Emulating Pioneer LaserActive (Mega-LD) games

Chilly Willy · Post by **Chilly Willy** » Wed Dec 12, 2012 1:32 am

LAPProject wrote:Sorry you guys couldn't find anything useful. Since it's likely using an entirely different BIOS that the Sega and NEC modules I figured it wouldn't yield much interesting.

Nothing to be sorry about - this way, we don't wonder if perhaps they MIGHT have been useful.

LAPProject · Post by **LAPProject** » Mon Dec 24, 2012 6:41 am

Chilly Willy wrote:
LAPProject wrote:Sorry you guys couldn't find anything useful. Since it's likely using an entirely different BIOS that the Sega and NEC modules I figured it wouldn't yield much interesting.
Nothing to be sorry about - this way, we don't wonder if perhaps they MIGHT have been useful.

Well, if it's any concession, I am in touch with somebody who owns the hardware proper now. Any requests?

MNc99 · Post by **MNc99** » Mon Dec 24, 2012 8:51 pm

LAPProject wrote:
Chilly Willy wrote:
LAPProject wrote:Sorry you guys couldn't find anything useful. Since it's likely using an entirely different BIOS that the Sega and NEC modules I figured it wouldn't yield much interesting.
Nothing to be sorry about - this way, we don't wonder if perhaps they MIGHT have been useful.
Well, if it's any concession, I am in touch with somebody who owns the hardware proper now. Any requests?

Yeah, make us an emulator for it. Chop chop.

Nemesis · Post by **Nemesis** » Thu Dec 27, 2012 1:11 am

If the owner is willing to do it, taking the board out of the unit and taking some really nice, clear high resolution pictures of the board would be very helpful. I'm interested to know what IC's the unit contains. Dumping the BIOS would also be very helpful, if he has any way to do this. If the same Pioneer chip is present in this PAC to drive communication with the LaserActive, a dump of the bios could assist in emulation of all the PAC modules.

Xavier · Post by **Xavier** » Wed Jan 02, 2013 1:26 am

I don't know why youve all been talking for a year about what format the video needs to be in. That's the easy part. The hard part of what needs to be figured out last time I checked... was getting the GAME DATA off of the discs. You need to figure out exactly where it starts and stops and how to control the ld player. I tried to work with Steve Snake and have him get Kega to not crash when you load the Laseractive bios ..he didnt but he sent me a program to try and do some tests on the system. I never heard back from him again. I even got pushy calling him names to get his attention.
I got some results using a coder cable going through controller port 1 but I dont think it was what he was looking for.
A big question he was asking if if theres some way to get the system to load a dumping program them eject the tray and load a game. Yes there is. Some games have two sides and eject the ld's and load up the next one.

LAPProject · Post by **LAPProject** » Fri Jan 04, 2013 1:43 am

Xavier wrote:I don't know why youve all been talking for a year about what format the video needs to be in. That's the easy part. The hard part of what needs to be figured out last time I checked... was getting the GAME DATA off of the discs. You need to figure out exactly where it starts and stops and how to control the ld player. I tried to work with Steve Snake and have him get Kega to not crash when you load the Laseractive bios ..he didnt but he sent me a program to try and do some tests on the system. I never heard back from him again. I even got pushy calling him names to get his attention.
I got some results using a coder cable going through controller port 1 but I dont think it was what he was looking for.
A big question he was asking if if theres some way to get the system to load a dumping program them eject the tray and load a game. Yes there is. Some games have two sides and eject the ld's and load up the next one.

IIRC, that existing LaserActive BIOS dump was done incorrectly, which may explain your problems.

Xavier · Post by **Xavier** » Fri Jan 04, 2013 11:20 pm

I had several trusted people in the community look over it after I dumped it. They said it looked good to them.

http://segaxtreme.net/community/topic/1 ... ntry153874

www.oldschool-games.com/pictures/laseractivebios.bin

It's been sitting around for several years and I've transfered it several times back and forth to and from computers. Hopefully that hadnt ruined it.

Xavier · Post by **Xavier** » Fri Jan 04, 2013 11:47 pm

Yeah its 124k now, I could swear I remember it being 128..

Chilly Willy · Post by **Chilly Willy** » Fri Jan 04, 2013 11:56 pm

Xavier wrote:www.oldschool-games.com/pictures/laseractivebios.bin

Uh, this file is TOTALLY bad. It's nothing but 0x44 repeated over and over... couldn't find ANYTHING in the rom from one end to the other. Better check for another copy...

Xavier · Post by **Xavier** » Sat Jan 05, 2013 12:31 am

www.oldschool-games.com/laseractivebiosv104US.bin

Chilly Willy · Post by **Chilly Willy** » Sat Jan 05, 2013 12:42 am

Xavier wrote:www.oldschool-games.com/laseractivebiosv104US.bin

Okay, this one looks good.

Xavier · Post by **Xavier** » Sat Jan 05, 2013 1:06 am

www.oldschool-games.com/Laseractivebios102.bin
heres the comon one on the net

It does the exact same thing as mine but says version 102. instead

www.oldschool-games.com/Pioneer LaserActive Bios v1.02 (J).bin
Japanese version

LAPProject · Post by **LAPProject** » Sun Jan 06, 2013 1:44 am

I assume these BIOS dumps are from the Sega module? We'll need an NEC dump as well.

Xavier · Post by **Xavier** » Sun Jan 06, 2013 4:35 am

I'll do it one day. Maybe somebody else will do it sooner or has already. I'm not in as much of a hurry for the turbo/pcengine.
It only has a couple exclusive titles and it'll be harder to dump, chances are it'll need a more obtrusive method.

Plus I'd guess the Mega-Ld would be easier to emulate and has a more active, knowledgeable community around it.

PsychShaman · Post by **PsychShaman** » Sun Mar 24, 2013 11:14 pm

This is out of my price range, but this is definitely one that should be preserved.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/VERY-RARE-Pione ... 0814358078