Well, I pulled pin 20 on the bios, ran jumpers from pin 1 of the 315-5216 to pin 13 of both cartridge and card, cut the traces to both pins 13, popped it in and it still didn't work. Once in a while i get i high pitch whine on power on... just tried a game in there and it didn't work either. I'm pretty sure is is done correctly, so dunno whats up.
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....and just finished removing the mod and changed it back to original. Well, one thing I've noticed now, with the cover off the db9 connector fits much better in there and stays. Now if I power it on with the arduino it just powers on with a black screen. Games appear to work so nothing got fried in the process. If I unplug the db9 connector it does the whole stick at the splash screen thing.
I wonder if there is more about the arduino that needs attention. As I mentioned in my first post, the newest IDE finds multiple errors and they are all where it names the samples out as "not declared in this scope". Then I went back and tried reprogramming it with version 1 of the IDE and it seemed to work ok-- since it didn't have errors. Earlier today I tried reprogramming the arduino again in version 1, and i noticed it had 2 usb ports, tried the second one this time and it immediately crashed my computer in a way I've never seen-- black screen and some strange mac warning screen. Anyway, since i'm also a newby at the arduino, it is as simple as opening the sketch and hitting send right? Is there any way to verify the contents of the flash memory on the arduino?
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NUMBSKULL
ZAIUSZ wrote:
I wonder if there is more about the arduino that needs attention. As I mentioned in my first post, the newest IDE finds multiple errors and they are all where it names the samples out as "not declared in this scope". Then I went back and tried reprogramming it with version 1 of the IDE and it seemed to work ok-- since it didn't have errors. Earlier today I tried reprogramming the arduino again in version 1, and i noticed it had 2 usb ports, tried the second one this time and it immediately crashed my computer in a way I've never seen-- black screen and some strange mac warning screen. Anyway, since i'm also a newby at the arduino, it is as simple as opening the sketch and hitting send right? Is there any way to verify the contents of the flash memory on the arduino?
Funny, I've run into similar crashes when programming an arduino from my mac. The screen you saw was a kernel panic right?
By two usb ports, do you mean two serial ports showed up? TTY.usbport and CU.usbport? You should use TTY always though. This page offers more info: https://www.arduino.cc/en/Guide/MacOSX
AFAIK, the arduino IDE will verify itself when you program it.
How are you sending midi data to the arduino?
What model of arduino are you using? Can you post a picture of all of your hardware?
I can say, I've had a rough time getting midi data out of an arduino with my midi gear. I've tried several models and I get absolutely nothing on my FB-01 and a cheap usb midi cable. I also connected it to an analyzer and verified that data was coming out of the arduino's tx line, but I still got nothing on my synth. So really I need as much help as you do hahaha. Like you, I'm at my wit's end. I don't have a master system to try, but I do have a game gear. I'll see if I can get the hardware together to give it a shot.
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Jelly Stone park, MD USA
ZAIUSZ wrote:
....and just finished removing the mod and changed it back to original. Well, one thing I've noticed now, with the cover off the db9 connector fits much better in there and stays. Now if I power it on with the arduino it just powers on with a black screen. Games appear to work so nothing got fried in the process. If I unplug the db9 connector it does the whole stick at the splash screen thing.
Good that you got it back to original with no damage. The fact that you only have a blank screen with the Arduino plugged in SEEMS like the described action of the Bios when it fails the checks. But I don't see how that is affected by the Arduino being there.Or for that matter, why it hangs on the Splash screen without it. A normal game will boot without a pad plugged in? In my mind weather or not the Arduino is plugged in should not affect the boot, unless there is something miss wired on the connections? Seems like the Arduino is shorting the MS's Vcc to GND or something.
I wonder if there is more about the arduino that needs attention. As I mentioned in my first post, the newest IDE finds multiple errors and they are all where it names the samples out as "not declared in this scope". Then I went back and tried reprogramming it with version 1 of the IDE and it seemed to work ok-- since it didn't have errors. Earlier today I tried reprogramming the arduino again in version 1, and i noticed it had 2 usb ports, tried the second one this time and it immediately crashed my computer in a way I've never seen-- black screen and some strange mac warning screen. Anyway, since i'm also a newby at the arduino, it is as simple as opening the sketch and hitting send right? Is there any way to verify the contents of the flash memory on the arduino?
At this point my best advice is to recheck all the Arduino connections, and at some point re think the Bios disable mod. The SMSM Z-80 code does not include any of the needed Sega code or check sum so if everything else was working fine the Bios would shut the system down when trying to boot. You'll need to get the mod working so a normal cart starts right away without the splash screen. Once the system is in this state you should be able to boot the SMSM cart (but it will only have a blank screen) if the board / EPROM are good. Or else ask LS to include the Sega header info in the ROM. If I could find some good info on writing the header I will add it, but have no System to test it on ( I don't think the GG does all the checks that the MS does).
The Arduino IDE lives as two versions because the newest is not backwards compatible,and the older V1 is most likely the one LS used; this code is originally from his college days. You should see the LED blinking with USB traffic but you will have to test the activity on the output pins with a logic probe. This testing won't tell you if the data is corrupt or not, but will indicate if the code is running.
Beat luck,
Yogi
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catskull wrote:
Funny, I've run into similar crashes when programming an arduino from my mac. The screen you saw was a kernel panic right?
By two usb ports, do you mean two serial ports showed up? TTY.usbport and CU.usbport? You should use TTY always though. This page offers more info: https://www.arduino.cc/en/Guide/MacOSX
AFAIK, the arduino IDE will verify itself when you program it.
How are you sending midi data to the arduino?
What model of arduino are you using? Can you post a picture of all of your hardware?
I can say, I've had a rough time getting midi data out of an arduino with my midi gear. I've tried several models and I get absolutely nothing on my FB-01 and a cheap usb midi cable. I also connected it to an analyzer and verified that data was coming out of the arduino's tx line, but I still got nothing on my synth. So really I need as much help as you do hahaha. Like you, I'm at my wit's end. I don't have a master system to try, but I do have a game gear. I'll see if I can get the hardware together to give it a shot.
1. I believe it was some sort of kernel panic but the screen went black like it just shut off
2. Sending midi to the arduino by the max patch app midi to serial highlighted in Little Scale's original blog. I believe it is only accepting midi data and converting it to something the master system recognizes
3. Using the arduino uno with usb connection
... boy I long to have the sound of the master system at my disposal, I hope I can get this to work. Seems everyone is using the GG for this project, find it hard to believe nobody in the US or Canada has tried this on a SMS?
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I'm getting to the point where I wonder if I should just track down a different sega revision.
I've triple checked my pinouts to the 'duino and they are all correct too. Not sure how much I want to do the bios mod again, since if I bend pin 20 one more time it'll probably fall off 
It's been socketed anyway but I feel like the sega I have and the sega in the bios mk1 instructions are different somehow. I'm pretty sure it was all done according to the instructions so I don't know what was wrong, maybe I have all western carts or something.
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OK, SO I GOT IT. Apparently you need to plug the db9 into the system once it hangs at the splash screen, then you hear the startup sound. It stays at the splash screen though, and I'm not sure if it fully works but I'll test the midi commands and see where it takes me.
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Yea, midi cc's work. It's a little temperamental upon each start up, you need to plug in the db9 just right or it will hang notes. I only heard the startup sound the one time too, but it will work. I suppose I can say it works enough that I'm happy anyways!
Thanks to everyone for their help.
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Jelly Stone park, MD USA
ZAIUSZ wrote:
Yea, midi cc's work. It's a little temperamental upon each start up, you need to plug in the db9 just right or it will hang notes. I only heard the startup sound the one time too, but it will work. I suppose I can say it works enough that I'm happy anyways!
Thanks to everyone for their help.
OH This Is Great!! What was the fix if you don't mind?
Very Glad you got it working
Yogi
EDIT: OK so I read your other posts 
for some reason I didn't get a notification in my IN BOX till your last one, oh well. Just good to know it's working, but the whole Splash screen thing: weird bios stuff.
Yogi
Last edited by yogi (Aug 30, 2015 9:18 pm)
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Yea, I think it's probably something to do with the revision of the console or something like that... It's still fairly quirky but will work. You really have to edit note duration values so they don't overlap or it cuts out.
Is it possible to use the RCA jack on the back of the master system to just plug the sound into the audio interface? Or does it always need to be connected to the RF cable then coax out?
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Jelly Stone park, MD USA
ZAIUSZ wrote:
Yea, I think it's probably something to do with the revision of the console or something like that... It's still fairly quirky but will work. You really have to edit note duration values so they don't overlap or it cuts out.
Is it possible to use the RCA jack on the back of the master system to just plug the sound into the audio interface? Or does it always need to be connected to the RF cable then coax out?
Yea, the Midi processing is limited and with only 3 tone channels you are polyphonic-ly challenged
As to a 'pro sound' sort of mod, I'm sure it can be done but would take some research. I'm more familiar with the Genny mods, but there has got to be some for the MS. I do know there is a FM mod board Here- http://etim.net.au/smsfm/smsfm.html.
Yogi
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Does anyone know if the maker of this is still around? I've tried to get in touch multiple times through the years and nothing.
I wanted to report a bug that ANY midi note off message will cancel any currently playing note on a channel. Very annoying. Basically if you start playing one note and then another, it will transition like you hope, but when releasing the first note the new note will stop too. Makes it very difficult to actually play because if you want notes to continue you have to keep holding all the notes you've played. The only way around this is to actually program the notes and make the note offs slightly before the new notes sound.
I don't know much of anything about programming but there's probably just some logic that needs to be done and assigning note offs to the note numbers they belong to and ignore them if playing legato until all notes have been released.
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Does anyone know if the maker of this is still around? I've tried to get in touch multiple times through the years and nothing.
I wanted to report a bug that ANY midi note off message will cancel any currently playing note on a channel. Very annoying. Basically if you start playing one note and then another, it will transition like you hope, but when releasing the first note the new note will stop too. Makes it very difficult to actually play because if you want notes to continue you have to keep holding all the notes you've played. The only way around this is to actually program the notes and make the note offs slightly before the new notes sound.
I don't know much of anything about programming but there's probably just some logic that needs to be done and assigning note offs to the note numbers they belong to and ignore them if playing legato until all notes have been released.
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Just updating this thread, the files are now available on little scales github https://github.com/little-scale/smsm
Including an updated midi in ino that compiles on current versions of arduino.
To ZAIUSZ, I was able to add some legato support to Genajam so would certainly be possible to get it working on the sms interface. When I get one of these setup I will look into it or maybe little scale will be able to
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Avrilcadabra wrote:
Just updating this thread, the files are now available on little scales github https://github.com/little-scale/smsm
Including an updated midi in ino that compiles on current versions of arduino.To ZAIUSZ, I was able to add some legato support to Genajam so would certainly be possible to get it working on the sms interface. When I get one of these setup I will look into it or maybe little scale will be able to
So one thing—the Max patch also needed updating in order to work with new versions. I was able to download a trial of max that allowed me to do the saving but it wasn’t so straightforward.
When you say add legato support, are you talking about the “any note off” issue where all note offs turn off the note including ones that are still held? If that can be fixed that would be amazing!
It surprises me that more people aren’t into this, the sega sound chip sounds really unique and that amp modulation creates some crazy sound fx.
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I don't have an SMS one as yet, I do have little scales genmdm for megadrive (the catskull one) , Genajam was another hardware device that made genmdm simple to use without max or a pc etc. It's been a couple years but on the megadrive I think the next note wouldnt play unless the first one was released or it might have been like you described, either way it was not really able to played like you would expect from a synth. I was able to change the code in Genajam (as genmdm is not open source) so you can hold down one note and press another note, it will switch to the new note then if you let go of the new note, it knows the other note still being held as it's not recieved a note off midi packet. so it starts playing that one. I tried not to use much RAM so it only handles like 6 notes at a time I think and isn't perfect (I should have made it keep track of 128 notes of whats on and whats off) but then you get into note prioritys , high note, low note, last note etc.
It did make it enjoyable to play on a keyboard. I am NOT very good at C++, I am more this is bugging me so much I will figure out how to fix it as best I can. I had a quick look at the midi note on note off in the SMS one and it's a bit more intimidating code.
Anyway I will try and get one of the SMS setups going this year and I don't want to speak for little scale at all but appreciate its now on github and the codes updated to complile on modern arduino IDE.
are you using it with an FM equipped sms?
Last edited by Avrilcadabra (Jan 31, 2023 3:08 am)