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For those of you interested in making your own Sega equipment (cart dumper in my case) or repairing a system, I can confirm these two card edge connectors mate with Sega cartridges very well:

For JP 44-pin cartridges: EDAC 346-044-520-202
For US 50-pin cartridges: EDAC 341-050-520-202

These are the green colored variants that have mounting lugs and straight pins for attaching to a PCB. Mouser and Digikey stock them at least.

Maybe "cartridge edge connector" would be less confusing than "card" - the pitches on cartridges are very standard but I suspect cards and GG carts are entirely proprietary?

What I'd like to find is Saturn cart connectors. I'd love to make an adapter to connect an ARP cart to the Genesis, but as it stands now I'd need to solder the ARP edge to the adapter.

Chilly Willy wrote

What I'd like to find is Saturn cart connectors. I'd love to make an adapter to connect an ARP cart to the Genesis, but as it stands now I'd need to solder the ARP edge to the adapter.

Wait what? :P

How could the Saturn Action Replay cart work on the Genesis? Or why would you want to do that?

If you've got some totally cool application for this I'm really interested. :)

Charles MacDonald wrote

Chilly Willy wrote

What I'd like to find is Saturn cart connectors. I'd love to make an adapter to connect an ARP cart to the Genesis, but as it stands now I'd need to solder the ARP edge to the adapter.

Wait what? :P

How could the Saturn Action Replay cart work on the Genesis? Or why would you want to do that?

If you've got some totally cool application for this I'm really interested. :)

The Saturn cart bus is 16 bit bus that's (relatively speaking for the Saturn) slow. I was thinking that instead of making a 4 MB RAM cart for the Genesis from scratch, it might be cheaper to make an Saturn ARP adapter as they normally cost about $15. Connectors (when you can find them) are usually dirt cheap, and for an adapter I'd probably need at most just a PAL, so an adapter would be cheap as well. That is, if it works - but I need a Saturn cart connector to play around with this unless I'm willing to sacrifice an ARP cart to testing.

What's missing on the SEGA CD and 32X? RAM. A cheap 4 MB RAM cart would be heaven sent for devs on the CD/32X. So I've been looking into different ways of making a 4 MB ram cart. The MD Myth comes with 8 MB of psram, but my tests have shown that you have to read a word before you write it before it writes successfully from the SH2. You also HAVE to write a word at a time since the MD Myth doesn't make use of the byte strobes when writing psram. That was a "quirk" I discovered real fast when I was working on the MD Myth menu.

Of course, I could make a ram cart from scratch, but then I need a bigger PCB, find 4 MB of ram, maybe have level shifters since all new ram is 3V, etc. So I was wondering if the ARP carts would work with an adapter.

Wow, very brilliant and a great idea.

My only concern is that the 4MB RAM is really DRAM, and while the SH-2 bus has signals necessary for DRAM refresh I don't think the Genesis does? Unless that's what the $A11000 thing is for?

Regardless if I ever find any Saturn cartridge connector info you will be the first to know!

Charles MacDonald wrote

Wow, very brilliant and a great idea.

My only concern is that the 4MB RAM is really DRAM, and while the SH-2 bus has signals necessary for DRAM refresh I don't think the Genesis does? Unless that's what the $A11000 thing is for?

Regardless if I ever find any Saturn cartridge connector info you will be the first to know!

Thanks.

I know the Saturn ram carts are DRAM - you can set their timing in the initialization of the card (the 1MB cart uses different settings than the 4MB cart). The Genesis cart port doesn't support DRAM directly (even the work ram internally is psram, not dram), but I figure that I can handle that in a number of ways... for example, I could generate refresh cycles periodically via a PAL, and IF an access cycle conflicts, hold off the /DTACK longer. Fortunately, /DTACK is one of the cart lines. I believe it's wire ORed to the processor. I believe that's how the 32X holds off the 68000 while the SH2s access the cart.

EDIT - Hmm, looking at the doc about setting up the ram carts, it seems the SCU is set to generate refresh cycles to the A-Bus, which is where the ram is connected. So I'd have to generate my own refresh cycles. I figured as much.

Author	Message
Charles MacDonald Joined: 28 Sep 1999 Posts: 1013	Sega cartridge connectors Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2011 4:23 pm Last edited by Charles MacDonald on Fri Nov 18, 2011 7:58 pm; edited 1 time in total
Charles MacDonald Joined: 28 Sep 1999 Posts: 1013	For those of you interested in making your own Sega equipment (cart dumper in my case) or repairing a system, I can confirm these two card edge connectors mate with Sega cartridges very well: For JP 44-pin cartridges: EDAC 346-044-520-202 For US 50-pin cartridges: EDAC 341-050-520-202 These are the green colored variants that have mounting lugs and straight pins for attaching to a PCB. Mouser and Digikey stock them at least.

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 9016 Location: London	Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2011 6:11 pm
	Maybe "cartridge edge connector" would be less confusing than "card" - the pitches on cartridges are very standard but I suspect cards and GG carts are entirely proprietary?

Chilly Willy Joined: 23 Jan 2011 Posts: 64 Location: The Land of Enchantment	Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2011 11:32 pm
	What I'd like to find is Saturn cart connectors. I'd love to make an adapter to connect an ARP cart to the Genesis, but as it stands now I'd need to solder the ARP edge to the adapter.

Charles MacDonald Joined: 28 Sep 1999 Posts: 1013	Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2011 11:34 pm
Charles MacDonald Joined: 28 Sep 1999 Posts: 1013	Chilly Willy wrote What I'd like to find is Saturn cart connectors. I'd love to make an adapter to connect an ARP cart to the Genesis, but as it stands now I'd need to solder the ARP edge to the adapter. Wait what? :P How could the Saturn Action Replay cart work on the Genesis? Or why would you want to do that? If you've got some totally cool application for this I'm really interested. :)

Chilly Willy Joined: 23 Jan 2011 Posts: 64 Location: The Land of Enchantment	Posted: Sun Nov 20, 2011 1:46 am
	Charles MacDonald wrote Chilly Willy wrote What I'd like to find is Saturn cart connectors. I'd love to make an adapter to connect an ARP cart to the Genesis, but as it stands now I'd need to solder the ARP edge to the adapter. Wait what? :P How could the Saturn Action Replay cart work on the Genesis? Or why would you want to do that? If you've got some totally cool application for this I'm really interested. :) The Saturn cart bus is 16 bit bus that's (relatively speaking for the Saturn) slow. I was thinking that instead of making a 4 MB RAM cart for the Genesis from scratch, it might be cheaper to make an Saturn ARP adapter as they normally cost about $15. Connectors (when you can find them) are usually dirt cheap, and for an adapter I'd probably need at most just a PAL, so an adapter would be cheap as well. That is, if it works - but I need a Saturn cart connector to play around with this unless I'm willing to sacrifice an ARP cart to testing. What's missing on the SEGA CD and 32X? RAM. A cheap 4 MB RAM cart would be heaven sent for devs on the CD/32X. So I've been looking into different ways of making a 4 MB ram cart. The MD Myth comes with 8 MB of psram, but my tests have shown that you have to read a word before you write it before it writes successfully from the SH2. You also HAVE to write a word at a time since the MD Myth doesn't make use of the byte strobes when writing psram. That was a "quirk" I discovered real fast when I was working on the MD Myth menu. Of course, I could make a ram cart from scratch, but then I need a bigger PCB, find 4 MB of ram, maybe have level shifters since all new ram is 3V, etc. So I was wondering if the ARP carts would work with an adapter.

Charles MacDonald Joined: 28 Sep 1999 Posts: 1013	Posted: Sun Nov 20, 2011 5:01 pm
Charles MacDonald Joined: 28 Sep 1999 Posts: 1013	Wow, very brilliant and a great idea. My only concern is that the 4MB RAM is really DRAM, and while the SH-2 bus has signals necessary for DRAM refresh I don't think the Genesis does? Unless that's what the $A11000 thing is for? Regardless if I ever find any Saturn cartridge connector info you will be the first to know!

Chilly Willy Joined: 23 Jan 2011 Posts: 64 Location: The Land of Enchantment	Posted: Tue Nov 22, 2011 1:24 am
	Charles MacDonald wrote Wow, very brilliant and a great idea. My only concern is that the 4MB RAM is really DRAM, and while the SH-2 bus has signals necessary for DRAM refresh I don't think the Genesis does? Unless that's what the $A11000 thing is for? Regardless if I ever find any Saturn cartridge connector info you will be the first to know! Thanks. I know the Saturn ram carts are DRAM - you can set their timing in the initialization of the card (the 1MB cart uses different settings than the 4MB cart). The Genesis cart port doesn't support DRAM directly (even the work ram internally is psram, not dram), but I figure that I can handle that in a number of ways... for example, I could generate refresh cycles periodically via a PAL, and IF an access cycle conflicts, hold off the /DTACK longer. Fortunately, /DTACK is one of the cart lines. I believe it's wire ORed to the processor. I believe that's how the 32X holds off the 68000 while the SH2s access the cart. EDIT - Hmm, looking at the doc about setting up the ram carts, it seems the SCU is set to generate refresh cycles to the A-Bus, which is where the ram is connected. So I'd have to generate my own refresh cycles. I figured as much.

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