Hacking a knockoff SEGA handheld

Trying to get homebrew running on your PSP? Want to add a screen light to your Game Boy? Trying to figure out how to work your GP2X? By popular demand, discuss it in here! (This forum is for pre-built handhelds, NOT custom made portables!)

Moderator:Moderators

Post Reply
beebogates
Posts:7
Joined:Mon Sep 03, 2012 11:30 am
Location:Cairo, Egypt
Hacking a knockoff SEGA handheld

Post by beebogates » Sat Jun 15, 2013 11:19 am

Hi everyone,
I picked off one of these cheap players from a shop nearby. It has about a hundred built-in sega megadrive titles, and an SD card slot for loading more ROMs (and playing MP3's/MP4 movies):
http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/56623 ... nsole.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Package also comes with a second infra-red controller and a cable to connect to a television. Sounds like a great value, until I got home and bootet it up, and that's when I got very disappointed.
Apparently the firmware this thing runs is very basic, very laggy. Almost games have visible frame-skipping, the music is out of tune and sometimes improperly synthesized. Buttons and screen are great though, so I thought, maybe this can somehow be hacked and a better firmware installed?

This thing apparently runs on the ATJ2259c chip, very famously used in portable players like this one (and others like the GBA clones and PSP/NES clones). I believe it is so versatile that a better firmware can add tons of functionality and even more playable systems.
There's a USB port, but I don't see any evidence that it does anything apart from charging the battery. I could be wrong, but I wouldn't know where to begin experimenting.

Please let me know if you have any ideas. I know I've come to the right place.

Thanks!
Ahmed

beebogates
Posts:7
Joined:Mon Sep 03, 2012 11:30 am
Location:Cairo, Egypt

Re: Hacking a knockoff SEGA handheld

Post by beebogates » Sat Jun 15, 2013 11:30 am

Here's a picture of the mainboard:

Image

User avatar
wiggyx
Posts:29
Joined:Wed Jul 11, 2012 10:13 am
360 GamerTag:wiggadiggz

Re: Hacking a knockoff SEGA handheld

Post by wiggyx » Sun Jun 16, 2013 10:04 pm

Yeah, those things sucks balls. I have another brand portable Genesis that just plays carts and it's actually really nice.
Image

Post Reply