8bitcollective

Is it possible to get a 32x running on a Nomad?  Looks great!  Is this internal?  Looks difficult.

Mmmmm me dreams of a Nomad with this mod and a internal 32X.

INSIDE a nomad? Wow. That would be intense.

This is amazing work. TmEE - I would like to contact you regarding this mod - you say that you might be willing to do this for other people? Are you serious about this?

not to completely derail this (i see a lot of talk of the nomad)
But is it possible to hardwire stuff to the nomad?

Because I compared the chips and everything between the genesis and the nomad and internally it seems completely the same. I'm just unsure if it has that side connector port S______________S

little-scale wrote:

This is amazing work. TmEE - I would like to contact you regarding this mod - you say that you might be willing to do this for other people? Are you serious about this?

I'm doing this and a lot of other mods for other people for money and/or for stuff, right now I prefer money since I'm a bit short on cash ^^

I am probably the best Sega modder in Europe... I really really really have to update my site....

You can put it into a Nomad, BUT you won't be having any meaningful headphone output then... I am going to work out something specially for the nomad, but its on hold right now.

Nothing is stopping you from shoving one into a nomad, and if you supply clean power to the mod, you have no hiss or no other noises (except for very faint VDP activity noises which cannot be removed since sound chips are in same chips as VDP and other things are and have no external DACs).

I can build and sell some modules, i've done it before, I also do direct modding (and quite a few mods, particulary for MD2 )  Price is 20EUR+shipping costs.

and you have mail too

I have no Sega or other retro stuff available locally, so I'd have to import systems, and that would get as expensive as sending your unit to me to mod...
I am selling premade modules ready to be soldered in for the price number seen in few posts earlier.

The module looks like so (no wires added yet) :


MCD and 32X and send their sound outputs into MD for mixing with MD sound (or MD sound goes to MCD and output through RCAs on it)... if I'd not have the MCD and 32X inputs on my mod, you'd not hear their sounds.

for music purposes, the MCD and 32X are not meaningful since there's no tools for you to make music with them, they're only good for gaming.

SMS sound comes straight from MD alone, from the VDP, like in SMS. MCD adds CDDA and 8 channels of 8bit PCM, and 32X adds 2x looooow quality PWM channels.

purpose of this mod is to get non distorted and non filtered sound out of the MD with full compatibility for add-ons.


The Nomad version will not be as a module, the module will not fit into the nomad, something like in my MD2 will have to be created, and that requires soldering skills and creativity.

outdated pic of my MD2 :

Last edited by TmEE (June 28, 2009 3:26 pm)

will wait for a module request then

Z80 overclocking will not give you any benefits in most cases, majority of the sound engines go downright crazy when Z80 gets overclock. Procedure is simple, cut clock for the CPU and give your own.

bus Request is to halt the 16bit side of the system while leaving 8bit side running, this will allow you to listen BGMs in some games such as Sonic2.

TMSS enable/disable will get rid of the "produced by or licensed under Sega Enterprises LTD." screen if enabled, thus making you wait 5 seconds less when you wanna play a game

and my MD2 has no clear case, I just lifted the shell in my video

I would love a transparent sell though

please tell me you aren't building those on bread board?
that would be a nightmare

TmEE wrote:

It is breadboard, and it goes faster than drilling a shitload of holes and etching the thing etc... I'm quite handy with soldering iron so its not really of challenge to me.

If i find time i'll use your schematic and make a pcb and send you the files so you can get pcb's made up... would save you a lot of time.
specially if you are doing them for people.

what are your bread board dimensions?

Manufactured PCBs would be fun, but it gets quite costy, no cheap services around here If that would be an option, I would have manufactured PCBs already. It would not save me much time, maybe some 15...30 mins the most... but if things also get assembled, that would be fun

With surface mounted parts, you could fit it into a very small area, probably even less than 25mm x 25mm, which is little smaller than the original older lamer version of CCAM

I do not know too much about what transistors fit or not, opamp will have to be of no low quality (324 is out of question). Bad parts will cause poor sound, particulay the transistors.

and my current module board dimensions are 45mm x 25mm.

TmEE wrote:

I do not know too much about what transistors fit or not, opamp will have to be of no low quality (324 is out of question). Bad parts will cause poor sound, particulay the transistors.

and my current module board dimensions are 45mm x 25mm.

You can get away with something simple like a TL072/4 or 5532/4 or something, then again pending supply (single rail right?) you could use something a bit nicer, but i dont think the application demands that since the sound source itself is noisy as shit anyways.

TmEE wrote:

The opamp needs some 1MHz of bandwidth, noise factor is not much or an issue isnce the chip is 9bit in case of MD1, up to 12bits (not yet sure) in case of MD2 ASIC YM2612. The ASIC YM2612 is muuuuch more cleaner than real YM2612.

and the demand part is ture, I've made only like 5 modules last year.... and at least 2 people built their own. Everyone were happy at least

I prefer soldering things in completely, that way there won't be any further serious end user caused errors, since I test all my stuff before sending out, and I know my circuit the best, lol

Yeah.. well.. so long as you get 20Hz to like.. 100kHz i'd say you're ok.. we are talking audio frequencies here. and yes, you want to make sure you get all the order of harmonics in there, but reality... how high of an audio frequency can those make?

most people can't hear 20kHz, but there are harmonics there that go higher that make the lower harmonics different.. but i guess reality is you don't need the full spectrum band.

Are you referring to Total Harmonic Distortion?

Low-Gain wrote:

Are you referring to Total Harmonic Distortion?

there's the total bandwidth to gain product rating a friend of mine talked about, if a chip reaches that, you'd start getting massive distortions since the chip cannot handle things.... kinda like turning the volume knob too high on shitty amps you get lot of distrotions then...

I have a few suggestions to simplify your circuit a bit and possibly make it run a bit better. But if you don't want to change it.. that's fine too... just let me know.

Let me draw something up and upload later tonight.. I recommend giving it a shot and tell me what you think. I think you'll be happy w/ the results.


Why not just boost the FM and not have to boost everything else after cutting it down ?
Since you end up boosting the FM to begin with.

also.. is the distortion audible? or are you looking at it w/ a scope and have the gain cranked on the scope?

Last edited by Low-Gain (June 29, 2009 2:07 pm)

Added here!

on the advice of wil lindsay i am going to desolder the YM2612 and add a seperate wall wart for the YM2612 - this is on my MD1 - i prefer the actual YM2612 to the ASIC version!  what do you think about this?  In my my opinion the PSG by itself might have some noise but its really low in comparison to the YM2612 (since that is not really line level), the PSG noise is comparable to like a prosound gameboy after you seperate it from the YM2612.   i might try your suggestion too tiido - stick a 1000uf cap on the power lines~!  maybe put a switch so i can like either isolate the chip or have it back in line with the circuit for gaming and if i want the noise!

Wil sent me an email saying that the noise on the MD1 is created by the power supply mostly - old caps...  because i remember that thing sounding way better when i was a kid ya know - and i tried some other things to get rid of the noise to much dismay.

what do you guys think about this?  might be a better way to do it than actually filtering out the noise with more caps.

Last edited by animalstyle (June 30, 2009 4:02 pm)

It's a given that you should replace all electrolytic caps at this point. most of those have shelf life of 10 years on a good day..

So they're more than ready for a replacement.

if the filter cap is like. 2200uF on the main supply, i recommend replacing w/ a 2700 or 3300uf. Shouldnt' load the wall wart down too much on start up.


If the supply is still noisy i'm guessing it's going to be the best that it gets short of replacing the entire thing w/ something else.

As for the amp.. i still maintain it needs to be simplified and corrected (the schematic anyways)... I'll draw up a modified version of my op-amp board to work with this circuit and post it..  you'll have to experiment w/ the resistor values since i don't have the ability to test this out at the moment.

Last edited by Low-Gain (June 30, 2009 3:14 pm)

and a pic of the proto

Mine arrive today, I'm very excited! I'm not quite sure when I will have time to install this little guy, hopefully soon

and some audio comparsions :

MD2 CCAM 1.0 -> http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/4/21/1876835/TF4.ogg
MD2 stock -> http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/4/21/ … F4_MD2.ogg
no TMSS MD1 (HiDef) -> http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/4/21/ … F4_MD1.ogg

Parts needed for 32X and MCD support are just 4 resistors so they might as well be there...

My contacts are on my profile page, as well as plenty of recordings... I am going to the land of vikings (aka Sweden) in Sunday for whole week so things can get slowed down... I take my gear with me, but another question is, if I have enough parts...