If you could reverse engineer the PS4 without stepping on any patents, copyrights, or trademarks then yes, you could. The PS4 is obscenely more complicated than the Mega Drive or SNES was though so good luck on that first part.
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Analogue announces the Mega Sg (shipping early, March 25th)
- Thread starter ShinJohnpv
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The PS4 has copyrighted firmware and a copyrighted OS, and those copyrights will still be valid for a long time.
Really old systems like the NES, SNES and MegaDrive don't have either of those things, so there's nothing to infringe upon by reimplementing them via hardware emulation.
sweet. my MD is hooked up the old fashioned way but this is good for the future. can't wait for impressions.
The super nt is incredible and I want this so bad. Everyone stop using the site please so that I may get one thanks.
Sega CD does have firmware (which is the BIOS AFAIK). I'm guessing they managed to reverse engineer that.
I remember when commercial PS1 emulators were released in the late 90's using reverse-engineered BIOS software and Sony sued them. I don't think they actually won any lawsuits, but rather just brute forced the companies into bankruptcy from mounting legal costs.
SNES Mini and presumably the upcoming Genesis Mini are emulation boxes, they run cheap hardware that emulates the systems. They also come with a number of ROMs built in (buy the box for its 20 or 30 games). The Nintendo boxes have been decent quality, but add a lot of lag and definitely aren't all that accurate (though better than the old Virtual Console).
These Analogue machines are a huge step up from that - first off they use real cartridges, not downloaded ROMs (not officially anyways). More importantly, they use an FPGA, which is a chip that can be reconfigured to recreate any other chip or group of chips (FPGAs are used these days to prototype new chips in fact). It's not emulation, but basically recreating the original hardware, and altering it slightly for direct HD video and audio output straight from the chips that create the video and audio signals, so there is no latency or upconverting artifacts. It's technically not as perfectly accurate as using the original hardware chips, but Analogue has a very dedicated FPGA programmer who reverse engineers the original consoles to the smallest detail, who has been working on this sorta thing for years.
You can get this kind of accuracy from an emulator, but you need a powerful PC to do it, there's no way the really accurate emulators will be ported to a $100 box anytime soon.
That won't be a problem because the Sega CD BIOS is in the Sega CD unit itself. The Mega Sg just needs to provide a compatible port.
But isn't that still technically a software program subject to copyright just like anything else?
I'd assume so.
Man this looks great, and I haven't even got round to buying the Super NT yet..
It's not in the mega sg though, people have to provide their own mega cd.
Keeping an eye on this one... I absolutely love my consumer Trinitron and HD Retrovision component setup, but as someone with over 300 individual Genesis titles, it's hard for me to not want this thing. And that Game Gear adapter might just be just enough to tip me over the edge on a preorder...
Guess I gotta fix my broken drive then. I think I might have a top loader that still works though.
If the product itself doesn't contain any part of that software, there is no infrigement, iirc.
I'm hoping for jailbreak /w mega cd emulation + a method to get the bios out of my multi mega. don't want to buy another mega cd. :/
Okay, so it's supposed to work with the original hardware? I assumed it was straight up integrated emulation.
Kind of disappointing really since those very early CD systems are so fickle and unreliable with their components. Would have been quite cool to have a modernized substitute.
It kind of is.
Maybe there's a nod to it somewhere. Maybe on the PCB or the shell or box.
Agreed. Hopefully it's emulated via jailbreak firmware eventually, but I wouldn't bank on it.
I have no doubt that someone will make a sticker or something for it if this major issue isn't corrected by Analogue themselves.
The Sega Genesis is entirely off the shelf parts. It uses a standard CPU, the m68000, a VDP designed by texas instruments, a synth chip by yamaha, a sound co-processor by zilog. There is literally no bespoke sega engineering in the Genesis. It doesn't run "sega games," it runs 68000 microprocessor assembly.
The PS4 has an operating system that runs bespoke sony code. You can absolutely clone the hardware of the PS4, but you're going to run into the problem of, essentially, software piracy unless you cleanroom reverse engineer their operating system and kernel.
Can someone explain the appeal of using an FPGA console on a CRT instead of using the original hardware? Is it just the peace of mind that comes with one machine doing it all?
I get it in cases where it's hard to get RGB-out from the original, but that's not really the case here.
I get it in cases where it's hard to get RGB-out from the original, but that's not really the case here.
Damn! This is the first Analogue product since the original Nt where I wasn't a part of the first group to get preorders in. So this is how the other side lives, eh? LOL
Just waiting for their site to come back up
Just waiting for their site to come back up
I'm not getting rid of my original systems any time soon but getting the nt mini was the first time I considered that there could be an actual full swap replacement for my 30+ year old NES. It was the first time I have boxed it up in a way that I feel ok that it isn't super convenient to get to, and I would probably be ok getting rid of it, but not ready for that kind of commitment just yet.
If I were to keep my Genesis+32X+CD system hooked up, thats a lot of huge wall wart AC adapters taking up space.
Also, I know what to do with HDMI out, I don't really with RGB-out.
It would have needed some sort of CD drive of its own. Realize, this isn't a ROM system, it uses cartridges, not downloaded ROMs. It's basically like buying an original Genesis, but one with native HDMI out and some extra emulation-like features, plus support for 8-bit Sega consoles.
Oh wow! That's fantastic! There isn't a single good aftermarket MD console out there, so this is sorely needed!
Have to admit though, I do pine for an all-in-one MD FPGA console with a Mega CD and a 32X built-in into the base unit. I know it would be insanely difficult to pull off, considering how much of a literal Frankinstein's Monster that machine is, but man, that would be like a dream come true!
Have to admit though, I do pine for an all-in-one MD FPGA console with a Mega CD and a 32X built-in into the base unit. I know it would be insanely difficult to pull off, considering how much of a literal Frankinstein's Monster that machine is, but man, that would be like a dream come true!
Yeah, it definitely makes sense but it's still a bummer. I don't blame them though for passing on it.
I was wondering how long it would take for this to come up. Important question but I would be surprised if we get an official response on this with the way they (understandably) danced around this with the Super Nt. I mean, for obvious reasons Analogue isn't making their own Sega CD adapter so I wouldn't be surprised if we get a Sega CD core from Smoke Monster at some point but the fact that they're putting out adapters for stuff like SMS and GG probably means we're not getting those cores? It'll be interesting to see how this all shakes out.
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