How did a mega drive (genesis) game get turned into a rom?

[Maximilian]

How did that happen? The consoles dont have serial ports as far as i know, how could somone transfer the contents of one of the cartridges onto a pc as a file? Also how did basically the entire mega drive librairy of games end up on rom sites for download? Wouldnt that mean somone had to go through every single game manually taking the file off the cartridge, or maybe a group of people did that and put their collections together?

Somone explain please

 

[mmntech]

There are tools hackers have made called ROM Dumpers. They work just like a flash card reader. They connect to a computer via USB and allow it to access and copy what's on the cartridge. Yes, someone did go through them all manually. I'm sure it's not just one person doing it though.

 

[Fox5]

A special drive was made that can read the cartridge and dump it to a disk, cd, or pc. Cartridges tried to include various protections against these, but the protections were always cracked.

 

[Zenoth]

No sure why you're talking specifically about the Genesis, because ROMs are for basically all the cartridge-based consoles out there, or at least starting from a certain generation up to the N64 I believe?

 

[Maximilian]

Hmm so they used this type of thing:

http://mozy.org/16bit/programming/frogdump.jpg

I see, so its electrical cleverness combined with knowing the specs i assume, neat

 

[Fox5]

I'd think the hard part would be on carts that contained processing elements. Not only ROMs contained just data, some had processors and DSPs, and that hardware would have to be emulated too.

 

[shortylickens]

I'd think the hard part would be on carts that contained processing elements. Not only ROMs contained just data, some had processors and DSPs, and that hardware would have to be emulated too.

In later version of Snex9X, the FX chip is emulated.
Of course, I only recall two such games, Star Fox and Stunt Race.
Anyone know of others? I wonder if Gamefaqs lists them.
BRB




Nope, they dont have a list of which games are specifically FX, but, for a trip down memory lane:
http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/snes/file/916396/40446

Very good statistics this dude compiled over several years.

 

[Fox5]

In later version of Snex9X, the FX chip is emulated.
Of course, I only recall two such games, Star Fox and Stunt Race.
Anyone know of others? I wonder if Gamefaqs lists them.
BRB




Nope, they dont have a list of which games are specifically FX, but, for a trip down memory lane:
http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/snes/file/916396/40446

Very good statistics this dude compiled over several years.

The FX chip wasn't the only DSP chip used, but it was probably the most powerful, save for the FX-2 chip. I don't think n64 used any.