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Linux for the Sega MegaDrive

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Re: Linux for the Sega MegaDrive

#31

Post by jaza »

functionmouse wrote: post #21
jaza wrote: post #20

Still got my Mega Drive, purchased circa 1994. Recently brought it back to life with a Level Hike (I know, apparently RAD2x is better, anyway works well enough for me) HDMI adapter (otherwise sadly it doesn't work with new digital-only TVs), the main unit and all my old games (Sonic 1 and 2, Columns, Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle, Wonder Boy in Monster World, Shining Force (needed new battery in cartridge for sav…

people go through so much trouble buying expensive converters, scalers, etc. to make their old games look good on their new tv when there's plenty of old CRTs at thrift stores for maybe like 50 bucks for an excellent one with all the fancy hookups like component and everything, I don't get it. I understand CRTs aren't gonna be around forever so we should in fact be working towards future proofing but, they are around…

It wasn't to make my old games look good - it was just to make them work, period. I only have a flat-screen TV with digital inputs, I don't have a CRT. The HDMI adapter (which includes the converter / scaler) was about 50 bucks, a CRT could have easily cost more than that (and would quite possibly have taken longer to find, would have a shorter remaining lifespan, would require more maintenance, etc). Space is an issue, I live in a small-ish apartment. I guess the retro experience would be more authentic with a CRT, but it's authentic enough for me on a modern TV, and it's simple and it works.

Re: Linux for the Sega MegaDrive

#32

Post by aquova »

functionmouse wrote: post #21
jaza wrote: post #20

Still got my Mega Drive, purchased circa 1994. Recently brought it back to life with a Level Hike (I know, apparently RAD2x is better, anyway works well enough for me) HDMI adapter (otherwise sadly it doesn't work with new digital-only TVs), the main unit and all my old games (Sonic 1 and 2, Columns, Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle, Wonder Boy in Monster World, Shining Force (needed new battery in cartridge for sav…

people go through so much trouble buying expensive converters, scalers, etc. to make their old games look good on their new tv when there's plenty of old CRTs at thrift stores for maybe like 50 bucks for an excellent one with all the fancy hookups like component and everything, I don't get it. I understand CRTs aren't gonna be around forever so we should in fact be working towards future proofing but, they are around…

You're lucky, I search fairly often and never come across CRTs at thrift stores. The only option is to buy comically overpriced ones off marketplace, and I live in a large metro area.

Re: Linux for the Sega MegaDrive

#33

Post by jaza »

gwbas1c wrote: post #29
jaza wrote: post #20

Still got my Mega Drive, purchased circa 1994. Recently brought it back to life with a Level Hike (I know, apparently RAD2x is better, anyway works well enough for me) HDMI adapter (otherwise sadly it doesn't work with new digital-only TVs), the main unit and all my old games (Sonic 1 and 2, Columns, Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle, Wonder Boy in Monster World, Shining Force (needed new battery in cartridge for sav…

Honestly, it's worth trying the Sega app on Switch / Switch 2. The games look and play great, you can save at any time, and you can "rewind" if a game gets a little too hard. The wireless controllers are also great too. (Granted, it only has Sonic 2.) I've been slowly working through games I never got around to playing when I was a kid.

I haven't tried Sega games on Switch (and I believe some were available on Wii before that?). But I have also played some of my old games on PC emulators. "Save state" / "load state" is indeed very handy. Keyboard mappings is an inferior experience to a real controller, but meh, you get used to it.

Re: Linux for the Sega MegaDrive

#34

Post by piltdownman »

nommuenjoyer wrote: post #28
piltdownman wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was no MMU in the Macintosh Classic/SE lineup which used the 68k as a CPU, but they still support the microcontroller targeted distros like uClinux. Unfortunately the tight integration with the ToolBox ROM makes it a fairly Herculean task. Microsoft bizarrely enough released Xenix for the Apple LISA as well, but that's more of a historic oddity. Similarly, Basilisk II is a very worthy emulator for Mac 68k emula…

I plan to get this working on nommu mac at some point but I don't have one yet. I have a pile of 030/040 macs. Its not mentioned but this mc68000 kernel actually uses devicetree (like arm..) so its fairly portable. In my QEMU fork there is support for a 68000 virt machine so you can have a multi-ghz emulated 68000 with 128MB RAM (maybe more, haven't tested) if you really want that.

Much respect for your endeavours.

N.B. The Author of Chip4Mac68000 has been planning a port of uClinux in the future with his SDK which explicitly avoids using the Macintosh ROM at all, running bare metal directly on the hardware. Might be worth taking a look at if you're unfamiliar.

Re: Linux for the Sega MegaDrive

#35

Post by ChrisRR »

functionmouse wrote: post #21
jaza wrote: post #20

Still got my Mega Drive, purchased circa 1994. Recently brought it back to life with a Level Hike (I know, apparently RAD2x is better, anyway works well enough for me) HDMI adapter (otherwise sadly it doesn't work with new digital-only TVs), the main unit and all my old games (Sonic 1 and 2, Columns, Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle, Wonder Boy in Monster World, Shining Force (needed new battery in cartridge for sav…

people go through so much trouble buying expensive converters, scalers, etc. to make their old games look good on their new tv when there's plenty of old CRTs at thrift stores for maybe like 50 bucks for an excellent one with all the fancy hookups like component and everything, I don't get it. I understand CRTs aren't gonna be around forever so we should in fact be working towards future proofing but, they are around…

I just emulate. So much easier

Re: Linux for the Sega MegaDrive

#36

Post by nommuenjoyer »

piltdownman wrote: post #34
nommuenjoyer wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I plan to get this working on nommu mac at some point but I don't have one yet. I have a pile of 030/040 macs. Its not mentioned but this mc68000 kernel actually uses devicetree (like arm..) so its fairly portable. In my QEMU fork there is support for a 68000 virt machine so you can have a multi-ghz emulated 68000 with 128MB RAM (maybe more, haven't tested) if you really want that.

Much respect for your endeavours. N.B. The Author of Chip4Mac68000 has been planning a port of uClinux in the future with his SDK which explicitly avoids using the Macintosh ROM at all, running bare metal directly on the hardware. Might be worth taking a look at if you're unfamiliar.

Interesting.. I have some experience with the macintosh ROM from trying to fix up the EMILE bootloader for Linux (its boots like grub instead of being a macos app). Getting a recent GCC etc not to mess up calling stuff in the ROM was painful but QEMU emulates enough of the Quadra 800 that I could at least debug when registers were getting trashed etc with GDB. Alas, it still has some weird issues on real machines and randomly refuses to boot.

I'm going to do a u-boot port for the Mac at some point. It'll use the ROM to get loaded and then get rid of it. That'll work on nommu and mmu Macs and make the modern linux on Mac experience a bit nicer.

Re: Linux for the Sega MegaDrive

#37

Post by gwbas1c »

jaza wrote: post #33
gwbas1c wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, it's worth trying the Sega app on Switch / Switch 2. The games look and play great, you can save at any time, and you can "rewind" if a game gets a little too hard. The wireless controllers are also great too. (Granted, it only has Sonic 2.) I've been slowly working through games I never got around to playing when I was a kid.

I haven't tried Sega games on Switch (and I believe some were available on Wii before that?). But I have also played some of my old games on PC emulators. "Save state" / "load state" is indeed very handy. Keyboard mappings is an inferior experience to a real controller, but meh, you get used to it.

If it's important to you, you can get authentic reproduction controllers that work with the Switch or an emulator:

https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/sega-genesis-cont...

https://shop.8bitdo.com/products/8bitdo-m30-wireless-gamepad...

Re: Linux for the Sega MegaDrive

#38

Post by philistine »

functionmouse wrote: post #21
jaza wrote: post #20

Still got my Mega Drive, purchased circa 1994. Recently brought it back to life with a Level Hike (I know, apparently RAD2x is better, anyway works well enough for me) HDMI adapter (otherwise sadly it doesn't work with new digital-only TVs), the main unit and all my old games (Sonic 1 and 2, Columns, Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle, Wonder Boy in Monster World, Shining Force (needed new battery in cartridge for sav…

people go through so much trouble buying expensive converters, scalers, etc. to make their old games look good on their new tv when there's plenty of old CRTs at thrift stores for maybe like 50 bucks for an excellent one with all the fancy hookups like component and everything, I don't get it. I understand CRTs aren't gonna be around forever so we should in fact be working towards future proofing but, they are around…

> I understand CRTs aren't gonna be around forever

We're there dude. I don't know where you live, but from where I'm at, CRTs are gone. Everybody wants hundreds if not thousands for them because the only ones left are those in the hands of retro gamers. All the cheap ones are in the dump at this point.

Re: Linux for the Sega MegaDrive

#39

Post by runamuck »

If this inspires anyone to bust out an MD/ Genesis emu, I recommend "Subterrainia." I found it too hard in my youth, but I see now it has a near perfect learning curve. The more you play, the better you get. The controls seem impossible at first, but then you SLOWLY get comfortable with it. (Kind of like learning how to Rollerblade at age 50).

Re: Linux for the Sega MegaDrive

#40

Post by vitally3643 »

functionmouse wrote: post #21
jaza wrote: post #20

Still got my Mega Drive, purchased circa 1994. Recently brought it back to life with a Level Hike (I know, apparently RAD2x is better, anyway works well enough for me) HDMI adapter (otherwise sadly it doesn't work with new digital-only TVs), the main unit and all my old games (Sonic 1 and 2, Columns, Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle, Wonder Boy in Monster World, Shining Force (needed new battery in cartridge for sav…

people go through so much trouble buying expensive converters, scalers, etc. to make their old games look good on their new tv when there's plenty of old CRTs at thrift stores for maybe like 50 bucks for an excellent one with all the fancy hookups like component and everything, I don't get it. I understand CRTs aren't gonna be around forever so we should in fact be working towards future proofing but, they are around…

Or people could buy an adapter to use the console with the large TV they already have than make drastic compromises on a large and heavy piece of single-use equipment
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