Official GEMS development kit + an unreleased game

For anything related to sound (YM2612, PSG, Z80, PCM...)

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LocalH
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Post by LocalH » Thu Sep 27, 2007 7:40 am

In this case, it was an eBay auction.

drx
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Post by drx » Thu Sep 27, 2007 8:06 am

I won an ebay auction for $160 (including the boards). I usually get this stuff from developers by email or something, but this time a dev decided to go to ebay.

Here's their website: http://www.bytesizesound.com/

MG
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Post by MG » Thu Sep 27, 2007 12:21 pm

zinger wrote:Earthworm Jim hints that it should be somewhat capable: http://www.soundshock.se/dump/level5.mp3 I'd like to see if there are better sound examples
Ripping examples are here :
Click The Link !
Click The Other Link !

Source code and all the soft tools for the rip included.

Enjoy !
Last edited by MG on Fri Sep 28, 2007 8:52 am, edited 2 times in total.
Ah ? ben si ? pourquoi pas...

zinger
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Post by zinger » Thu Sep 27, 2007 3:34 pm

Thanks MG, although, that's not really what I meant. I'm curious if there are any games using the GEMS driver that sound better than EWJ.

Edge-`
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Post by Edge-` » Fri Sep 28, 2007 12:59 pm

Wasn't Comix Zone GEMS? I loved the tracks on that.
Genny Wars (Someday.. :D)

Eke
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Post by Eke » Fri Sep 28, 2007 1:12 pm

And Flashback also, both had some really nice tunes :wink:

TulioAdriano
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Post by TulioAdriano » Fri Sep 28, 2007 4:38 pm

Which driver did Sonic 1-2 use?
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LocalH
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Post by LocalH » Fri Sep 28, 2007 5:37 pm

SMPS.

TmEE co.(TM)
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Post by TmEE co.(TM) » Sat Sep 29, 2007 8:31 am

Comix Zone and Flashback have pretty nice tunes, but FBs ones sound... well, poor.

off topic, but where can I find info about SMPS module format ?
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zinger
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Post by zinger » Sat Sep 29, 2007 11:19 am

TmEE co.(TM) wrote:Comix Zone and Flashback have pretty nice tunes, but FBs ones sound... well, poor
Both of them sound really poor IMO, just clueless.

TmEE co.(TM)
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Post by TmEE co.(TM) » Sat Sep 29, 2007 1:57 pm

http://gdri.smspower.org/wiki/index.php ... ngine_List

Sonic spinball has pretty good tunes, aslo Vectormans, aero the acrobats and Zero the kamikaze squirrel
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Edge-`
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Post by Edge-` » Sat Sep 29, 2007 9:29 pm

Off topic to this, Sonic Spinball would be a game I'd love to see the source for... apparently it was done in C, outsourced by Sega of America to a set of programmers in the US. I'd be interested to see what compiler, methods they used.
Genny Wars (Someday.. :D)

KanedaFr
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Post by KanedaFr » Wed Oct 10, 2007 9:38 am

I'm happy you released it!!!

So many years I have it without the rights to share it with you!!!!

TulioAdriano
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Post by TulioAdriano » Wed Oct 10, 2007 6:53 pm

I have been brainstorming over the idea of how to run Gems in PC.

I read across the documents and it states that Gems requires a Sega Loader board and a Sega RAM/ROM board containing Gems firmware.

As I read I concluded that what Gems does is to map MIDI input into Mega Drive registers and output them into the parallel port that is captured by Mega Drive and played using the Running Gems software.

I don't know the nature of this Loader Board and this Sega RAM/ROM board, but according to the manual it has to be plugged into the 9 pin connector on the back panel of Mega Drive which I assume it is the EXT port present in most Model 1 Mega Drive consoles.

Now also assuming that MD will boot up with the software in the loader board, by checking the EXT port when no cartridge is present, brings me some ideas on how to do it.

1) It might be possible to emulate the loader board to provide the GEMS software (assuming that the EPROMs were dumped) to MD once the system is started up without cartridge (would require the current emulators to be able to start up without selecting a ROM) by checking the connected device on the EXT port.

Considering that the loader board is connected to the PC using the parallel port, it would be necessary to capture the data sent to the parallel port in order to transmit them to the emulated board. Then the Running GEMS driver in Mega Drive will play them as if they were being received by the Loader Board.

2) It would be a good idea also to use the actual Mega Drive instead of an emulator. Now assuming that the GEMS firmware is no more than a Mega Drive program, it might be possible to modify its binary (if needed) to run as a Cartridge ROM. Since MD doesn't offer a parallel port, a software would need to be running to capture the messages and rewire them to a serial port to be connected directly to a serial port on MD. The GEMS driver could be also modified so that it could read Joystick Port 2 to provide compatibility with MD model 2 also.

Now as I type it sounds so complicated that it seems much more interesting to have new software such as Tiido's Music Driver or TFM Music Maker to provide a MD ROM that we can run in a Flash Cart and it is capable to receive register data sent via parallel or serial port, allowing very accurate sound, for being played in Real Hardware and also, as the GEMS manual states "Things that sound grate through the earphone jack may sound terrible through the TV".

Tiido already wrote about making a special cable to have his music tracker playing in Mega Driver hardware. I don't know how complicated that would be for Shiru but would be an amazing feature on TFM Music Maker also.

Now sorry if all I wrote is junk. It's all based on my assumptions.
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TmEE co.(TM)
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Post by TmEE co.(TM) » Thu Oct 11, 2007 5:27 am

I'm 100% sure that this loader sits in a cartslot
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