Happy 30th anniversary!

It's the 30th anniversary of the Mega Drive! Hurray! Sadly, I didn't really make anything interesting for this occasion (sorry), so instead have a dancing iwis (click/tap/whatever for an animated version):

History lesson

The Mega Drive launched on October 29th, 1988 in Japan… and let's just say it was a rocky launch (there were shortages caused by defective boards). You should read the article on trying to acquire a Mega Drive at launch (translation courtesy of Mega Drive Shock), it's pretty amusing. If you ever run into an early model 1 with a tiny extra board added to it, now you know why.

Then we know how it goes. It's released in North America in 1989 and Europe and Brazil in 1990, and Sonic comes out in 1991 and proves that it's possible to dethrone Nintendo from it's practical monopoly in the US (leading to such a rivalry that even today is remembered as the console war). Eventually support for the console faded out by the end of the decade.

The present

Fast forward to 2018, homebrew is having a momentum never seen before, almost as if a revival was imminent. Baby steps, everybody is making mistakes e.g. getting things done in time and not screwing up with manufacturing cartridges, but hopefully we're gonna get there. And now the Mega Sg has been announced (a FPGA-based clone that aims to be as accurate a possible), and Sega themselves are planning to release the Mega Drive Mini (a small console that play a bunch of the most popular games).

As for Plutiedev? Well, the idea is for this site both to help with homebrew and preserve information on Mega Drive development. Here's a list of ideas I have (albeit doing all this will take time!):

• More pages explaining the basics, like drawing sprites on screen or the like. Seriously, this site is still pretty lacking on that.
• Also more advanced stuff, like saving games using EEPROM.
• More pages on peripherals. There's a lot to do yet: the multitap, the mouse, also uncommon stuff like the keyboards, printer (adapter?) and Miracle Piano.
• More hardware references, the kind that goes into heavy detail.
• More pages documenting file formats used in homebrew.
• Make a page gathering info on manufacturing cartridges: things to do and to avoid, maybe pointers to places that we have learned provide good materials.
• Make circuit schematics, both for cartridges and peripherals.
• Resources for use in homebrew like FM instruments or maybe fonts.

…oof, that's a lot.

Message from Iwis

pwease make wots of homebwew, i want to pway aww the games >w< >w<

(translation: "Please make lots of homebrew, I want to play all the games!")