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Mega Drive keyboards

Discussion in 'General Sega Discussion' started by Sik, Jun 9, 2012.

  1. minichapman

    minichapman

    I'd like to think I'll be imparting words of wisdo Member
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    I did have some screenshots from a Nintendo mag a couple years ago with articles on unreleased Nintendo games. For now here's a video about it.

     
  2. Overlord

    Overlord

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    The symbol is there, it's just the much smaller variant that I know has a different meaning, that I couldn't figure out how to type, so compromised. That or it's a tsu. Come on, they're almost the same:? ???
     
  3. I've been working on trying to interface a keyboard with the Genesis and stumbled upon this thread. The first link in your original post no longer seems to show information about the keyboard and I'm curious what it was. I'm also wondering if you could supply me with a copy of the Xband firmware; I haven't been able to find a copy of it anywhere.

    EDIT: I found the Xband firmware here: https://wiki.superfamicom.org/snes/show/XBAND

    .
     
  4. Whoever put together the zip file that I linked to above corrupted all the source files with some weird formatting garbage at the top and bottom of each file.

    I just found this Github repo with all the same source files without the extra garbage: https://github.com/X-Band

    The keyboard routines are located in SegaOS/GameLib/controls.c
    https://github.com/X-Band/SegaOS/blob/master/GameLib/controls.c

    I just bought a genesis X-Band modem on ebay, and I'm currently working on deciphering the handshaking and protocol code. I currently have my Arduino Uno microcontroller successfully simulating a 3 button controller, my goal is to see if I can simulate the Eric Smith keyboard.

    .
     
  5. GerbilSoft

    GerbilSoft

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    https://github.com/X-Band/SegaOS/blob/master/GameLib/controls.c#L216

    Code (Text):
    1.  
    2. if ( FindESKeyboard() )                                 // do we have an Eric Smith keyboard?
    3. {
    4.     if (!REFGLOBAL( controls, keyboardPresent ))
    5.     {
    6.         unsigned char fuck;
    7.         fuck = 0xFF;                        /* reset keyboard */
    8.         SendCmdToESKeyboard( &fuck, 1 );
    9.         WriteESKeyboard();
    10.         REFGLOBAL( controls, keyboardPresent ) = true;
    11.         REFGLOBAL( controls, keyboardFlags ) = 0L;
    12.     }  
    13. }
    14. else
    15.     REFGLOBAL( controls, keyboardPresent ) = false;
    16.  
    High-quality library function right there. :colbert:

    This seems to be the guy who designed the keyboard interface: http://www.brouhaha.com/~eric/pic/segakb.html
    It appears to be a PIC16 microcontroller that converts between IBM PS/2 protocol and a custom 4-bit protocol.

    I would think that it might be possible to use bit-banging to connect a PS/2 keyboard directly to the MD (with just an adapter to convert between Mini-DIN-6 and DE-9), but interrupt timing might cause issues (as mentioned on that page).
     
  6. The keyboard was advertised via XBAND news and was available to order by phone directly from Catapult Entertainment.

    [​IMG]

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    Here's a video of me awkwardly talking about the keyboard for 7 minutes, I probably should have turned some lights on lolz

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTimyYAX_Gw

    .
     
  7. Black Squirrel

    Black Squirrel

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  8. Yeah that wiki page definitely needs to be re-written. In Brazil the keyboard was released for the Mega Net 2 service (not MegaNet which is what the wiki page links to). Mega Net 2 was nothing more than a translated and re-branded version of XBAND.
     
  9. It was just pointed out to me by Mask of Destiny that the source files were most likely never truly plaintext files, they were created by Think C for the 68K Mac.

     
  10. Cooljerk

    Cooljerk

    NotEqual Tech, Inc - VR & Game Dev Oldbie
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    It's a sokuon, more commonly referred to as a "chiisai tsu" (literally: Small tsu), indicating voiced gemination (i.e. extra emphasis and duration of the proceeding consonant), which is translated in romaji by doubling the consonant. TEN KII PADDO.