Sega SG-1000

[beaker]

Great job so far Bryce, it's great to see the old girl working 

The sound is pretty harsh and from what I've read the controllers are stiff and unresponsive which is why most people plug in the Master System pads 
What was wrong with the pads in the end?

I like the sound of the 64-way cart

[Bryce]

The controllers contacts were just full of dirt / residue from years of being pressed. One of the controllers (the one you broke the screw on) is quite ok to use. The other one doesn't always register the press.

Just checking the 2MB EPROM at the moment, it's a 16bit part that can work in 8bit mode too, so some extra signal fiddling needs to be done to get it to work properly with the SG.

Bryce.

[Bryce]

I did a quick ROM search for the SG and I can find 63 games. Unforunately two of these can't go on the MultiCart, because the limit is 32K. Monaco GP is 40K and Music Station is something stupid like 115K ! Here's what I have so far. There are still three free slots, so if anything important is missing then let me know and I'll see if I can find it.

Bank Panic
Black Onyx
Bomb Jack
Borderline
C_So! (J)
Castle
Chack'n Pop
Champion Baseball
Champion Billards
Champion Boxing (J)
Champion Kendou (J)
Champion Pro Wrestling
Champion Soccer
Championship Golf
Championship Lode Runner (J)
Choplifter
Congo Bongo
Dragon Wang (V. A)
Dragon Wang (V. B)
Drol
Elevator Action
Exerion
Flicky
Girl's Garden
Golgo 13
GP World
Gulkave
H.E.R.O.
Hang-On 2
Hustle Chummy
Hyper Sports
James Bond 007
Loderunner
Monaco GP
Music Station (V.1.6)
Ninja Princess
N-Sub
Orguss
Othello (J)
Pacar
Pachinko 2
Penguin Land
Pitfall 2 - the Lost Caverns
Pop Flamer
Rock n' Bolt
Safari Hunt
Safari Race
Sega Galaga
Serizawa Hachidan no Tsumeshogi (J)
Shinnyushain Tooru Kun (J)
Sinbad Mystery
Soukoban
Space Invaders
Star Force
Star Jacker
Super Tank
Terebi Oekaki
Video Flipper
Wonder Boy
Yamato
Zaxxon
Zippy Race
Zoom 909

Ooo, I feel a bit like MacDeath after such a long post

Bryce.

[Sykobee (Briggsy)]

"Dragon Wang" sounds like an interesting game... 

[db6128]

Did you check GoodSMS in case it has others? I believe the SG-n series ROMs are folded into that set rather than distributed separately.

[beaker]

"Dragon Wang" sounds like an interesting game... 

lol yeah, reminded me of Family Guy...

Quagmire - Its just my wang

Looks like a good list Bryce, all the main games I want to play are on there with the exception of Astro Dodge which I don't think is PD yet.
Revival Studios - Classic games development from old 8-bit computers to neogeo

The music score actually sounds halfway decent...


BRAND NEW SEGA SG-1000 GAME RELEASE - Astrododge (2012)

I wonder if I can persuade TMR to try and review it in Retro Gamer before I splash out €49 on it, and for all the dozens of SG-1000 , Sega SG-1000-II , Sega SC-3000 and Sega Mark III console owners out there... 

[Bryce]

Chances are, Astro Dodge is more than 32K, so it probably wouldn't fit anyway. I'll do some more searching for other games before I burn the EPROM anyway.

Dragon Wang has two versions A and B as you can see from the list. I included both, because when I compared the ROM files they're completely different, so it doesn't seem to be a minor difference.

Also Championship Pro Wrestling (the one you sent me and is about to become a multiCart) seems to do some sort of CRTC R3 trick during the game, so on a flat screen the scanlines at the height of the wrestlers get torn to one side. I assume this wouldn't happen on a CRT, but haven't tried it yet. I'll check the signal later on a scope to see exactly what they are doing, but whatever it is, LCD SCART doesn't like it.

Bryce.

[beaker]

Hopefully there's a workaround
If not, I think I saw a Sony Trinitron last month in a cash converters type store in Tralee. I may go down this weekend and see if it's still there as I've a couple of other consoles that could benefit from a traditional CRT. The Goodmans I currently use only does composite and the other problem being it's a Goodmans... 

[Bryce]

It being the end of the world and all that, I had a great plan of how I was going to spend my last hours. Unfortunately neither Emma Watson nor Georgia Salpa wanted to go along with my idea (and they would have both had to say yes for my idea). So instead I had to go for Plan B: Making Beakers MultiCart. I removed the ROM from Championship Pro Wrestling and replaced the IC with some header pins. The extra PCB is held in place by the pins. There's quite a bit of extra space in the cartridge, but the 2MByte EPROM that I wanted to use is a 42pin whopper and is also quite high, so the extra PCB needed to be flipped. Due to the fact that I'll only be making one of these, it's all done on a simple matrix PCB, so there's lots of messy wiring on the back. Tonight I'll sort through and reformat the ROM Files I have, so that I can give the MultiCart a test tomorrow (assuming there is a tomorrow).

Enjoy the pictures,
Bryce.

[beaker]

lol sorry about plan A, I was in Dublin with Georgia and her friend last night for some pre-apocalypse fun and may have worn the poor girls out  What was Emma's excuse?

[attachimg=1]

[Bryce]

Please tell me that you didn't really meet her in a pub in Dublin!

Emma didn't say why she couldn't make it, she just reminded me (through her lawyer) of the 500m distance that I have to keep away from her

Bryce.

[beaker]

lol no I didn't.... It was the  Indie Dhaba restaurant. Then the pub and some clubs before heading back where (thanks to living in Limerick for 6 years) the horse head masks came in most useful 

I am of course joking.. great fantasy though... 

[Bryce]

I think I've just killed my brain...

I've just spent the entire morning testing the MultiCart. I've now tried all 61 games. My hearing stopped working somewhere around James Bond, but at least that saved me from the noise that Pachinko II could have inflicted on me.

Here's what the MultiCart looks like (boring):

[attach=2] [attach=3]

It has 6 DIP Switches on the back, so to make it usable, I've done a DIP Switch chart for you:

[attach=4]

Quite a few games seem to have problems with the LCD TV, so a CRT might be a good investment. Some games have "torn" parts of the screen, but some (Zaxxon for example) goes completely black every few minutes, making the game quite a challenge.

Bryce.

[beaker]

lol that is a scary number of combinations. Looks like a nice neat job as always. My cat already goes ballistic when I am playing some of the old retro titles on the GBA; she seems to have a thing against high pitched pinging sounds so I can't wait to see what she makes of this console 

Have you been able to try the console on a CRT to confirm the problem is definitely with the more modern LCD technology and nothing to do with the scart lead I supplied? I know on the first page of this thread the supplier mentioned it "may not work with a modded SG-1000 as the RGB TTL levels may be different." and just to confirm it's not that or any chips?
Sorry if I am talking bollocks as I don't even know what the effects of TTL (transistor to transistor logic?) would be.

[Bryce]

The amplifier is there to raise the signal levels to what they should be for SCART. Unfortunately the only CRT I have doesn't do NTSC, so I can't test it on a CRT. Eitherway, from the 61 games, I think there were only 4 or 5 that displayed a problem and all other games play perfectly, so all the signal levels and chips are fine.

Bryce.

[beaker]

  That's cool. I'll head down later in the week to Tralee now the Christmas rush has subsided and will see if they still have the Sony Trinitron in the shop

Thanks again Bryce

[Stevem]

Hi There

Just wondering if someone out there can help me

I am from the UK and have just purchased a SG1000 console, when it arrived I hooked it up to my TV and the picture comes up fine (a bit grainy but fine).

However I do not hear any sound - all I get it fuzzy sound (as if the channel wasn't tuned in) Can anyone out there help me!!! I have tried on multiple TV's, tried manual fine tunings but I just cannot get any sound out of this console.  Could the sound chip be damaged?

Thanks
Steve

[beaker]

Hi Steve,

Yeah, I had exactly the same thing with mine in this thread and it's the signal the RF modulator is kicking out not being compatible with a UK PAL TV (in my case) so it can't lock on properly when you're tuning it. Gryzor even had the same with the Megadrive I sent him to Greece (picture and no sound). In addition my SG-1000 had some dry solder which was also caused a few issues and the whole motherboard had to be resoldered. If you don't mind spending more on the console Bryce did a very nice RGB conversion on mine if you wanted to drop him a PM and he is willing? You'll probably need to register on the site first to send the PM.

Good luck,

Beaker

[Gryzor]

Try switching the PAL mode on your TV, if it supports it. Mine did, and that's how I solved my problem (and was elated...)