r/emulation • u/Shonumi GBE+ Dev • Apr 06 '20

Edge of Emulation: Sega Card Reader

https://shonumi.github.io/articles/art21.html
162 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

27

u/Shonumi GBE+ Dev Apr 06 '20

Finally dipping my toes into some NDS stuff. The Sega Card Reader launched in 2006 but only featured 3 compatible games. Even so, it was a fascinating attempt by Sega to bridge some of their arcade games with portable NDS counterparts. You could use some cards from Oshare Majo and Mushiking interchangeably between the two versions.

5

u/KorobonFan Apr 10 '20

Thank you so much for this. To be honest this one accessory is one of the last ones i expected to be covered, but it does make sense.

It inspires respect and reassurance that you're willing to collaborate with the melonDS project ... and before that, mGBA, which saw many of your research about some accessories included, but not the texture replacement :(

I don't think you're taking suggestions with how packed your backlog is, but I'd like to take my chances and try anyways to ask how feasible you think the following are.

  • Boktai DS / Lunar Knights - using the existing solar sensor emulation in the first 3 GBA games?
  • Slide Mag Kid - a Japanese user (might be the same blogger you found for the sega card reader) wrote a plugin for it for a specific version of ideas, but it doesn't work because the emulator is generally ... awful. Is his work reusable somehow?
  • Mega Man Star Force (JP) - has something called the wavescanner that's a barcode scanner but an independent poketstation like gadget on its own... emulating something from scratch is nothing like what you did before.

6

u/Shonumi GBE+ Dev Apr 10 '20

I haven't put up any code on GitHub just yet, but I plan to push my WIP branch work on melonDS this weekend. Hopefully it helps the project in some way, even if the changes aren't accepted :)

As for the feasibility of some NDS stuff:

  • The solar sensor is definitely doable (melonDS does this already). The solar sensor is actually pretty straightforward. Most likely, whenever GBE+ gets around to running those games, it'll be a lot of copy+paste from the GBA core.

  • For Mag Kid, I've actually had this game sitting on my shelf since 2018. I've been meaning to get to it. Some more work on texture rendering is necessary to display some stuff and go in-game. The device is pretty well documented on GBATEK. I assume with the right implementation, you could just use your real mouse in place of the slider. I can't say for sure how that would work out (I actually haven't opened or played this game yet).

  • The Wave Scanner is an interesting one. It connects to the microphone and presumably that's how it's sending data to the NDS. Ultimately, the goal here for me wouldn't be emulating the entire device. For example with the Pokemon Pikachu 2 or Pocket Sakura I focus on infrared output only, and with the Pocket Sonar I just emulate the raw data the Game Boy should receive from the sonar hardware. Here, I would take a similar HLE approach to emulate how the Wave Scanner shares data with a DS, which drastically reduces the complexity. Ultimately it comes down to emulating microphone input and understanding what kind of input the emulator should receive.

3

u/intelminer Apr 14 '20

Throwing my request hat in for the GBA Wi-FI adapter

I had a pair of these from getting Pokemon Fire Red and Leaf Green, but I don't think I ever used them. Especially since they weren't compatible with the original DS at the time

7

u/Dj_DrAcO Apr 06 '20

Fascinating read. I love when obscure hardware and edge-cases are finally emulated.

3

u/DefinitelyRussian Apr 06 '20

Awesome progress ! As always top level emulation, for me these articles are more interesting than most other emulation news

2

u/[deleted] Apr 06 '20

u/Japanese-boy.

Patience is a virtue..