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Linux for the Sega MegaDrive

(github.com)

196 points

by HardwareLust1 days ago |
50 comments
upvoteby jaza5 hours ago|
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Still got my Mega Drive, purchased circa 1994. Recently brought it back to life with a Level Hike (I know, apparently RAD2x is better, anyway works well enough for me) HDMI adapter (otherwise sadly it doesn't work with new digital-only TVs), the main unit and all my old games (Sonic 1 and 2, Columns, Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle, Wonder Boy in Monster World, Shining Force (needed new battery in cartridge for save state), Sword of Vermilion) still functioning perfectly after all these years (just needed some vigorous dusting of bottom of cartridges). Got my kids on it, they love it: "dad, so cool, boots up instantly, no lag, no ads" (unlike the rubbish apps on their other devices!).

Awesome to hear that Linux has arrived on Mega Drive. Just need it to boot up (how Sonic 1 boots up saying "seee-gaah") and to drone out "liii-nuux", hahaha.

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upvoteby functionmouse5 hours ago|
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people go through so much trouble buying expensive converters, scalers, etc. to make their old games look good on their new tv when there's plenty of old CRTs at thrift stores for maybe like 50 bucks for an excellent one with all the fancy hookups like component and everything, I don't get it. I understand CRTs aren't gonna be around forever so we should in fact be working towards future proofing but, they are around now. You can even find small ones if transportation or space is an issue.
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upvoteby ssl-31 hours ago|
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I haven't seen any CRTs displays for sale at thrift stores near me (Ohio, USA) for a decade or so. They certainly were common at one point, but that point seems to be rather far in the past.

Anyway, scalers and such: We've got a decent-sized end-of-era flat CRT TV sitting on a high shelf in a closet at the shop that I could take home and use but I really don't want to dedicate space in my house to it.

It's possible that there will never be a time when scalers will be able to fully emulate the qualities of NTSC/PAL/SECAM/whatever as displayed on a CRT, but a scaler is a lot smaller and easier to deal with.

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upvoteby philistine4 hours ago|
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> I understand CRTs aren't gonna be around forever

We're there dude. I don't know where you live, but from where I'm at, CRTs are gone. Everybody wants hundreds if not thousands for them because the only ones left are those in the hands of retro gamers. All the cheap ones are in the dump at this point.

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upvoteby aidenn03 hours ago|
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Just a week ago, I called up the local games store to ask if they wanted my 19" CRT (for free) and they said they didn't have room for any more CRTs, so I'm going to take it to e-waste.
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upvoteby klaussilveira2 hours ago|
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Where is that gold mine?
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upvoteby aidenn02 hours ago|
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https://thecontrollab.com/

Note that the footprint of the store is very small, and CRTs are very large, so "no room" doesn't mean they have a lot. Presumably if they were flying off the shelves though, they would make room.

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upvoteby jaza4 hours ago|
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It wasn't to make my old games look good - it was just to make them work, period. I only have a flat-screen TV with digital inputs, I don't have a CRT. The HDMI adapter (which includes the converter / scaler) was about 50 bucks, a CRT could have easily cost more than that (and would quite possibly have taken longer to find, would have a shorter remaining lifespan, would require more maintenance, etc). Space is an issue, I live in a small-ish apartment. I guess the retro experience would be more authentic with a CRT, but it's authentic enough for me on a modern TV, and it's simple and it works.
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upvoteby klaussilveira2 hours ago|
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> CRTs at thrift stores for maybe like 50 bucks

I haven't seen a CRT in South Florida thrift stores in years. And when you find something on FB or other marketplaces, people want $200+

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upvoteby vitally36433 hours ago|
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Or people could buy an adapter to use the console with the large TV they already have than make drastic compromises on a large and heavy piece of single-use equipment
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upvoteby cwnyth4 hours ago|
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I still have two, a Trinitron and an RCE. For a while, you couldn't give these away.

I sadly had to part with a 52" projector TV that had s-video inputs. Classics games on that was a thing to behold.

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upvoteby aquova4 hours ago|
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You're lucky, I search fairly often and never come across CRTs at thrift stores. The only option is to buy comically overpriced ones off marketplace, and I live in a large metro area.
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upvoteby ChrisRR4 hours ago|
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I just emulate. So much easier
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upvoteby gwbas1c4 hours ago|
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Honestly, I think old games look best on modern TVs with an HDMI cable and no attempt to interlace / emulate the CRT.
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upvoteby gwbas1c4 hours ago|
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Honestly, it's worth trying the Sega app on Switch / Switch 2. The games look and play great, you can save at any time, and you can "rewind" if a game gets a little too hard. The wireless controllers are also great too. (Granted, it only has Sonic 2.)

I've been slowly working through games I never got around to playing when I was a kid.

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upvoteby jaza4 hours ago|
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I haven't tried Sega games on Switch (and I believe some were available on Wii before that?). But I have also played some of my old games on PC emulators. "Save state" / "load state" is indeed very handy. Keyboard mappings is an inferior experience to a real controller, but meh, you get used to it.
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upvoteby gwbas1c4 hours ago|
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If it's important to you, you can get authentic reproduction controllers that work with the Switch or an emulator:

https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/sega-genesis-cont...

https://shop.8bitdo.com/products/8bitdo-m30-wireless-gamepad...

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upvoteby wmichelin27 minutes ago|
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and everybody clapped
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upvoteby malux855 hours ago|
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Streets of Rage 2

Ghouls and Ghosts

Radical Rex

Jurassic Park

These megadrive games had great art and music and are still really enjoyable today

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upvoteby MisterTea1 hours ago|
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ToeJam & Earl - Jammin!
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upvoteby sp810 hours ago|
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I have such fond memories of my time back in the day owning a MegaDrive. It wasn't my first or last games console, but it was my formative one. It was a time in my life when I was into video games (Sonic 2 being the only game I ever played to completion). It pleases me to realise there's still a community around the MegaDrive and - as others has said - this is so crazy but wonderful to see!
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upvoteby kraquepype2 hours ago|
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That's my experience as well - my family had a 2600, but the Genesis was our first modern (for the time) game console.

I remember fondly all the trips to the video rental store and flea market hoping to find games we could afford.

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upvoteby urbsgpw6 hours ago|
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Ya same here. Sonic and on the PC, Jazz Jackrabbit. I loved that hare.
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upvoteby matheusmoreira10 hours ago|
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Genesis does what Nintendon't.

> The lowly 68000 in the Sega doesn’t have a memory management unit required for the full Linux experience, so what’s really running here is a kernel compiled with the -nommu option.

Huh... I thought Linux actually required MMUs. I was under the impression it'd never run on these old consoles because of that. Learned something new today.

> A QEMU fork that emulates enough of the MegaDrive and the EverDrive to play with this without the real hardware is included.

That's seriously impressive.

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upvoteby piltdownman5 hours ago|
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There was no MMU in the Macintosh Classic/SE lineup which used the 68k as a CPU, but they still support the microcontroller targeted distros like uClinux. Unfortunately the tight integration with the ToolBox ROM makes it a fairly Herculean task. Microsoft bizarrely enough released Xenix for the Apple LISA as well, but that's more of a historic oddity.

Similarly, Basilisk II is a very worthy emulator for Mac 68k emulation so there's a lot to draw on for QEMU and the like.

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upvoteby nommuenjoyer4 hours ago|
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I plan to get this working on nommu mac at some point but I don't have one yet. I have a pile of 030/040 macs. Its not mentioned but this mc68000 kernel actually uses devicetree (like arm..) so its fairly portable.

In my QEMU fork there is support for a 68000 virt machine so you can have a multi-ghz emulated 68000 with 128MB RAM (maybe more, haven't tested) if you really want that.

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upvoteby piltdownman4 hours ago|
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Much respect for your endeavours.

N.B. The Author of Chip4Mac68000 has been planning a port of uClinux in the future with his SDK which explicitly avoids using the Macintosh ROM at all, running bare metal directly on the hardware. Might be worth taking a look at if you're unfamiliar.

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upvoteby nxobject47 minutes ago|
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Fascinating to think about the logistics with avoiding ROM – model compatiblity must've been a PITA! I'm even thinking about how to identify models – I know there's a pre-Gestalt Toolbox routine that doesn't need any Toolboxes, I guess?
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upvoteby nommuenjoyer4 hours ago|
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Interesting.. I have some experience with the macintosh ROM from trying to fix up the EMILE bootloader for Linux (its boots like grub instead of being a macos app). Getting a recent GCC etc not to mess up calling stuff in the ROM was painful but QEMU emulates enough of the Quadra 800 that I could at least debug when registers were getting trashed etc with GDB. Alas, it still has some weird issues on real machines and randomly refuses to boot.

I'm going to do a u-boot port for the Mac at some point. It'll use the ROM to get loaded and then get rid of it. That'll work on nommu and mmu Macs and make the modern linux on Mac experience a bit nicer.

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upvoteby cjd89 hours ago|
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>Huh... I thought Linux actually required MMUs. I was under the impression it'd never run on these old consoles because of that. Learned something new today.

There have been variants of the kernel around for some time that can run on microcontrollers without an MMU (mainly uCLinux).

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upvoteby poizan424 hours ago|
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m68knommu was merged into the mainline kernel in version 2.5.46: https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.5/ChangeLog-2.5.4...

Of course the 2.5 line was the unstable pre-release for the 2.6 kernel. That means that stable mainline linux has had nommu since 2.6.0, which was released 17 December 2003.

So yes, some time indeed.

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upvoteby tndata1 hours ago|
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What a Wow, this brings back memories from my own Sega Mega Drive hacking days. About 35 years ago I built my own hardware development kit from scratch as a way to learn more about the hardware.

I documented the project here if anyone is curious: https://nestenius.se/hardware/how-i-built-my-own-sega-mega-d...

It's really fun to see Linux running on the Mega Drive. I never would have expected that back then.

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upvoteby HerbManic12 hours ago|
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Very cool to see, so pointless it just had to be done.

I was wondering how it was squeezed into 64KB of RAM but it uses the 4MB on the Everdrive cart. With that it makes sense, considering Linux can run on an N64 with 4MB of RAM.

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upvoteby ChrisRR4 hours ago|
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RAM is hardly the only difference between the N64 and megadrive. The N64 has an MMU for one thing
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upvoteby runamuck4 hours ago|
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If this inspires anyone to bust out an MD/ Genesis emu, I recommend "Subterrainia." I found it too hard in my youth, but I see now it has a near perfect learning curve. The more you play, the better you get. The controls seem impossible at first, but then you SLOWLY get comfortable with it. (Kind of like learning how to Rollerblade at age 50).
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upvoteby _nickwhite2 hours ago|
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For my American friends who may not know this: The Sega MegaDrive console from the late 80's early 90's is what we call the Sega Genesis. When I saw this post, I assumed it was some kind of optical drive or the later released Sega CD (which the rest of the world called Mega-CD). We had a lot of good times playing Street Fighter II and Sonic on this system back in the day.
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upvoteby walrus0111 hours ago|
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If this runs on a megadrive (Genesis), would this also boot on a Sega Nomad, the portable version of a genesis?
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upvoteby mikepavone11 hours ago|
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It should. There are some small differences between the Nomad and a normal Gen/MD, but nothing that should impact something like this
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upvoteby bitwize13 hours ago|
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Absolutely nuts and squirrels.

Then again, I did know that the Mega Drive's CPU loadout (68000 and Z80) is the same as the first Unix machine I ever used (a TRS-80 Model 16), so running some form of Unix on it was therefore, theoretically, possible...

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upvoteby aussieguy123412 hours ago|
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It runs Doom, now it runs Linux
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upvoteby SequoiaHope8 hours ago|
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My oscilloscope does both!
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upvoteby HardwareLust1 days ago|
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Original title: It’s Linux, On A Sega Megadrive
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upvoteby dang14 hours ago|
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It's a cool project! but best to use the original title and original source - see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

I've changed the title and URL to match https://github.com/LinuxMD/linuxmd and put the other URL in the toptext so people can look at it too.

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upvoteby HardwareLust6 hours ago|
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Thanks Dan! Will do. I would have fixed it, but by the time I noticed the complaints, it was already too late.
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upvoteby msephton1 days ago|
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Really odd decision for it to be changed away from this original title.

And if I'm being pedantic (and I am) it's Sega Mega Drive.

Repo, which says Sega MegaDrive, is at: https://github.com/LinuxMD/linuxmd

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upvoteby dormento22 hours ago|
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(Disclaimer: I'm partial to "Mega Drive" myself.)

Wikipedia has this

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mega_Drive_vs_Genesis.gif

blue = Mega Drive, red = Genesis

Linked here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Vid...

(didn't find the sales numbers, for those wondering. Sorry!)

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upvoteby croes13 hours ago|
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I guess parent is pedantic about Megadrive instead of Mega Drive
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upvoteby msephton6 hours ago|
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Love that chart! It could also apply almost exactly to the "Buster Bros." artocle (everybody else other than North America knows it as "Pang"). This sort of rewriting of history is rife on Wikipedia.
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upvoteby cwnyth4 hours ago|
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We Japanese importers also knew it as Pang.
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upvoteby nommuenjoyer20 hours ago|
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And it really is on a MegaDrive as I only tested this stuff on a Japanese MegaDrive.
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