Initial testing of Retrode Master System / Game Gear adapter
Posted 7 months ago
After my success with the Virtual Boy Retrode adapter, I decided to try making another for some of my other cartridges that weren’t already catered for. This time I opted for the Sega Master System. As Game Gear games are near enough the same as Master System games data-wise (you can play master system games on a Game Gear with a converter), I thought I would try to make a dual system adapter.
Following the same procedure as with the Virtual boy adapter, I located the Master System and Game Gear cartridge pinouts and matched them up with the relevant pins on the Mega Drive connector, first for the Master System, then for the Game Gear. There were a few differing signals, but I matched up the main ones.
Next job was to remove the ROM chip from a donor Mega Drive cartridge and start the tedious process of attaching wires to the vacant holes. I use individual strands of wire from an old Ultra DMA IDE/ATA cable for this (like the one on the left in this picture), it’s single strand and just the right thickness.
Cartridge connectors next. Master System turned out to be simple, I de-soldered an ISA card socket from an old motherboard and cut it down to size, same pin pitch and board thickness, sorted. The Game Gear proved to be more difficult. The pins on the edge of a Game Gear cartridge are arranged in offset parallel lines, so finding a suitable replacement for a real one proved to be impossible. I didn’t fancy destroying my fully working (even the sound!) Game Gear, so got a faulty one off of ebay for next to nothing and de-soldered the cartridge socket.
I soldered the Master System connector on, connected a game and plugged it in the Retrode. A quick check of the resulting file in a hex editor showed that it was reading something, and after comparing it to a reference ROM, it was almost the same, albeit with additional FF’s. This was because the Retrode is expecting 16bits of data, and the Master System is only 8bits, so the upper 8bits were empty, something for Matthias to sort in the firmware.
The Master System uses Frame Control Registers (FCR’s) to access the ROM, so the Retrode would need to be able to do the same. Matthias sent over a couple of test firmwares to try out, but unfortunately, the only cartridge we got to read correctly was Transbot, which is a 32KB cartridge, so didn’t use any FCR swapping.
Unable to resolve the issues, Matthias asked if I would be willing to send my adapter to him to continue testing, which I of course did. Now he has a working firmware, and is getting some boards made up based on my prototype! Make sure to order one when he gets them in.
Talking with Matthias before I sent off the adapter, I wondered if the Game Gear could be put on the higher 8bits of the Mega Drives 16bit data lines, enabling both Master System and Game Gear cartridges to be plugged in at the same time. He said it would be possible, but it would interfere with the auto detection. He has since mentioned that he is adding space to solder on a Game Gear cartridge connector to his adapter PCB, so hopefully he worked out a way round this. I will post the pinout for the adapter when I find out how Matthias has added the Game Gear to it.
