Still got my Mega Drive, purchased circa 1994. Recently brought it back to life with a Level Hike (I know, apparently RAD2x is better, anyway works well enough for me) HDMI adapter (otherwise sadly it doesn't work with new digital-only TVs), the main unit and all my old games (Sonic 1 and 2, Columns, Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle, Wonder Boy in Monster World, Shining Force (needed new battery in cartridge for save state), Sword of Vermilion) still functioning perfectly after all these years (just needed some vigorous dusting of bottom of cartridges). Got my kids on it, they love it: "dad, so cool, boots up instantly, no lag, no ads" (unlike the rubbish apps on their other devices!).
Awesome to hear that Linux has arrived on Mega Drive. Just need it to boot up (how Sonic 1 boots up saying "seee-gaah") and to drone out "liii-nuux", hahaha.
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tndata
What a Wow, this brings back memories from my own Sega Mega Drive hacking days. About 35 years ago I built my own hardware development kit from scratch as a way to learn more about the hardware.
It's really fun to see Linux running on the Mega Drive. I never would have expected that back then.
sp8
I have such fond memories of my time back in the day owning a MegaDrive. It wasn't my first or last games console, but it was my formative one. It was a time in my life when I was into video games (Sonic 2 being the only game I ever played to completion). It pleases me to realise there's still a community around the MegaDrive and - as others has said - this is so crazy but wonderful to see!
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matheusmoreira
Genesis does what Nintendon't.
> The lowly 68000 in the Sega doesn’t have a memory management unit required for the full Linux experience, so what’s really running here is a kernel compiled with the -nommu option.
Huh... I thought Linux actually required MMUs. I was under the impression it'd never run on these old consoles because of that. Learned something new today.
> A QEMU fork that emulates enough of the MegaDrive and the EverDrive to play with this without the real hardware is included.
That's seriously impressive.
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HerbManic
Very cool to see, so pointless it just had to be done.
I was wondering how it was squeezed into 64KB of RAM but it uses the 4MB on the Everdrive cart. With that it makes sense, considering Linux can run on an N64 with 4MB of RAM.
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runamuck
If this inspires anyone to bust out an MD/ Genesis emu, I recommend "Subterrainia." I found it too hard in my youth, but I see now it has a near perfect learning curve. The more you play, the better you get. The controls seem impossible at first, but then you SLOWLY get comfortable with it. (Kind of like learning how to Rollerblade at age 50).
_nickwhite
For my American friends who may not know this: The Sega MegaDrive console from the late 80's early 90's is what we call the Sega Genesis. When I saw this post, I assumed it was some kind of optical drive or the later released Sega CD (which the rest of the world called Mega-CD). We had a lot of good times playing Street Fighter II and Sonic on this system back in the day.
walrus01
If this runs on a megadrive (Genesis), would this also boot on a Sega Nomad, the portable version of a genesis?
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bitwize
Absolutely nuts and squirrels.
Then again, I did know that the Mega Drive's CPU loadout (68000 and Z80) is the same as the first Unix machine I ever used (a TRS-80 Model 16), so running some form of Unix on it was therefore, theoretically, possible...
Still got my Mega Drive, purchased circa 1994. Recently brought it back to life with a Level Hike (I know, apparently RAD2x is better, anyway works well enough for me) HDMI adapter (otherwise sadly it doesn't work with new digital-only TVs), the main unit and all my old games (Sonic 1 and 2, Columns, Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle, Wonder Boy in Monster World, Shining Force (needed new battery in cartridge for save state), Sword of Vermilion) still functioning perfectly after all these years (just needed some vigorous dusting of bottom of cartridges). Got my kids on it, they love it: "dad, so cool, boots up instantly, no lag, no ads" (unlike the rubbish apps on their other devices!).
Awesome to hear that Linux has arrived on Mega Drive. Just need it to boot up (how Sonic 1 boots up saying "seee-gaah") and to drone out "liii-nuux", hahaha.
What a Wow, this brings back memories from my own Sega Mega Drive hacking days. About 35 years ago I built my own hardware development kit from scratch as a way to learn more about the hardware.
I documented the project here if anyone is curious: https://nestenius.se/hardware/how-i-built-my-own-sega-mega-d...
It's really fun to see Linux running on the Mega Drive. I never would have expected that back then.
I have such fond memories of my time back in the day owning a MegaDrive. It wasn't my first or last games console, but it was my formative one. It was a time in my life when I was into video games (Sonic 2 being the only game I ever played to completion). It pleases me to realise there's still a community around the MegaDrive and - as others has said - this is so crazy but wonderful to see!
Genesis does what Nintendon't.
> The lowly 68000 in the Sega doesn’t have a memory management unit required for the full Linux experience, so what’s really running here is a kernel compiled with the -nommu option.
Huh... I thought Linux actually required MMUs. I was under the impression it'd never run on these old consoles because of that. Learned something new today.
> A QEMU fork that emulates enough of the MegaDrive and the EverDrive to play with this without the real hardware is included.
That's seriously impressive.
Very cool to see, so pointless it just had to be done.
I was wondering how it was squeezed into 64KB of RAM but it uses the 4MB on the Everdrive cart. With that it makes sense, considering Linux can run on an N64 with 4MB of RAM.
If this inspires anyone to bust out an MD/ Genesis emu, I recommend "Subterrainia." I found it too hard in my youth, but I see now it has a near perfect learning curve. The more you play, the better you get. The controls seem impossible at first, but then you SLOWLY get comfortable with it. (Kind of like learning how to Rollerblade at age 50).
For my American friends who may not know this: The Sega MegaDrive console from the late 80's early 90's is what we call the Sega Genesis. When I saw this post, I assumed it was some kind of optical drive or the later released Sega CD (which the rest of the world called Mega-CD). We had a lot of good times playing Street Fighter II and Sonic on this system back in the day.
If this runs on a megadrive (Genesis), would this also boot on a Sega Nomad, the portable version of a genesis?
Absolutely nuts and squirrels.
Then again, I did know that the Mega Drive's CPU loadout (68000 and Z80) is the same as the first Unix machine I ever used (a TRS-80 Model 16), so running some form of Unix on it was therefore, theoretically, possible...
It runs Doom, now it runs Linux
Original title: It’s Linux, On A Sega Megadrive