3 Game Gear Prototypes acquired - Thanks to everyone :)

I wouldn't worry too much about it. His Retrode approach should work fine. There's an official Master System adapter for it, and people have built GameGear adapters for it before. Should be the safest way to dump without opening the cart.

I assume this is probably what he's following:
http://consolingmyself.co.uk/post/18692678762/retrode-sms-gg-plug-in-adapter-pin-out

 

Also, try dumping some known game before, so we can compare the roms and see if there are dumping errors.

 

Is the Retrode really safe for EPROMS? Won't it recognize it as a saved game and allow to accidentally rewrite it?


Also:

Might be a dumb question, but have you checked if they really require de-soldering?

 

Congrats on getting these, folks!

If there's any other cause in regard to getting games you folks may be willing to donate to, it might be worth looking into to get the second half of a batch of Korean Samsung/Sega Pico ROM dumps checked out. More info here:
http://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?showtopic=20891&view=findpost&p=793235

I'm not entirely sure but it's possible a Korean Tails and the Music Maker or Sonic the Hedgehog's Gameworld is among the batch.

In the meantime, I'll be waiting to see how this new demo turns out. Who knows? Maybe Sonic 2 Game Gear has it's own Hidden Palace Zone. (wishful thinking.)

EDIT: I hope the music is rippable when the demo is dumped, too. I wonder how it'd work considering it shifts between levels and it causes pausing in the song...?

 

It doesn't shift between levels. The pause happens when it loads the art from each zone.

 

Holy shit, nice catch! This is great work, Orengefox. I would have donated, but I'm broke at the moment. Maybe this will be able to answer some of the more puzzling aspects of 8-bit S2. If this contains the full game under the surface that can be tapped into, that will be awesome.

No, I think it sounds pretty clearly like the same track. The transition between SHZ and UGZ are the same part of the song, and it starts to loop back to what was heard on GHZ after it starts to fade out.

 

Thanks for the progress update, Orengefox - glad to hear the other prototypes have arrived safely. Here's hoping the dumping goes OK once your equipment's complete and tested - can't wait to see the resulting ROMs! = ) Who knows what goodies we may find once we have the chance to root around them a bit!

 

Have you had a chance to take a look at the SL and TA carts? Are there any obvious differences from the final builds? I'm blocking off this weekend for reverse engineering effort

 

I'm curious about the other protos too, did you turn them on to see if they're working?

 

Thanks for the videos!

Yeah, only the dumps will solve the mystery on these.

I still think sending the carts to someone who can dump GG games is 100000x better than this anyway.

 

I think this is the only place that still has some in stock:
http://www.stoneagegamer.com/retrode-master-system-plug-in.html

Have you contacted the guy who posted the GG wiring schematics to see if he had any advice? Perhaps the current Retrode firmware has a bug which broke GG support?

 

Doesn't the Powerbase work with the Retrode?

Edit: Oh no it doesn't

 

Sorry to hear there's been difficulty with the dumping equipment - hope you manage to sort it out without too much trouble! Fingers crossed that it'll get there in the end.

 

Ditto, man, the anticipation is killing me, just so exciting, but still, what must be done must be done - and done right - and time will deliver in the end.

 

If we can hack the Autodemo to be able to explore the levels normally, I'm kinda curious if all levels are intact... and if so, whether or not it has the Speed Shoes in Aqua Lake act 2. :P

 

I have a feeling things will not be that complete. The autodemo does not show any badniks or monitors at all.