Sega4ever's MD-Dumper Offers Simple STM32-Based USB Dumping, Flashing of Mega Drive, Genesis Carts
Built around an STM32 Mini board and compatible with Sega's 16- and 8-bit console family, the MD-Dumper is a handy tool.
Sega fan Bastien Mairey has developed a low-cost dumping and flashing tool for Sega Mega Drive/Genesis games cartridges, capable of reading cartridges up to 64Mb in size — as well as Master System and Sega Mark III titles.
"[The] Sega Mega Drive is my favourite game console, Mairey writes by way of introduction to his project. "I really want to learn how cartridge works and how I can do my own reader/flasher. Finally, I have made a PCB with famous STM32 blue pill and some classic logic chip."
Mairey's design is based on an STM32 Mini development board, which mates to a custom PCB with the logic required to interface with the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis cartridges. Using physical adapter boards — not supplied — the same device can be used for games from Sega's earlier eight-bit Master System and Mark III consoles, too.
"[The] software is open source so you can do what you want," Mairey explains of the reason why his design stands out from the competition. "You can also use it for reflash your own flash card with some custom hardware feature."
The boards are available now from the Sega4ever Tindie store, priced at $22 each; the GPL 3-licensed software, meanwhile, can be found along with PDF-format documentation on its use on Mairey's GitHub repository.