Genesis Portable using EA Sports Genny Clone

G-force · Post by **G-force** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 2:48 pm

(sorry for making another thread about this thing)
Bought one today, opened it up. Surprisingly it has labels next to certain traces/pins , that match up to the cartridge connector! So assuming that I can figure out what is what, we might have a new Genesis clone for portable use.

This thing is small enough to fit in a GBO case, so with a Hip Gear screen, this could make quite an interesting portable (again, assuming I can get the cartridge to work)

CART. CONNECTOR PINOUT PROGRESS:
(I am following this pinout for the cartridge.)

So far I have found All the "A##" traces up to A15. There are a few loose ones I found too.

I cannot find any traces labeled "D##" anywhere. Are the D pins needed? Perhaps they are just renamed as something else.

There are a lot of things labeled as "C##" on the board. I have no idea what these might be.

I'm tuck on how to remove the epoxied glop ROM chip. Any ideas? A dremel would be too dangerous to the board. Perhaps I could cut all the ground pins going to the epoxy glop, and disable it that way...

bioniclebert · Post by **bioniclebert** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 2:53 pm

Good find!
And for your Glop problem, cut off the ground and see if that works.
by the way, how much did you get yours for? I didnt like genesis that much but I would still like to work on something, mabye if somebody else wanted it...

G-force · Post by **G-force** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 2:56 pm

I got it at a local Goodwill for $4. They pobably got them from Wal-Mart.

HotDog-Cart · Post by **HotDog-Cart** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 3:02 pm

Lucky..llol

im to embarrassed to go to Goodwill, or Salvation Army or St. Vincent de Paul, Theft stores, someone may see me unless i wear my ninja suit

is it theft or thrift?..lol theft

bioniclebert · Post by **bioniclebert** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 3:13 pm

G-force wrote:I got it at a local Goodwill for $4. They pobably got them from Wal-Mart.

oh yeah I know they're there. Mabye pick one up if theyre nice and cheap.

Reaperman@home · Post by **Reaperman@home** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 9:01 pm

okay, I'm awake now, I may edit my post in my topic now that I'm up to speed. anybody remember where that white radica pinout went to? I saw it less than a week ago...

today's pics:

edit: wait, take pins 'A13' and 'A15' for example. they're clearly directionals--not cart pins.

G-force · Post by **G-force** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 9:05 pm

Is this what you mean? True, you can get by with only these pins. But what if this has a better compatibility (more pins) than the radica? That's why I am following the gamesx pinout.
My idea is to just hook up as many pins as I can and see if it works. I know. I'm stupid.

I still can't figure out what/where those dang D or B pins are... I hope they aren't needed.

Sorry to make another thread about this when you already made one. I forgot about it.

EDIT:

edit: wait, take pins 'A13' and 'A15' for example. they're clearly directionals--not cart pins.

Yeah, I think that is how it's supposed to work. It goes into the cartridge and the cart sends the data to the GOAC. I'm just guessing though...

Reaperman@home · Post by **Reaperman@home** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 9:08 pm

edit: why would the genesis send the controls into the cart before the processor?

I also think a dremel is the way to go on that chip. there's nothing on the other side to damage, but if you want to score traces...

G-force · Post by **G-force** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 9:13 pm

Maybe that big glop is not the ROM after all. If you look at the A traces they go to both glops, so maybe the big one is the GOAC and the other one is the ROM...

Reaperman@home · Post by **Reaperman@home** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 9:13 pm

edit: that's my thought. big one goac, middle is rom, small one sram.

if you look at the picture of the back side (non-glop), above and to the left of the box with 'ntsc' written in it...I think those are our cart port.

edit #2: on the other side of the board now (glop side), next to the big glop is a pin labled 'NTSC' that's why I'm guessing it's the goac, and that the other two smaller glops are next to eachother and connected very completely on the non-glop side.

G-force · Post by **G-force** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 9:18 pm

Yep, that sounds right. Now we just have to figure out the names of the traces... ugh! I should ask ben how he did it for the Radica.

There's a lot of editing going on here, do you have AIM or skype?

Reaperman@home · Post by **Reaperman@home** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 9:26 pm

I yell at the wife too much for installing IM stuff, so she'd get upset if I installed one...

besides, we're pretty much stuck here. I have no idea how to figure out the pins...at all. I have enough real genesis' to tear apart if need be, but right now I don't see how that would help. I too am very interested in how Ben figured out the pins on the radica and his noac.

edit: maybe the secret lies in tearing apart a genesis cartridge? I wonder if they have similar glops. (must find hammer...)

edit #2: ...madden '94 is not a glop...but at least I got my revenge on him. it felt so good I may smash my other maddens...

G-force · Post by **G-force** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 9:35 pm

That sounds like a great idea. I don't have any carts I can rip apart right now though... It should probably be a "standard" cart. Like one that works on the radica.

I will PM ben, and ask him how he went about his Radica project.

Reaperman@home · Post by **Reaperman@home** » Thu Aug 18, 2005 10:10 pm

well, madden didn't die for absolutely nothing. just mostly nothing.

the big chip is the game, the second biggest chip is the sram. notice (on the back of madden '94) how the pins of the sram are in series with the game rom pins EXACTLY as we find in the area above and to the left of the 'NTSC' square on the non-glop side of the goac. (I actually had doubts about those pins on the goac since they were in series) this also narrows our search somewhat, but I'd still like to know for sure how we tell without massive trial and error.

actually this guy did a lot more research with this cart type:
http://nepereny.com/misc2/games/genesis ... ball_2.htm
(nice pics, eh?)

for some reason I am having one heck of a time finding the datasheet on the goldstar gm76c88alk-15. I guess LG electronics bought goldstar out and doesn't believe in supplying the world with datasheets for their product...

dragonhead · Post by **dragonhead** » Fri Aug 19, 2005 12:37 am

hello......wake up people.

the middle glop is basically a multicart on a single chip, find the trace that leads to "pin one" on that chip, and count around that. it should all match right up.