Saturn cartridge firmware flash utility : small update

Written by cafealpha 23 august 2014 17 comments

Memory Card Plus restore utility I made few days ago is now obsolete : I added a menu to select the firmware to flash.
Firmware list includes Action Replay Plus/Pro (various versions), latest Pseudo Saturn, Memory Card Plus, USB dev cart.

Firmware selection menu

As you can see, I added some colors in text display too

The utility doesn't read data from the CDROM, so that it can be uploaded to Saturn via commlinks port (Action Replay) or USB port (USB dev cart).
All the firmwares don't fit as-is in Saturn HRAM (1MB), so I compressed them by using LZF compression, so that everything could fit in a single ~800 KB binary file

Here are some pictures of utility running on real hardware :

Firmware selection menu from early beta version.
Picture provided by r1cola.

(click to open video)
Flasher in action : from firmware selection to end of flash operation.
Video provided by zorlon.

You can download this utility here : flasher_20140824.7z → flasher_20140902.7z → flasher_arp_20150326.7z → http://ppcenter.webou.net/pskai/

Disclaimer : You will loose your cartridge backup data after reflash. And, I'm not responsible in the case I brick your cartridge and/or damage your Saturn.

17 comments

#1 sunday 30 november 2014 - 01:41 - gameofyou said :

Hey cafealpha,
Thanks a lot for making the small binary version of this! I have tried it with the USB DataLink, and it runs correctly!

#2 thursday 04 december 2014 - 11:34 - cafealpha said :

@gameofyou :Thank you for the comment.I personally couldn't test with USB data link, so it is a good news that you reported that it works fine with it :)

#3 monday 22 december 2014 - 22:22 - yugo1 said :

very nice work am very happy tested and works great ...restored old cart to original state thank you!

p.s. merry cristmas!

#4 monday 22 december 2014 - 22:24 - cafealpha said :

@yugo1 :Thank you !Glad it could help you :) And, merry Christmas too :)

#5 tuesday 28 april 2015 - 04:24 - azagaia said :

thank you!!!

#6 tuesday 28 april 2015 - 14:21 - cafealpha said :

@azagaia : You're welcome :)

#7 monday 25 april 2016 - 22:29 - Ryo Hazuki said :

Is it possible to flash a simple memory card into an Action Replay card?

#8 tuesday 26 april 2016 - 04:07 - cafealpha said :

@Ryo Hazuki : it's not possible directly, since it requires some complex conversion from memory card format to Action Replay format. If you want to copy/backup your memory cartridge, there's currently no solution simpler than copying to internal memory, then copying to Action Replay memory.

#9 tuesday 26 april 2016 - 21:00 - Ryo Hazuki said :

Actually my question was about transforming a memory card into an Action Replay card, but I suppose the limitation is the same in one way or in the other. Thank you for your answer!

#10 tuesday 26 april 2016 - 21:06 - Ryo Hazuki said :

Another question: would it be possible to install Pseudo Saturn on a memory card? Would it let me boot backup games or is Action Replay the only possible support?

#11 wednesday 27 april 2016 - 11:00 - cafealpha said :

@Ryo Hazuki : It's not possible : both cartridges use memory mapped on different areas. Hence, it's not possible to install Pseudo Saturn on a memory cart.

#12 saturday 11 june 2016 - 18:32 - Zalito said :

Mem cart stands for the expansion ram memory cart? Because i have 2 and i wanna know if i can install pseudo saturn on it (its japanese 4mb ram cart)

#13 tuesday 28 june 2016 - 14:25 - cafealpha said :

@Zalito : you can't install Pseudo Saturn on official RAM extension cart.

#14 sunday 04 december 2016 - 08:49 - AtariBorn said :

Is there any way to add more firmware? I have successfully merged the two X-Terminator V3 rom images by adding a proper header. I finally got the image to boot in Yabause and it works perfectly. The only reason I ask is that one of my X-Terminator carts is non functional. The chips both read empty using your tool.

#15 sunday 04 december 2016 - 09:53 - AtariBorn said :

I don't know if adding the firmware would help much as your tool can read my Atmel AT29C010A flash chips but cannot flash due to the unknown chipset. My only other option is to get an ADP-005 or ADP-062 adapter and flash them myself. Since the dumps were headless and unusable, I'm not exactly sure about the split/byteswap method. When I do this how it should be in my head, they come out wrong. That's a lot of soldering/desoldering to perfect. I hate surface mount and these no room on the X3 for sockets.

#16 tuesday 06 december 2016 - 11:48 - cafealpha said :

@AtariBorn : Adding firmwares requires to recompile the flasher utility, so it's not user friendly. Since adding more firmwares helps to restore cartridges to their original state before being flashed to Pseudo Saturn, contributions (dumps) are welcome so that I can add them to my flasher utility :)

#17 tuesday 06 december 2016 - 11:49 - cafealpha said :

@AtariBorn : ( let's continue discussion on its own thread : http://assemblergames.com/l/threads/saturn-x-terminator-v3.50566/ )

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