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Sega Saturn Dev Kit
CCGMBLUE - Aug 1, 2001
  CCGMBLUE Aug 1, 2001
Does anyone know where I can find the Dev Kit for sega saturn? i need one so i can turn some of my pc games into sat games. :|

 RadSil Aug 2, 2001
I can get you some tools and the GNU C compiler with a Saturn library (SGL) but I can't provide anything else.

The official dev kits (the hardware) were huge ugly boxes that connected to PCs and Macs. You'll never find one of these

 CyberWarriorX Aug 2, 2001
Actually, from what I remember reading those things were canned pretty early(supposedly they were hugely unreliable) in favor of something similiar to the action-replay+commslink setup(called like cartdev or something).

Radsil, btw, would you happen to have any of the propriety saturn cd image generating tools?(VCDPRE, VCDBUILD, etc.)

Cyber Warrior X

 RadSil Aug 2, 2001
CyberWarriorX: Yeah, there was a thing called CartDev after that--but from what I read about it, I gather that it was only really good for loading and running code that was in a usable state, and not really anything that needed debugging. The CartDev apparently had no kind of built-in tracer or debugger facilities and software/hardware implementation on the PC side did that work.

Also, at least from the dated PDFs I've read, the music still had to be done on a Mac with a big ugly box... there was no sequencing software or hardware on other platforms. Supposedly the Sega-recommended method was Cakewalk, so I guess there was some kind of MIDI setup.

Unfortunately, I have none of the official CD build tools. But I have found that a combination of IPINS.EXE, MKISOFS.EXE, and CDRWIN works just fine If you would like to know how to use these tools to make a bootable Saturn disc, just ask and I can tell you, but you seem like the type that can figure it out yourself.

 CyberWarriorX Aug 2, 2001
Yeah, that sounds about right. I also have heard(and seen as a matter of fact) that in some cases they modified normal saturns as well for dev'ing purposes.

I'm pretty sure I also remember reading that there was also some kind of connection composers could use to link to a real saturn. I can't remember all the details though.

Well, the thing with that is, i'm not even sure how to create the disc I need(you see, i'm trying to see if I can rebuild langrisser III). It's not the regular kind of one data track + possible audio tracks. If you have sattechs.pdf, there's one article talking about it, can't remember which one. The layout is like follows:

1st Track: MODE1 Data

2nd Track: MODE2 Data

Later Tracks: Audio

Acording to the pdf, it talks about interleaved data being on that second track. Just not sure how i'd go about dismantling data like that and rebuilding the same image.

Cyber Warrior X

 RadSil Aug 3, 2001
Well, I don't know about how the data is interleaved, but I do know that the utility iso2raw has a command line option "/SCRAMBLE" which, according to itself, scrambles sectors. I wonder if this is the interleaving that is talked about?

Oh, and as an aside, I was reading the pdfs again last night and it turns out that there is a midi interface on the Saturn, but the type of connection isn't midi compliant. That is, while the pins match up, the physical connection isn't the same. Kind of makes me wonder, just how did someone compose music on the Saturn? Not much is really known about the sound chip.

 whodailli Aug 20, 2001
hey radsil can you tell me how 2 make bootable saturn games...would like to do that over modding it, well post a reply or drop me a mail at whodailli9@yahoo.com... thnx

 megametalgreymon Aug 20, 2001
radsil doesnt mean bootable as in defeating copy protection, the only way round the copy protection is using a modchip or a swap trick

the booting hes referring to would be to get the game to actually work with a modchip

 TakaIsSilly Aug 20, 2001
radsil, look at this page:

http://member.nifty.ne.jp/tarucus/segata/optione.h...

so, there was an MIDI interface cable that seems to connect to the comm cable. kinky.

 RadSil Aug 21, 2001
Neat! Can I assume that Saturn music composers might have used a similar cable? ...with more professional composing software/hardware, of course

 CyberWarriorX Aug 21, 2001
Ahhh... That seems similiar to the thing I was reading about.

Cyber Warrior X

 zx7ninja Aug 23, 2001

  
	
	

		
		

			Quote: from RadSil on 3:55 pm on Aug. 2, 2001



I can get you some tools and the GNU C compiler with a Saturn library (SGL) but I can't provide anything else.


Hey RadSil, if it wouldn't be too much troubl, would I be able to get these from you? I would appreciate it immensely.

 Falstaf Feb 19, 2002
Check this site out! Super coolidge!!http://www.chez.com/kaneda/sp_sat_dk.htm...