Firmware restore utility for Saturn Memory Card Plus cartridge
Written by cafealpha no comments
Black cartridge : Memory Card Plus
White cartridge : official memory card
Memory Card Plus looks like regular backup cartridge, but behaves differently : while regular backup cartridge provides memory on CS1 memory area, Memory Cart Plus have flash ROM chip mapped on CS0 memory area, as Action Replay does.
Consequently, Memory Card Plus boot before game on CDROM, and during this this time, it modifies some settings in order to make BIOS detecting this cartridge as a second backup memory device.
Consequently, Memory Card Plus boot before game on CDROM, and during this this time, it modifies some settings in order to make BIOS detecting this cartridge as a second backup memory device.
As Action Replay cartridges, it is possible to reflash Memory Card Plus, and in the case you would like to restore its firmware to its original state, I prepared a flasher utility containing my Memory Card Plus firmware I dumped 2 years ago (time flies ...).
You can download this utility >here<
(source code is included, please refer to readme.txt for installation instructions)
As en extra, I let my old game saves with firmware itself ... please format cartridge from BIOS memory manager if you don't need them.
Good old times I played Night Xmas and Shining Force 3
Remark 1 :
Flashing your Saturn cartridge will erase all the data on it, including your game backup data,
so use only after saving backup data to Saturn internal memory.
Remark 2 :
Memory Card Plus firmware is designed to work only with specific flash chips, so it
probably won't function correctly on other cartridge (Action Replay, USB dev cart, etc).
Disclaimer :
I'm not responsible of damages that this utility may cause to your game save data, Saturn cartridge or Saturn itself.
Please let me know if reflash worked (or not worked) in this article comments
Extra : I also made a diagnostic utility that displays flash chips ID without modifying flash memory contents. It can be downloaded here.
It can be useful when analyzing exotic cartridge, but not really useful with Memory Card Plus.