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Sega Mark III / Sega Master System / Sega Game Gear
SG-1000 / SC-3000 / SF-7000 / Othello Multivision
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In pixels we trust
Mary
193 dots |
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Introduction - Mission Statement
We are interested in those gaming consoles/home computer systems:
- Sega Master System (SMS) / Sega Mark III (MK3)
- Sega Game Gear (GG)
- Sega Game 1000 (SG-1000)
- Sega Computer 3000 (SC-3000)
- Sega Super Control Station (SF-7000)
- Othello Multivision (OMV)
All generally refered to as "Sega 8-bit" systems, being 8-bit Z80 CPU based Sega systems. The inclusion of Othello Multivision here is because this console (only released in Japan) is a Sega SG-1000 compatible clone.
Our project:
- Develop Sega 8-bit interest and enjoyment around the world.
- Gather and publish historical facts, data and knowledge related to those systems.
This site was founded at the end of March 1997, first under the name "SMS Camp". It later evolved into a generic emulation site called "Emulation Camp" then split, went back into focus and was renamed to "SMS Power!" in 1999. Many people have joined our community since then and are working hard in order to make this site and our projects a reality.
Our first step is to have all Sega 8-bit software (games) data archived, sorted out and released to the public.
Archiving software data (often referred as "dumping a ROM", although this terminology doesn't apply to tapes, floppy disks and non-ROM based cartridges) is important because some of this old software is very difficult to find nowadays. Some media are also prone to being damaged and might disappear forever if they are not preserved now.
One nice effect of having software archived is that you can use and enjoy it by the means of a software emulator or a special writable cartridge/device. This is the meat of enjoyment for many people, who just wish to enjoy games they played in their childhood. However, please primarily think about our work as historical preservation.
In addition to dumping, which is becoming an easier process nowadays, lots of work is put into verifying and labelling new and existing data, and comparing variations that may exist between different countries or rereleases. This is a tedious job, often requiring deep knowledge of the games and analysis based on the original box, game media, documentation, or reverse engineering program code. Only this work can allow us to have a clean and definitive listing of games one day.
To achieve this, we have many questions to answer, problems to solve, hardware to analyze or construct, software to locate and obtain from all around the world, etc. Many people participated by donating their time, knowledge, software or money. They are listed on the contributors page. As this project is ongoing, your contributions still are, and always will be, welcome.
Second step for SMS Power is to transform into a big Sega 8-bit museum, providing a definitive resource for:
- 1. Games.
Including, but not limited to: worldwide release information, ROM dumps, box and media scans, manuals, screenshots, reviews, cheats, technical information, credits, soundtracks.
- 2. Hardware.
Including, but not limited to: worldwide release information, pictures, technical specifications, possible hacks.
- 3. Media.
Scans, movies, and photos of advertisements, magazines and related goodies.
SMS Power aims to be a growing community. Lots of fun and knowledge is being shared and discussed daily in our forums. Please visit and register there!
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Who are behind SMS Power?
Omar Cornut (Bock), Maxim,
Phillip Smith (Recall), Mike Gordon (MikeG),
Nicolas Warren (Heliophobe), Nop Nop, Eric R. Quinn, aRPi,
Casiopea, Enri, RedS, Sankichi, Skyhigh, TW_Diy, Yakmo, Yujiro, xxx.
Image / Helsinki / Finland, Andrew Lindsay, Imid and Adolescent.
And of course all contributors.
The order of this list does not necessary reflect the amount of involvement and work for SMS Power. Several members are not around any more after all these years, but their past and invaluable help is not to be forgotten. Thank you all!
And a special thanks goes to Andrew Lindsay for having designed his early homemade copier and founding the "SMS Preservation Society", from which I started getting interested in gathering cartridges and dumping. It was in 1996.
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How to support SMS Power?
- 1. Any Sega 8-bit hardware/software you would like to donate are welcome, so are money donations (all useful to buy cartridges and hardware). Anything is helpful.
- 2. Your involvement is greatly appreciated. We are always looking for programmers, software and hardware hackers, artists, musicians, translators, collectors, web developers (PHP/database stuff) or any kind of Sega freaks and knowledgeable people. If you have motivation, time and a brain, there is always stuff to do to help us!
- 3. If you are an original Sega 8-bit developer, any kind of information, archives or hardware you may have left is our joy. Let us dream.
We need your support in order to continue!
If you have any question or wish to help us, visit the forums or contact us.
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News
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SEGA Music Competition: Win A SMS MIDI Interface!
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Posted Wednesday, March 17
by Maxim
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Sebastian, aka little-scale, is running a competition to win a Master System MIDI interface!
Sebastian wrote:It's time to get your chipmusic on! This is your chance to win a SEGA Master System MIDI Interface. Be the coolest musician in your town with this brand new tool that lets you control the sound chip in your SEGA Master System with MIDI data.
The Prize
The prize includes the following:
• brand-new, hand made little-scale-brand SEGA Master System MIDI Interface (SMSM)
• instruction manual
• required cable
Since this product will not be available on the market by the time the competition ends, the winner will be the only member of the public to own this cool piece of retro boutique music hardware!
Competition Details
Submit a SEGA-related music track. This may be:
• chipmusic written for the SEGA Master System / SEGA Mega Drive
• music written within the constraints of the SEGA Master System / SEGA Mega Drive
• music that is covering / remixing a specific SEGA Master System / SEGA Mega Drive tune
• any of the above may include additional instrumentation (whether electronic or more traditional) - however, the focus should be on the SEGA aspects of the work
Music that does not fit into the above categories will be disqualified. If your entry is a cover or a remix of a SEGA Master System / SEGA Mega Drive tune, please be sure to include what it is that you are covering.
Please note that there will only be one winner. The judge(s) decision is final.
Submission Guidelines
• the deadline for this competition is the 17th April, 2010
• limit of one entry per person / group
• the length of your SEGA track should be between 1:30 and 5:00
• submission format is strictly as 192 kbps stereo MP3
• send your submissions to: sega@little-scale.com with the subject line 'SEGA Music Competition'
• the best 10 tracks will be released as a digital archive
Note that this competition is in no way affiliated with SEGA.
It's not affiliated with SMS Power! either, but we think it's cool!
Discuss it further in the Music forum or over at Sebastian's blog.
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Slap Shot variants and prototype (SMS), Super Monaco GP [Proto] (SMS)
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Posted Tuesday, March 9
by Bock
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March! Celebrating our 13rd anniversary on the 27th! Coders, artists, time to get some creation started?
Three new dumps today. Its also a very special day - for the first time in a dozen years, all the Master System games listed in MEKA's list are released. Which effectively means that I am running out of roms to releases. We are closing the site tomorrow...
... Don't panic! I do still have dozens unsorted files in stock (and GG/SG stuff among others), and essentially it means that we are close to accomplishing the first step of our mission. As it happens, roms releases will continue for a while but from the end of the month, we will switch to a new revamped site that will be a huge step toward the "museum" community project we always dreamed of. If you are interested in contributing early, check out the Website forums.
I finally got around to sort out the tricky variations of Slap Shot that had lying around since a while. There's four dumps in total, two of which had been released before (one more confidentially) and two new, including a prototype version of the game.
Here's the running of all dumps:
Code:SMS fbb0a92a - Slap Shot [Proto]
SMS c93bd0e9 - Slap Shot [v0] (already released)
SMS d33b296a - Slap Shot [v1] (already released, less common)
SMS 702c3e98 - Slap Shot [v2] (US)
The non-prototypes dumps were ordered by comparing the gradual evolution of code and data from the prototype so I am fairly confident that their order is correct.
Slap Shot for the Master System, all v0-v1-v2 versions.
Slap Shot [Proto] for the Master System in its prototype version which a title screen saying "Slap Shoot".
Additionally we have yet another release: Super Monaco GP [Proto], extracted from an European prototype cartridge.
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Okamoto Ayako no Match Play Golf (OMV), Uranai Angel (SC), Doki Doki Penguin Land [Proto] (SMS/JP)
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Posted Sunday, January 31
by Bock
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Today some curious oldies for our Japanese friends.
Okamoto Ayako no Match Play Golf for the Othello MultiVision (岡本綾子のマッチプレイゴルフ), the Tsukuda system compatible with SG-1000, featuring once's Japan favorite's Ayako Okamoto golf champion. Two variants of the ROM are provided here.
Uranai Angel Cutie for the SG-1000/SC-3000 (占いエンゼルキューティー), a keyboard software where a naked angel tells you your fortune. Being totally in Japanese, this is practically impossible to use for people who don't understand a little of it. Just inputing your birthdate is enough of a challenge (Showa era is 1926–1989 so you have to subtract 1926 from your birth date and then...). If you used this in 1984 please tell us if the software was right in predicting your future.
Last for today, a Prototype of Doki Doki Penguin Land - Uchuu Daibouken for the Master System (どきどき ペンギンランド 宇宙大冒険), everyone's favorite penguin in a puzzle-action hybrid space adventure, cute and worth playing. And the game also feature a level editor. This is a Japanese cartridge prototype, exact differences yet unknown.
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Suho Cheonsa (SMS/KR), Maou Golvellius [Proto] (SMS/JP), Montezuma's Revenge [Proto] (SMS/US)
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Posted Thursday, December 24
by Bock
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Hi kids !!!
Did you write that letter to request the new roms you wanted this year? Oh oh I see you did not. You kids don't write enough those days I can tell; you should be writing more letters and playing less video games.
Some fancy game I got for you tonight!
Suho Cheonsa for the Samsung Gam*Boy / Sega Master System (수호천사), an original Korean breakout-style game by Open Corp. It is quite an elusive game, although a version of it it was also included in the also elusive 4 Pak All Action compilation released by HES by Australia (which feature other games from Open).
What is this face you're making boy? Sure it's not that new Alex Kidd game, but in my time all we got from santa was a wooden 8x8x8 pixels cube and a blocky orange. Surely this must be real exotic.
And I've got some prototypes from my secret pocket!
Maou Golvellius [Proto] for the Sega Master System (魔王ゴルベリアス), the good old action-adventure classic by Compile. Quite a symbolic thing, as prototype of Japanese games are really hard to come by. Can you tell the difference?
Montezuma's Revenge - Featuring Panama Joe [Proto] for the Sega Master System, also quite a classic but from the west. This unforgiving arcade exploration title created by Robert Jaeger is a really fun play for adventurers - try a bite on the easy levels and enjoy dying and learning the later ones. It is also apparently one of the earliest platforming game (first version was created in 1984)
See you soon!
( Don't forget to keep those ZIP files under the tree and only open them tomorrow morning. )
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Game Gear country variations
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Posted Sunday, November 8
by Bock
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I've been sorting out through some common country variations which were dumped last year, trying to release them at a decent rate from now. We've got 6 new Game Gear ROMs here. Nothing truly exciting, mainly aiming for completeness.
Cool Spot for the Game Gear, European version (previously released was US version).
Bram Stoker's Dracula for the Game Gear, US version (previously released was European version).
Earthworm Jim for the Game Gear, European version (previously released was US version).
Fatal Fury Special for the Game Gear, European version (previously released was US version).
Out Run for the Game Gear, Export - US/European - version (previously released was Japanese version).
Shanghai II [v1] for the Game Gear (上海II). This is "version 1" extracted from the Meisaku Collection re-release of the game, as opposed to the original "version 0".
As a side note, Maxim has been recently working on a pretty major reoverhaul of the site. We have no date yet, but we hope it'll spawn a new era of collaboratively assembling and organizing the information the community has developed in the past years. Stay tuned!
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Home Basic (SC/JP), Chouon Senshi Borgman [Proto] (SMS/JP), Alien 3 (GG/JP), Ecco the Dolphin (GG)
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Posted Monday, September 14
by Bock
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Tada! Happy new roms to prepare you for end of summer!
1985's Home Basic for the SC-3000 (ホームベージック) is a revamped version of Sega Basic, packaged with three demonstration software: a shooting game, a text-based calculator program and a sprite pattern editor. I am actually unsure about how to save the patterns which makes it of cute dubious use (there is maybe a way, I don't have a manual for this cartridge). Other than that, Basic is your way to freedom and creativity. Maybe try to make something for it ?
1988's Chouon Senshi Borgman [Proto] for the Master System (超音戦士 ボーグマン), in a Japanese prototype version. Known in the west as Cyborg Hunter, this competent and charmful action game with a pinch of adventure, in the vein of Zillion, is quite a classic. This prototype was obtained from an old stash of Mark III prototypes from an unknown source, not sure of the differences with final version.
1992's Alien³ for the Game Gear (エイリアン3), in its Japanese release, an unsuspected decent action game.
Last and least, 1993's Ecco the Dolphin for the Game Gear - why you ask? As it turn out, the version previously available on the internet, circa 1996-ish, has a bit of data wrong that is fixed here. I confirmed this one on both US and European releases. Note however that I'm not 100% sure that isn't a cartridge around with the so-called incorrect bit, if one eventually shows up the information will be corrected, but for now it seems statistically plausible that there is only one US/EU version of the game, and you have it now.
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Links
Westone - Wonder Boy III developers:
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SMS Power! ROM Download Mirrors:
(P) -
(1) - (2) - (3) - (Help!) WE NEED MORE
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