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Really good info, here! Glad I found this thread; been rolling over an idea that occurred to me a few days ago. I've got a Netappliance I-Opener that I hacked years ago. It was a fun project but I never used it much. So any way, I started thinking that it might be fun to use it as a dedicated tracker or sequencer.
It's running Win98SE, on a AMD K6 (][ or ]i[) if I recall @300MHz. Don't recall the version I have, but they used a Yamaha audio chipset (I think YMF715 OPL ) on the first versions and a AD1881 on the later ones. But this hardware is all on the Mobo so no option to change.
There is Serial, parallel and USB ports. I was thinking about getting like a Portman PC/S midi interface, just not too sure if it would be better with the serial then with a USB to Midi, driver-wise?
The nice thing about it is the compact 'all-in-one', 7" LCD design, the  bad thing is the compact "all-in-one, 7" LCD screen   So is there much I can do with it? I'm not looking for a 'main' work station, more of a piece of kit  Either FM tracker, synced to a DAW or a sequencer front end for a hardware synth, something dedicated and useful?

So Little Scale, wile we're on the subject, you got any time line for the a2600 interface. Know you got your hands full at the moment, but if its near term I got'a start saving my pennies!

Hi TSC, this thread has been quite for a bit, but I thought I'd jump in anyways. I don't know much about Renoise and Guru, getting started with it for the GenMDM also. But as I understand from the docs, you can't use the automation with Guru; you can use it to do setup and I think manual changes. It seems geared towards sending the initial setup to sound modules.
As far as in-song changes, I think the only tool is the Instr Midi control Meta device but I think you are right that you would have to embed CC values within the tracks.  With a VSTi you can use the Instr Automaton Meta device to send parameters to a CC#.
  I don't know a lot about it, but it seem to me that Renoise is very sample-centric, and not too MIDI friendly, so I'm feeling that Aly James' VSTi/Midi tool is the best way to handle the GenMDM outside the Ableton world.
Of course Little Scale has  some Max/MSP stand alone patches that you can use with the free Max runtime. I really like what I've seen of Renoise but I'm just starting to dig into it, so hey, I may be all wrong.

Thanks Seb, I was thinking the softs had a small code footprint, from looking over the source file.
If my research is correct, the 831001s are 128K x 8 devices, having internal mapping logic, on 'Brown' phenolic boards. It seems that other, (newer??) carts were produced with 831000s, 256K x 8 devices with a separate mapper chip, on 'White' FR4 boards. But the board material 'test' is not 100%, some of the 2MBit and 4MBit carts are on phenolic boards also.
If I understand correctly, to bank switch the 0x8000-0xBFFF page, you need a write to 0xFFFF with D2:0 holding the A16:14 bits. http://cgfm2.emuviews.com/txt/smsmap.txt
and here
http://www.smspower.org/Development/SMSPagingChips

EDIT-: Just noticed that the Charles MacDonald txt, the first link, lists the '1001 as a 128K device and the '5208 mapper is for 128K devices. Where as the second link, @ SMS Power, it notes the 831000 as a 256K device, but I think this is in error, and the 831000 is in fact a 128K device. -EDIT

I'm guessing that the game code is probably the same for both WGP carts, but don't know if it uses mapping; could be that the page banking calls are just handled by a separate chip rather then the internal logic, or it's totally contained in the 0x0000-0x3FFF page. My guess is: cheaper inventory costs, even with two chips on a cart. But hey, I have an NTSC cart, whereas you used a PAL, so maybe that is the difference?!?!
I've got a ThunderBlades cart on a 'brown' board coming, don't know what I'll have but it was worth a shot.
I'll prob pull both chips off the WGP board and socket it. Then I can test with jumpers or the mapper chip with the 27c256.
But first I have to finish re-capping the GG, got the screen and contrast working. but it's still not booting right; hangs right after the 'Lic' screen, no "Sega!".
Got a few more caps to replace before I'll know if I'm done or if I need to dig deeper. Either that or the GearMaster isn't working right; was NOS off ebay, boxed, so I'm hoping it's fine.<Fingers crossed>

Seb, Great News!!! Thanks so much for putting this project together!
I'm SOOOO excited \O/
Aly James, you have major cool points******* Def need to buy you a beer!

Thanks for that! Sounds very nicet.
How do you like Renoise? I am looking into it, as well as Guru. Not sure I understand Guru but it seems like it could be interesting. Anyways, just wanted to hear from a user.

Oh that's sweet; do you engrave these yourself? Ive seen the kiosks in the mall that do name plates, maybe I'll talk to 'em about FPs.
On a side note, lately I've been thinking about an MBAY build. How do you like it?