Cross Products MegaDrive/MegaCD Dev system

I just scored this little beauty:

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi...em=320203447708

This will make a nice addition to my collection. It's basically an official dev unit for the MegaDrive/MegaCD. It's not complete, but I should be able to make some use of it. I have no idea how useful it's going to be, or indeed if it's going to be useful in any way at all, but it will be interesting none the less. The MegaCD is supposedly multi-region too, which is in itself interesting. I'll check whether it's a multi-bios system, or if it's got a custom regionless bios, and I'll dump it if it's custom. I've got a small collection of undumped misc bioses/devices that I've dumped recently too (eg, both Sega Channels, XBand modem, Multi-Mega BIOS, etc) which I need to release sometime.

I really need to put all this stuff up on a site somewhere and publish some real information on it. I've still got that TeraDrive stuff I was going to scan/release months back. I've gotta figure out how to dump MegaLD games for the LaserActive too. And there's my emulator that I need to get ready for release. I wish I had more time to work on these things nowadays.

 

It probably won't. It might make it possible for me to more easily run various tests for my emulator though.

 

Right now, slowly. I'm split about a design issue which I need to solve in order to fix a critical timing issue with the VDP, and I need more information about the bus logic in the Mega Drive, and bus logic in general, in order to redesign my bus interface. Sound reproduction is also proving to be much more difficult than I originally thought it would be. I'm still working towards a first release, and I don't have to make it "perfect" before I release it, but I do at least have to solve the timing issues with the VDP, make the Z80 core more stable, and do some other bits and peices on the system as a whole, before I can make a build worth releasing. It will happen, but at this point I'm aware of the fact that it's often better to release something later than you intended, than release it on time and having it suck.

Not from anyone I know, but at any rate, I knew I could get this one now. If you know of a guy who's got stuff like this he's willing to sell, send me a PM. Worst case, I find this unit completely useless, and later on I re-sell it for a loss of a few hundred. In the interim, I get to poke around at the system, get an idea of just how useful it is, and whether or not it's worth me trying to get a full unit.