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MasterGear


Description

MasterGear (MG) is a program that emulates 8bit SEGA videogames on your computer.

 

It runs games made for SEGA MasterSystem (Mark3 in Japan) and GameGear, as well as their predecessors: SG1000, SC3000, SF7000, and Mark2. MG will also help hobbyists who still write software for these systems to debug their works without using rare and costly development hardware.

 

I started working on MG in 1996, after finding some technical documentation about SEGA MasterSystem on the Net. Writing an SMS emulator was relatively simple, as I already had experience with the fMSX emulator and SEGA's consoles are very similar to MSX computers. Since then, I extended MG to support the GameGear handheld and the previous generation of SEGA consoles: the SG1000, the keyboard-equipped SC3000 home computer, and the disk-based SF7000 computer. There is also support for add-ons, such as enchanced FM sound chips found in Japanese SEGA consoles and serial EEPROMs used to save games in some GameGear cartridges.

 

Because MG source code is highly portable, it runs on many different platforms, from Apple Macintosh to Sony PlayStation (see MasterGear Ports section below). While the source code is not available to the general public, I do share it with people every now and then, when they ask nicely and if I like their projects.

 

MG is still being developed, although not as actively as before because most features have already been implemented. At the moment, I am mostly dealing with bug fixes, adapting MG for commercial applications, and extending functionality beyond that of the original consoles.

 

Licensing MasterGear:

MG is written in portable C language and will run on any sufficiently fast computing device, be it a computer, a videogame console, a PDA, an MP3 or DVD player, a set-top box, a cell phone, or even a digital camera. For example, MG has been successfully used to add gaming capabilities to several DVD players. If your company plans on using SEGA games in its products, you can license MG from me. I will also point you to a place where you can license the games themselves. Finally, I am available for consulting work in the software emulation, embedded programming, and other fields. See my resume and contact me if interested.

 

Playing Your Games With MasterGear:

MasterGear does not contain any games, as they are copyrighted by the companies which produced them. You will have to find the cartridge images yourself, using Google or other search engines. I do suggest you buy the original cartridge for every image you are using, or use a copier on the cartridges you own.

Links

MasterGear: Portable SEGA MasterSystem/GameGear Emulator

Downloads

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