OpenDrive, a open hardware flashcart

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soniccd123
dark night
Posts: 63

OpenDrive, a open hardware flashcart

Post#1 » Sat Feb 27, 2021 3:50 pm

I know this is a Dreamcast focused forum, but I think that this may be of interest the people down here because, while it is not for the Dreamcast, this project focus on Sega retrogaming.

So, thats what my repros have become

I was trying to make repros with 3.3V chips safely, while testing things with Flash Memory, for sake of simplicity, I developed a programmer that could write the Flash through the cartridge main connector. Then it hit me that I basically had build a flashcart. In the last few months I have been polishing it, testing it and developing the needed software and now, here it is:

The OpenDrive project:

Flashcart: https://github.com/soniccd123/OpenDrive-Genesis
Programmer: https://github.com/soniccd123/OpenDrive-Programmer
PC Software: https://github.com/soniccd123/OpenDrive-Editor
Firmware: https://github.com/soniccd123/OpenDrive ... r-firmware

For now, only a Sega Genesis cart is available, a SNES one is being developed and will be able to be written with the same programmer using an adapter!

Decided to share it with the world because I think its the right thing, to people modify and learn from it, I know that there are better solutions in the marked, but competing with them is really not the focus. This project objective is to create a open plataform for others to build their projects and, if a DIY entusiast want, to use it to play backups!

Hope this helps someone

Soniccd123.

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Dakangel
letterbomb
Posts: 151

Re: OpenDrive, a open hardware flashcart

Post#2 » Sat Feb 27, 2021 6:04 pm

This is a very cool and useful project, btw the only other open hardware is SD2SNES but for the price of the fpga used is far from cheap to develop.
There is an alternative here in the forum or was in assembler one about an open source GDemu.

The thing i like and adore about your project beside been open, is the fact that natively run 32X games, you know, current china flash carts and everdrives only can play megadrive/genesis and some recently sega cd.

I dont know if in the very close future we will start to have full romset compatible carts for the sega console thanks to you.

One cart instead of the nuke mushrom monster thing that was in the past and a briefly sight at how could be the unreleased Sega Neptune (an amalgam for megadrive, 32x and sega cd in one console) droped in favor of the Saturn.

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soniccd123
dark night
Posts: 63

Re: OpenDrive, a open hardware flashcart

Post#3 » Sat Feb 27, 2021 7:51 pm

Dakangel wrote:This is a very cool and useful project, btw the only other open hardware is SD2SNES but for the price of the fpga used is far from cheap to develop.
There is an alternative here in the forum or was in assembler one about an open source GDemu.

The thing i like and adore about your project beside been open, is the fact that natively run 32X games, you know, current china flash carts and everdrives only can play megadrive/genesis and some recently sega cd.

I dont know if in the very close future we will start to have full romset compatible carts for the sega console thanks to you.

One cart instead of the nuke mushrom monster thing that was in the past and a briefly sight at how could be the unreleased Sega Neptune (an amalgam for megadrive, 32x and sega cd in one console) droped in favor of the Saturn.


Hey, thank you very much!!!

You have a good point regarding SD2SNES FPGA. I have a love and hate relation with FPGA, they're awesome electronic components and make a lot of things very easy and simple, but they also highly specialized and expensive, making projects that utilize them expensive and hard to build. I always try to do everything I can with common MCUs before going for FPGAs, sometimes is not possible, but makes the projects much more acessible.

Now, i don't know, maybe this is not clear in the project page (and if not, i need to change it), the flashcart support 32X games, but as a flashcart, it still needs a 32X. I would love a 32X supporting cart like the MegaSD does with the Sega CD, but this is very far from where I am, someday I may try, but its a very hard project.

Anyway, thanks again!

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