backing up and emulating

[matttail]

forgive me if this is a stupid question, but I'm looking for a little advise. I'm planning on building a coders cable. Then I'd like to create a full backup of two games that I own and then be able to play them on my PC. Is this possible? And can someone direct me to a tutorial or give me an idea of the steps? Thanks!

[Zach]

I don't think anyone here has that kind of knowledge.. Sorry

[matttail]

Thanks, I guess I'm a little old school here. If anyone knows, or knows a place I might look I'd appreciate the links/suggestions.

--Matttail

[Ryanfaescotland]

What console are you thinking of?

I've been looking into this as well and this site may interest you http://supermagi.com/list.php?c=articles for some reason it doesn't let you in to anything other than the Mega Drive section without signing up (I presume signing up will allow you in to the others I haven't tried though)

Also here has some brief info http://www.emucamp.com/red/index3.shtml

There is also another site for making your own cart reader/writter for the Master System and how to convert old carts to blank re-writtables here http://www.smspower.org/smsreader/

Hope these helped!!!

If you can find a page similar to the SMS Reader one but for the Mega Drive I would be greatful for the link.

Same goes to all the Mods on here anyone know of any similar pages?

[Zach]

I really don't have a lot of time to verify, but hopefully the link I'm about to drop doesn't violate any of our rules

http://gendev.spritesmind.net/

It appears at least ONE of the links on there goes to a site that displays pictures of home-kit including technical diagrams

http://www.spritesmind.net/_GenDev/m...reader_gb.html

[Ryanfaescotland]

Nice one Zach thanks for those hope you don't get the sack hehe

After some chat with a French Sega fan I got this link which shows some very interesting information

http://www.retrodev.com/transfer.html

Aparently using a homebrew cable made from a parrell cable and a Sega controller you can plug the sega to your computer. Then using software on a Mega CD you dump from carts across that wire.

Can anyone verify this? I think it sounds far-fetch but would someone really go to the effort of writting schematics for something made up? Well I'm watching 2 Mega CD's on Ebay just now so hopefully we'll know soon if it works or no.

[Zach]

You would be surprised at the attention to detail a hoax can possess.
That being said, the only way to know is to try.

[Ryanfaescotland]

Some of the sites you refered me to also mention using the controller port although I've lost which sites exactly (just done a lot of reading) but I'm almost 100% sure that the control port is an I/O port (Input/Output) so it is possible to send stuff out aswell as in through it.

Trying to use some of the terminology there as you may have noticed Looks like I've got a lot of reading ahead though since there is a lot of terms and visual aids I really don't understand.

I did have a wee chuckle at this line though:

"Now, as you've built this ROM copier, it might be a good idea to use it.
However, if you built this ROM copier purely so that you could burn yourself on the soldering iron, then you may skip this section."

Nice touch lol

I don't think Matttail is coming back so I'm jacking this thread and declaring it my own!

[Zach]

I was actually pretty surprised to see the levels of humor present in Steven Hawking's books myself..

It pops up in the oddest places sometimes

[Ryanfaescotland]

Ok I'm going to give it a bash.

Currently got my eye on 2 Mega Cd's which end in 1Day 2Hrs so I'll give the wire method a try but also interested in the homebrew dumper method detailed on one of the sites above.

Thankfully the instructions are UK based and not US which makes getting parts a lot easier, infact the instructions tell you to go to Maplin so that's what I've done. All together the total cost for parts is around £10* although tools like soldering iron, volt meter will set you back a bit more if you don't already have them.

The instructions say that they are so easy even someone with no previous electronics knowledge can follow them. Good. Although I hope to make them even easier so I'm going to try and document my expodition but I may give this up if it is too troublesome.

I'll keep things posted here incase anyone else is interested and if there is any questions feel free to ask

EDIT *Actually it's nearer £20