hardware tests, being able to quickly compile and run a program straight from my PC on the hardware without having to insert and remove storage devices makes things much easier.

 

You will be able to install your own boot menu, so it can do exactly this if that's what you want.

This one has high costs, particularly in terms of support - since it'd need drivers and software for every platform. It'd also need the USB code to be rewritten to use proper isochronous endpoints to get the timing right. Perhaps it might be exposed as a totally unsupported "bonus feature". I'd certainly like it too.