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I don't think this game has ever been dumped:

http://info.sonicretro.org/Sonic_2_in_1

If anyone has it or a scan of the cart It would be nice to see. It's hard to find any info about it on the internet, I've only seen a couple mentions of it on a few websites.

I have it. It is an hardware mapper to switch between ROM on successive power ups. Dumped separately they are regular roms.

So by hardware mapper, do you mean there is a switch somewhere on the game to choose what game you play? Also, could you take a picture of the cart if this is the case?

There's no switch, it changes automatically on a power-off power-on cycle.
I'll try to take a picture someday.

This is a common way of making multi-games, a lot simpler than menus. There is a simple counter chip that selects the high address lines and it is incremented on startup; a capacitor allows it to retain its value for a second or two while the power's off. Thus you can cycle through games with the power switch and it resets back to the first one if you leave it off for longer.

I have somewhere a Game Boy pirate cart with 20 games set up this way.

My Game Gear gets sad if I turn it off and on quickly

Here's a photo of Sonic 2in1 as requested.

Sonic 2 in 1.jpg (619.54 KB)

Thanks for the pic. I was wondering if the cart even exists. Sort of weird how the cartridge switches between games.

So, the wiki could still use a full scan of the box. I finally found a good large pic of the cart on ebay.co.uk. Can Bock or someone else scan the front, side, and back of the box? Thanks. As a bonus you can post the scan on your website.

I would like to see the board inside. I was working on a hardware switcher too, using a 74ls73 IC like maxim mentioned above. I never got to testing it however.

You can see that this was originally made for Sega Genesis/Megadrive, but could easily be used in any console with a reset pin on the cart-edge.

7473int.png (42.71 KB)

aaaa

The Game Box series (TecToy) on Master System has this type of game switching.
Don't know how useful it is to you but I took some pictures of the PCB of a cart I have on eBay.

Sorry for reviving a dead topic xD

But I have a question....

If I were to find the Sonic 2 in 1 Game cart and dump it, would the roms be separated on their own, or is there a way to dump the entire cart and then be able to emulate the 2 games with emulators that can do the power cycle game switch?

You append the two roms together that would be the same as what's on the chip. Then up to the emulator to "simulate" the switch. Generally what people refer to as "Mapper" refer to any behavior expressed by the board so that would include it.

I guess an emulator could detect the checksum and alternate between the contained ROMs. Few have the necessary power cycle UI, though. It's an extreme measure to emulate something essentially worse than just having the separate ROMs.

Was the cartridge dumped yet? because I am seeing a bit of an update in the title of the topic. I am not seeing that rom in the releases section.

It's already dumped, but is identical to the separate cartridges so there's no point releasing it.

can you give me a link to download it

Tom wrote

My Game Gear gets sad if I turn it off and on quickly

Not if you use my GG Power Board Pro upgrade...[available sometime in 2023 :'( ]

But seriously though, rapid power switching is not a good idea on the old Game Gear power PCBs. I'm surprised they opted for that.

Can ya put down the link for sonic 2 in 1 (game gear)?

The ROM contents were already released long ago and are literally a concatenation of the standard dumps of each game from the collection. So far as I know there is no point in doing this for FPGA consoles, emulation or flash cartridges though because none of them support this "swap on reset" circuit anyhow, so it would only be exactly equivalent to running the first game in the collection with a bunch of wasted bits at the end

(Unless of course the flash cartridge or emulator or FPGA console simply crashes or refuses to launch because of the ROM image being too large [1MB/8Mbit])

I believe it should always use df21d42b55b1b4a25704957fe323728b775eb84d for Spinball and for Sonic 2 it is always dabb452e416b4fa9cb83d8ddd307c2a32c3a1a7f

I haven't yet dumped this particular cartridge but i thought I would share a few pictures in case anyone is curious

There are more pictures available (PM me for a link) but the sizes might be too large for this forum

There are no pictures of the inside of the cartridge shell because I only pried it open far enough to extract the PCB

I bought this one loose so cannot help with box/manual/etc. scans or pictures

Screenshot_20210519-195259.png (3.02 MB)

Parts side of PCB

Screenshot_20210519-195318.png (2.94 MB)

Reverse side of PCB (171-7146A-01)

Screenshot_20210519-195829.png (2.65 MB)

Label side of cartridge (670-7612-50)

Screenshot_20210519-195822.png (1.5 MB)

Reverse side of cartridge (ASSEMBLED IN UK)

Screenshot_20210519-201001.png (1.83 MB)

Largest IC (SEGA MPR-18336-S)

Screenshot_20210519-200939.png (2.02 MB)

Second-largest IC (SEGA 315-5426)

Just confirmed by dumping, the two ROM images this cartridge presents through the cartridge connector are bit-for-bit identical to the individual releases of these same games:

512K 'Sonic Spinball (U) [!].gg'
Checking for export header with matching CRC... NO
sha256:b19a326e2d19697f4fba02ab5cb0f1bba334d4b197d247a66d5dd609f9599540 Sonic Spinball (U) [!].gg
sha1:df21d42b55b1b4a25704957fe323728b775eb84d Sonic Spinball (U) [!].gg
md5:8e3b44fda375ad9748b678e9c6b45502 Sonic Spinball (U) [!].gg
mekacrc:B4010E08A03EFD5A Sonic Spinball (U) [!].gg
crc32:a9210434 Sonic Spinball (U) [!].gg

512K 'Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (U) [!].gg'
Checking for export header with matching CRC... NO
sha256:2826d679932566411003334cd4b9d8b3618248b6693e98822f5b2425430623e0 Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (U) [!].gg
sha1:dabb452e416b4fa9cb83d8ddd307c2a32c3a1a7f Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (U) [!].gg
md5:9c64846563d8b9a24400471322e53fb5 Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (U) [!].gg
mekacrc:D2612363E352F220 Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (U) [!].gg
crc32:95a18ec7 Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (U) [!].gg

I haven't unsoldered the ROM and anyhow lack the tools to dump it separately from the edge connector, so I don't know which order the two are concatenated in in the ROM. Probably a cleverer reader could analyze the circuit to determine this, though. At first boot after prolonged power off it presents Sonic 2 initially, and Sonic Spinball after a brief removal of power

The game-switching circuit didn't play nicely with the Tengu GG, so I dumped this using the Tengu Lythium (MD/GEN) dumper with an Analogue GG Adapter 1.1 on top

Date codes suggest production in late 1995 or so, and this board revision (171-7146A-01) and ROM part number (MPR-18336-S) don't seem to be listed on https://www.smspower.org/Development/ROMPartNumbers (or anywhere else, for that matter!)

This mapper chip (315-5426) has been found before in other games https://www.smspower.org/forums/16487-UnknownSEGAGGMAPPERCHIP3155426#116275

I do wonder what's going on at pin 39 of the mapper IC. On this board it's connected to two passives, but I think in those other boards using the same mapper it only connects to one

The TI HC74 part seems to be a couple flip-flops https://www.ti.com/lit/gpn/sn74hc74

The TI HC14 part seems to be six Schmitt-trigger inverters https://www.ti.com/lit/gpn/sn74hc14

bsittler wrote

I do wonder what's going on at pin 39 of the mapper IC. On this board it's connected to two passives, but I think in those other boards using the same mapper it only connects to one

That's just a +5V pin. Here it's visibly connected to two decoupling capacitors instead of one. This makes sense: C1 is for the mapper IC, C2 is for the ROM.

Quote

The TI HC74 part seems to be a couple flip-flops https://www.ti.com/lit/gpn/sn74hc74

The TI HC14 part seems to be six Schmitt-trigger inverters https://www.ti.com/lit/gpn/sn74hc14

It looks very similar to the power-cycle-clocked 2600 multicart I found forever ago: https://forums.nesdev.com/viewtopic.php?p=107406#p107406

lidnariq wrote

bsittler wrote

I do wonder what's going on at pin 39 of the mapper IC. On this board it's connected to two passives, but I think in those other boards using the same mapper it only connects to one

That's just a +5V pin. Here it's visibly connected to two decoupling capacitors instead of one. This makes sense: C1 is for the mapper IC, C2 is for the ROM.

Quote

The TI HC74 part seems to be a couple flip-flops https://www.ti.com/lit/gpn/sn74hc74

The TI HC14 part seems to be six Schmitt-trigger inverters https://www.ti.com/lit/gpn/sn74hc14

It looks very similar to the power-cycle-clocked 2600 multicart I found forever ago: https://forums.nesdev.com/viewtopic.php?p=107406#p107406

Thank you! Your explanations make sense, and also good job having your nesdev post image attachments stull served/visible after so long! I rarely see such image hosting longevity on that forum

bsittler wrote

good job having your nesdev post image attachments stull served/visible after so long! I rarely see such image hosting longevity on that forum

I've been attempting to encourage people to attach images to the forum itself, because in the time the forum's had the "attach images" functioning, we've seen at least two different image hosting services come and go.

Only so much one can do, unfortunately.

...which is why we have our “attachment fairy” mirror images as attachments, but it’s all manual...

Author	Message
MathUser Joined: 19 Jul 2008 Posts: 4	Sonic 2-in-1 (was: Undumped Sonic game gear game..) Posted: Sat Jul 19, 2008 5:15 pm
MathUser Joined: 19 Jul 2008 Posts: 4	I don't think this game has ever been dumped: http://info.sonicretro.org/Sonic_2_in_1 If anyone has it or a scan of the cart It would be nice to see. It's hard to find any info about it on the internet, I've only seen a couple mentions of it on a few websites.

Bock Site Admin Joined: 08 Jul 2001 Posts: 8370 Location: Paris, France	Posted: Sat Jul 19, 2008 7:04 pm
	I have it. It is an hardware mapper to switch between ROM on successive power ups. Dumped separately they are regular roms.

MathUser Joined: 19 Jul 2008 Posts: 4	Posted: Sat Jul 19, 2008 11:31 pm
MathUser Joined: 19 Jul 2008 Posts: 4	So by hardware mapper, do you mean there is a switch somewhere on the game to choose what game you play? Also, could you take a picture of the cart if this is the case?

Bock Site Admin Joined: 08 Jul 2001 Posts: 8370 Location: Paris, France	Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2008 9:03 am
	There's no switch, it changes automatically on a power-off power-on cycle. I'll try to take a picture someday.

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 13727 Location: London	Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2008 11:15 am
	This is a common way of making multi-games, a lot simpler than menus. There is a simple counter chip that selects the high address lines and it is incremented on startup; a capacitor allows it to retain its value for a second or two while the power's off. Thus you can cycle through games with the power switch and it resets back to the first one if you leave it off for longer. I have somewhere a Game Boy pirate cart with 20 games set up this way.

Tom Joined: 16 May 2002 Posts: 1240 Location: italy	Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2008 12:53 pm
Tom Joined: 16 May 2002 Posts: 1240 Location: italy	My Game Gear gets sad if I turn it off and on quickly

Brynaldo Joined: 02 Apr 2005 Posts: 225	Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2008 7:27 pm
Brynaldo Joined: 02 Apr 2005 Posts: 225	Here's a photo of Sonic 2in1 as requested. Sonic 2 in 1.jpg (619.54 KB)

MathUser Joined: 19 Jul 2008 Posts: 4	Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2008 7:29 pm
MathUser Joined: 19 Jul 2008 Posts: 4	Thanks for the pic. I was wondering if the cart even exists. Sort of weird how the cartridge switches between games.

MathUser Joined: 19 Jul 2008 Posts: 4	Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2014 2:19 pm
MathUser Joined: 19 Jul 2008 Posts: 4	So, the wiki could still use a full scan of the box. I finally found a good large pic of the cart on ebay.co.uk. Can Bock or someone else scan the front, side, and back of the box? Thanks. As a bonus you can post the scan on your website.

Jazzmarazz Joined: 17 Sep 2013 Posts: 140 Location: TC, MI	Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2014 4:42 pm
	I would like to see the board inside. I was working on a hardware switcher too, using a 74ls73 IC like maxim mentioned above. I never got to testing it however. You can see that this was originally made for Sega Genesis/Megadrive, but could easily be used in any console with a reset pin on the cart-edge. 7473int.png (42.71 KB) aaaa

alexkiddinwonderland Joined: 27 May 2014 Posts: 9 Location: Portugal	Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2014 6:32 pm
	The Game Box series (TecToy) on Master System has this type of game switching. Don't know how useful it is to you but I took some pictures of the PCB of a cart I have on eBay.

bman78 Joined: 25 Mar 2016 Posts: 2 Location: Toronto	Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2016 3:26 pm
bman78 Joined: 25 Mar 2016 Posts: 2 Location: Toronto	Sorry for reviving a dead topic xD But I have a question.... If I were to find the Sonic 2 in 1 Game cart and dump it, would the roms be separated on their own, or is there a way to dump the entire cart and then be able to emulate the 2 games with emulators that can do the power cycle game switch?

Bock Site Admin Joined: 08 Jul 2001 Posts: 8370 Location: Paris, France	Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2016 7:17 pm
	You append the two roms together that would be the same as what's on the chip. Then up to the emulator to "simulate" the switch. Generally what people refer to as "Mapper" refer to any behavior expressed by the board so that would include it.

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 13727 Location: London	Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2016 7:46 pm
	I guess an emulator could detect the checksum and alternate between the contained ROMs. Few have the necessary power cycle UI, though. It's an extreme measure to emulate something essentially worse than just having the separate ROMs.

bman78 Joined: 25 Mar 2016 Posts: 2 Location: Toronto	Posted: Fri Sep 23, 2016 9:33 pm
bman78 Joined: 25 Mar 2016 Posts: 2 Location: Toronto	Was the cartridge dumped yet? because I am seeing a bit of an update in the title of the topic. I am not seeing that rom in the releases section.

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 13727 Location: London	Posted: Fri Sep 23, 2016 9:59 pm
	It's already dumped, but is identical to the separate cartridges so there's no point releasing it.

enmanuel Joined: 27 Jan 2021 Posts: 3	i want to play it Posted: Wed Jan 27, 2021 9:20 pm
enmanuel Joined: 27 Jan 2021 Posts: 3	can you give me a link to download it

segasonicfan Joined: 05 Jan 2006 Posts: 339 Location: USA	Posted: Sat Feb 06, 2021 10:12 am
	Tom wrote My Game Gear gets sad if I turn it off and on quickly Not if you use my GG Power Board Pro upgrade...[available sometime in 2023 :'( ] But seriously though, rapid power switching is not a good idea on the old Game Gear power PCBs. I'm surprised they opted for that.

Tybo777 Joined: 04 May 2021 Posts: 1	Same here~ I intend to make a video on it. Posted: Tue May 04, 2021 1:58 am
Tybo777 Joined: 04 May 2021 Posts: 1	Can ya put down the link for sonic 2 in 1 (game gear)?

bsittler Joined: 22 Apr 2018 Posts: 347	Posted: Sun May 09, 2021 6:34 pm
bsittler Joined: 22 Apr 2018 Posts: 347	The ROM contents were already released long ago and are literally a concatenation of the standard dumps of each game from the collection. So far as I know there is no point in doing this for FPGA consoles, emulation or flash cartridges though because none of them support this "swap on reset" circuit anyhow, so it would only be exactly equivalent to running the first game in the collection with a bunch of wasted bits at the end (Unless of course the flash cartridge or emulator or FPGA console simply crashes or refuses to launch because of the ROM image being too large [1MB/8Mbit]) I believe it should always use df21d42b55b1b4a25704957fe323728b775eb84d for Spinball and for Sonic 2 it is always dabb452e416b4fa9cb83d8ddd307c2a32c3a1a7f

bsittler Joined: 22 Apr 2018 Posts: 347	Posted: Thu May 20, 2021 3:02 am Last edited by bsittler on Thu May 20, 2021 5:28 am; edited 1 time in total
bsittler Joined: 22 Apr 2018 Posts: 347	I haven't yet dumped this particular cartridge but i thought I would share a few pictures in case anyone is curious There are more pictures available (PM me for a link) but the sizes might be too large for this forum There are no pictures of the inside of the cartridge shell because I only pried it open far enough to extract the PCB I bought this one loose so cannot help with box/manual/etc. scans or pictures Screenshot_20210519-195259.png (3.02 MB) Parts side of PCB Screenshot_20210519-195318.png (2.94 MB) Reverse side of PCB (171-7146A-01) Screenshot_20210519-195829.png (2.65 MB) Label side of cartridge (670-7612-50) Screenshot_20210519-195822.png (1.5 MB) Reverse side of cartridge (ASSEMBLED IN UK) Screenshot_20210519-201001.png (1.83 MB) Largest IC (SEGA MPR-18336-S) Screenshot_20210519-200939.png (2.02 MB) Second-largest IC (SEGA 315-5426)

bsittler Joined: 22 Apr 2018 Posts: 347	Posted: Thu May 20, 2021 4:10 am
bsittler Joined: 22 Apr 2018 Posts: 347	Just confirmed by dumping, the two ROM images this cartridge presents through the cartridge connector are bit-for-bit identical to the individual releases of these same games: 512K 'Sonic Spinball (U) [!].gg' Checking for export header with matching CRC... NO sha256:b19a326e2d19697f4fba02ab5cb0f1bba334d4b197d247a66d5dd609f9599540 Sonic Spinball (U) [!].gg sha1:df21d42b55b1b4a25704957fe323728b775eb84d Sonic Spinball (U) [!].gg md5:8e3b44fda375ad9748b678e9c6b45502 Sonic Spinball (U) [!].gg mekacrc:B4010E08A03EFD5A Sonic Spinball (U) [!].gg crc32:a9210434 Sonic Spinball (U) [!].gg 512K 'Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (U) [!].gg' Checking for export header with matching CRC... NO sha256:2826d679932566411003334cd4b9d8b3618248b6693e98822f5b2425430623e0 Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (U) [!].gg sha1:dabb452e416b4fa9cb83d8ddd307c2a32c3a1a7f Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (U) [!].gg md5:9c64846563d8b9a24400471322e53fb5 Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (U) [!].gg mekacrc:D2612363E352F220 Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (U) [!].gg crc32:95a18ec7 Sonic The Hedgehog 2 (U) [!].gg I haven't unsoldered the ROM and anyhow lack the tools to dump it separately from the edge connector, so I don't know which order the two are concatenated in in the ROM. Probably a cleverer reader could analyze the circuit to determine this, though. At first boot after prolonged power off it presents Sonic 2 initially, and Sonic Spinball after a brief removal of power The game-switching circuit didn't play nicely with the Tengu GG, so I dumped this using the Tengu Lythium (MD/GEN) dumper with an Analogue GG Adapter 1.1 on top

bsittler Joined: 22 Apr 2018 Posts: 347	Posted: Thu May 20, 2021 4:40 am
bsittler Joined: 22 Apr 2018 Posts: 347	Date codes suggest production in late 1995 or so, and this board revision (171-7146A-01) and ROM part number (MPR-18336-S) don't seem to be listed on https://www.smspower.org/Development/ROMPartNumbers (or anywhere else, for that matter!) This mapper chip (315-5426) has been found before in other games https://www.smspower.org/forums/16487-UnknownSEGAGGMAPPERCHIP3155426#116275 I do wonder what's going on at pin 39 of the mapper IC. On this board it's connected to two passives, but I think in those other boards using the same mapper it only connects to one The TI HC74 part seems to be a couple flip-flops https://www.ti.com/lit/gpn/sn74hc74 The TI HC14 part seems to be six Schmitt-trigger inverters https://www.ti.com/lit/gpn/sn74hc14

lidnariq Joined: 24 Mar 2021 Posts: 50	Posted: Thu May 20, 2021 8:14 pm
lidnariq Joined: 24 Mar 2021 Posts: 50	bsittler wrote I do wonder what's going on at pin 39 of the mapper IC. On this board it's connected to two passives, but I think in those other boards using the same mapper it only connects to one That's just a +5V pin. Here it's visibly connected to two decoupling capacitors instead of one. This makes sense: C1 is for the mapper IC, C2 is for the ROM. Quote The TI HC74 part seems to be a couple flip-flops https://www.ti.com/lit/gpn/sn74hc74 The TI HC14 part seems to be six Schmitt-trigger inverters https://www.ti.com/lit/gpn/sn74hc14 It looks very similar to the power-cycle-clocked 2600 multicart I found forever ago: https://forums.nesdev.com/viewtopic.php?p=107406#p107406

bsittler Joined: 22 Apr 2018 Posts: 347	Posted: Thu May 20, 2021 8:18 pm
bsittler Joined: 22 Apr 2018 Posts: 347	lidnariq wrote bsittler wrote I do wonder what's going on at pin 39 of the mapper IC. On this board it's connected to two passives, but I think in those other boards using the same mapper it only connects to one That's just a +5V pin. Here it's visibly connected to two decoupling capacitors instead of one. This makes sense: C1 is for the mapper IC, C2 is for the ROM. Quote The TI HC74 part seems to be a couple flip-flops https://www.ti.com/lit/gpn/sn74hc74 The TI HC14 part seems to be six Schmitt-trigger inverters https://www.ti.com/lit/gpn/sn74hc14 It looks very similar to the power-cycle-clocked 2600 multicart I found forever ago: https://forums.nesdev.com/viewtopic.php?p=107406#p107406 Thank you! Your explanations make sense, and also good job having your nesdev post image attachments stull served/visible after so long! I rarely see such image hosting longevity on that forum

lidnariq Joined: 24 Mar 2021 Posts: 50	Posted: Thu May 20, 2021 8:28 pm
lidnariq Joined: 24 Mar 2021 Posts: 50	bsittler wrote good job having your nesdev post image attachments stull served/visible after so long! I rarely see such image hosting longevity on that forum I've been attempting to encourage people to attach images to the forum itself, because in the time the forum's had the "attach images" functioning, we've seen at least two different image hosting services come and go. Only so much one can do, unfortunately.

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 13727 Location: London	Posted: Thu May 20, 2021 10:22 pm
	...which is why we have our “attachment fairy” mirror images as attachments, but it’s all manual...

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