Ben Heck's Game Brains Part 1

[PauloSilva]

The Ben Heck Show 5:15 this happens because games are not dependent on bios routines (as most of MSX games are) - all Master System and SG-1000 games starts on 0x0000 (Z80 interrupt vectors included in the game rom), so there is no need for bios rom at all, and this also allow Master System games run on SG-1000 Mark-III without problems (unless the game used newer dsp features like 224 or 240 lines)

[TheBrightPixel]

Mr Heck, if anybody ever needed a CNC board router, it's you!

[Scanlaid]

Really excited to see this through, great project! Series just keeps getting better :)

[Gitcher]

God I miss this show. Woefully under appreciated

[dan_loup]

The reason why there are so many similar Z80/TMS9918 systems is due the fact it was the best cost/benefit back then.
You had to pick between the Sram chips that were veryexpensive, or the Dram that was (and still is) cheap but required a lot of extra circuitry to refresh it (basically the Dram "forgets" its contents if you don't keep constantly accessing every "block" of memory) and both Z80 and the TMS chips do refresh dram by themselfes.

So, if you used em, you could reap the benefits of the cheap dram price, but none of the drawbacks of having the extra circuitry or some fancy memory controller chip.

[Pawlsolidus]

Hi Ben! Is there any schematic of this project you would share?

[fab]

This project is gonna be insane! Great job, Ben!

[himselfe]

I've been thinking about doing something like this for years, so it's nice to see it being done! Although what I was thinking was an ultimate retro computer that contained both a Z80 and a 6502 so it could emulate the vast majority of 8-bit consoles and home computers, and a modern arm chip to control the system and interface with modern peripherals and media. Instead of using expansion boards to configure which system it emulated, you could either emulate the custom chips on the arm chip, or to keep it retro use a 68k to emulate the custom chips!

Alternatively, another project I've considered is a 'Retro Shield' for the Pi, that has a Z80 and a 6502 and perhaps a 68k to 'accelerate' emulators running on the Pi.

[PauloSilva]

The Ben Heck Show  5:09 don’t forget that Sega SG-1000 Mark-III is a (Japanese) Master System without that bios rom - what that bios rom mostly has is a checksum checker (i think is to avoid running SG-1000 Mark-I and Mark-II games (very similar to ColecoVision and MSX1), so we need to fix the checksum from these games for running on Master System ) - i actually think that Chase-HQ is a Mark-III game that, by default, doesn’t run on Master System because this checksum issue

[xanthis]

On the Saga Master System, there was a game on the ROM, that was a Maze game. Also the Master System read from either the Cartridge or a Card, so the rom may have done the select between the two.

[Scribblersys]

Connecticut Leather Company, not Colorado.

[allluckyseven]

Just watched the trailer for the second part (coming out this friday), and I must say that this project is brilliant. And I can't wait for friday.

[ScarredToons]

Great video! Really looking forward to seeing the rest of the project!

[loganjorgensen]

Great idea, always curious if consoles with the same "off the shelf" parts could coexist in one box. :)

[BrightSpark]

The "weird" ROM behavior was probably because of SEGA also selling some Master Systems with built-in games, for example I had a Master System II with the 8-Bit version of Sonic 1 built-in as a kid. Maybe SEGA stored the game on the same ROM chip as the BIOS on those units...?

[BrightSpark]

Oh, since the Master System's Z80 is also used in the Megadrive/Genesis for backwards compatibility and sound output, would it be possible to make a Megadrive Add-on for the Master System that contains most of the Megadrive' guts? You might have to use a seperate cartrige slot and probably use a seperate video output for the Megadrive-portion, but would it be able to get the Genesis working when hooked up to the Master System?

[mdukek]

I thought the Master System has a built in game, I believe it is a maze game. Ben mentioned that the system ROM detects if there is a cartridge installed and then boots the game ROM. I wonder if that's why Sega did it that way.

[cakestalker]

Master System II has no boot-screen to my knowledge, but that may be because they came with a game built-in (either Alex Kidd: In Miracle World or Sonic The Hedgehog). Maybe they had that extra rom to be present cause they later planned to have games built-in for the newer model? Strangely enough I hear the second model is kinda rare in the U.S.. maybe because since it was never a big success there as it was here in Europe (and South America). Here in Europe the first model is actually a lot more uncommon than the second smaller model! Just some random trivia for those who care :P

[RobertNES]

So Ben would you be able to include the original Gameboy hardware into this build? I believe the Gameboy used a modified version of the Z80 processor.

[DltaLabs]

I love these types of video tuts.. I'm not sure if you have thought of it but it would be good to have a ebook, with more details on the process Etc to complement your video.. Thumbs up on the hard work you all put into these videos. Thanks :)