debuglive - 2016-07-10
Update Feb 2017 - you can now support this amazing guy via patreon: https://www.patreon.com/prof_abrasive A detailed look into Dr Abrasive's lab and what it took to engineer a plug-in-flash-card for the Sega Saturn. Update: Dr Abrasive now has a twitter! https://twitter.com/prof_abrasive Discussion is now over at http://assemblergames.com/l/threads/saturn-optical-drive-emulator.62274/ FYI: This is not a commercial product. It also is still being tweaked. FYI: The sound patch designer tool shown is in early early days!
Man this guy makes me realise how dumb I am.
Dodgingss This is what I thought the entire time. I’ll never get there.. 😔
You can most likely do something that makes other people feel dumb. Everybody has something.
Everyone is different, you likely know a lot about things that this individual doesnt.
Coders are a special breed.
Everybody is a Genius. But If You Judge a Fish by Its Ability to Climb a Tree, It Will Live Its Whole Life Believing that It is Stupid
When you watch this and realize there are some very clever people out there and your not one of them.
Indeed...
Correct...PS...it's you're, not your.
Stevieboy74 actually I’m using your in this sense to address a group of people,in which i am included, it’s quite acceptable in this context as I’m sure others will agree with my sentiments. If you don’t include yourself amongst them then good for you. Haven’t you got better things to do than nitpick at supposed grammatical errors?
@Strontium Dog lighten up dude, it was a joke...and it's still not the correct use in this context...your is the possessive pronoun. It's you're ;-)
People are geniuses in their own lane. You just have to find your lane. This young man found his.
Cracked after 20 years.
Recommended after 23 years.
The BIOS was cracked, but Saturn is still impossible to RIP and Pirate. The ISO remains unbreeched.
4ensyk *Recommended after 3 years
Mistakes were made.
I saw this when it first came about, I'm watching it again now.
it wasnt recommended after 23 years, it was recommended after 4 years
I felt incredibly intelligent when I was just watching videos of dogs barking at cats. I will return to those now.
You won the internet sir!
😛😛😛
😂
John Young sounds awesome do you have a link
John Young best comment
"This is something i do in my spare time"
Wat the fok can he do in his normal time?
this comment made me scream from laughter xD +1
Masturbating...
PornHub on MS-DOS
@Visual917 already exist in Duke Nukem
what he's told
Very impressive. But can he explain the internet to Congress?
A SERIES OF TUBES.
Joe Biden called video game programmers little creeps. This is from the guy who smells and touches little girls.
LOL
End the fed and lifetime politicians!!
Yes its a series of tubes
I love watching videos like this and pretend like I know what they’re talking about and what’s going on.
Lol 😂 me to I'm that guy yep yes ok and at the end wtf just happened lol
And then like the comments with lots of likes as if I know what they are on about
It's like watching a foreign language movie with no subtitles. You understand a few bits and pieces, and you get the gist of the plot, but if anyone asks you for specifics you respond with, "duh..duh...duh......"
Lol
Exactly 😂😂
very patient guy, i would have thrown it out of the window a long time ago.
I can't imagine the kind of intelligence required to do something like this. Fantastic work all round. Great vid dudes.
Yup
i dont think you could imagine any intelligence, honestly
it's very impressive. i wonder about his training bc they don't really teach this stuff in collage
@Mohamed Nofal <<< Hitler killed more than 900,666 Jews! >>>
Unabomber type intelligence.
This is my forth time watching this video, every seconds of it..still have absolutely no idea what he's talking about..yet i feel happy...
if i was the engineer for the saturn i'd fly over for a few beers , respect
Anyone else get get a serious case of feels when they heard “DAAAAAYTOONAAAAAA” ??
I can assure you that after 3 days of hearing white noise and glitches, the engineer in this video got serious feels when he first heard "Daaaayyyytoooonnaaa"! Porting that CD audio though the hijacked VCD port was a huuuuge task :-)
imagine 20 years ago the devlopers who made the saturn or any system really working on all that complex card and software and hardware. and then who can they tell? nobody lol. theyve created this marvelous thing even though outdated now but at the time there was just the team who could understand how complex it was and put this thing together. its not like the guys could come home and tell his wife we made a breakthrough in this area of code and got this piece to work with this piece etc. shed be like wtf are you talking about and have 0 interest. so really this video kind of shares with the world in a sense what those guys couldnt. it would never happen but itd be neat to have all those original team members on this video listening and commenting
@Adam Londonkamergi His statement is incorrect. Also Saturn does NOT use SH4. That's Dreamcast that uses SH-4 Katana ISA.
@Jeff Conover Saturn was far more refined and versatile than PSX hardware and twice more powerful too. Its just that its Design was never quite fully finished and its Documentation was never fully completed. The Documentation of Saturn's Specs were never fully ironed out and completed. Saturn's Specs undersell its actual full capabilities.
@Sega United you know my ahhhh. Was sarcastic. I have no idea what you're talking about.
@Adam Londonkamergi Saturn's specs. I see that your comment was Sarcastic. But in regards to his comment, he clearly was never properly trained or taught how to read Saturn's Blueprints and Documentation
.
That's pretty much any propriety software work.
This guy doesn't need a resume for the rest of his life.
he is the resume.
@bud389 Did you just wake up on that day 1 year ago and say " I am going to go post stupid shit on youtube?"
@Sarah Cartwright Dream thinks he can just google "sega hack" and download a software click ok button and call it a day
@DREAM666 You are the definition of btfo.
He's probably a successful electronics engineer, or embedded systems engineer on his day job.
"could probably do better"
proceeds to build his own chip boards
He ha, the drive to me fun
Who tf engineered this console? Every company in the world should hire them.
Equally intelligent Japanese engineers
I dont know why i watched this, i understood nothing he said at all.
But seems like he accomplished something very difficult so... 👏👏👏
lmao
I understood EVERYTHING he was saying!
Extreme brain capacity I say.
Wow, I feel like monkey.
I noticed this in passing. I worked for SEGA development in the 90's. So it's come as a surprise that our security has lasted this long. You are still missing some key tools. One being CodeScape as it was one of the first multi-processor development platforms. This was written by Cross Products the development tools division of SEGA. The Saturn development platforms were SCSI based communications onto a piggy backed main processor.
The Key disks did allow you to run your code without security but on a one shot basis. You have to use the key disk every time. There was no code to make this mode survive a reboot. This only worked reliably on piggy back boards.
Imagination Technology still produce CodeScape. However, the all important black box (CartDev) we produced is now nowhere to be seen today. A working version is a must have.
The head count of who new all the details of the processor interface is in single figures. At least you found the wobble. Haha!
Chief, how are ya' doing ? Guitar playing getting anywhere ? ;-)
@Clean Shirt even current consoles are dieing. pretty soon hardware won't even matter. just the software.
Speak English, please.
Hi I need help on Sega Daytona usa 2 there is secret car that can be unlocked using vr button. The car cheat is real listen to game test menu 41 seconds into it tells u found secret car. My question is it is on bote and power edition the hornet car has been found though Mane hack but Power edition car has not how can it b found though the game program files thanks Kevin
OI look! Its@Clean Shirt
Recommended??? This algorithm is too good. I sat here and watched something I know nothing about for 27 minutes on a topic I have no interest in, and I still enjoyed it. Thank you almighty youtube algorithm.
lol same
You are being programmed. Unplug now.
Congrats you’re a snowflake.
@GreatomeisterIn what fucking context could any of this possibly make anyone here a 'snowflake'? Your post makes literally no sense.
@JustMatt says the snowflake
watching it in 2019 - this is above boss level. very smart dude
That's one dedicated Embedded Systems Engineer
Reverse Engineering? There’s A Man Named “Bob Lazaar” Perhaps He Could Use Your Help?
"Perhaps he could use your help" hahaha my sides that's good stuff mate. But seriously let's get this guy out to S4, time to properly figure out those anti-matter reactors
Stephen Merchant is more clever than I thought.
I thought I was crazy for spending 3 years learning reverse engineering and focusing on one specific project. Funny how people focus on random projects like this
No self deprecation here.
As a kid, I once pulled apart a portable tv and put it back together with a piece of plastic ruler in the dark
This is awesome! Next project, Please figure out how to open write on a Toyota ECU please lol
omg when I heard the Daytona song that really brought me back lol
It’s cool he’s been working to solve this hack, sadly being 20 years later it’s a bit futile being tech and games have gone far beyond that antiquated technology and game quality.
Oh nooooooo...no it is stuck in my head again. It took 11 years to get it out but it is back.
Daytonaaaaaaaa.....
12:28 this is me when I write some code and it runs flawlessly. I hope one day I become as knowledgeable as him.
I'm blown away by not just the knowledge of the engineer, but the knowledge of the interviewer. He actually had a functioning understanding of the hardware and asked informed questions. Far more informed than I'd expected.
Good shit.
@Sega United And all of it uses an MMU.... SEGA and Nintendo didn't solve memory corruption. You would think people who use IDA would know what stack and heap explotation were
@Abc Xyz That's because MMU was easier to do in Mirocomputers due to Binary heading on assembly. SH-2 and NECVR4300 are equipped with Two Different Buses, SH-2 uses a Dual Multithreading with a DUAL 32-bit Address Bus and a Dual 32 bit VLIW Latency Data Bus that runs low speed 64-bit DMA through Parallel, while NECVR4300 uses a Single 64-bit Address Bus running Single Core, BUT still heading data through Dual VLIW 32-bit Instruction Data using a Dual 32-bit Data Bus thus allowing high speed 64-bit DMA Control processing. NECVR4300 basically does Dual Instruction while SH-2 only handles Simultaneous Instructions. Primarily, Saturn does Dual 32-bit DMA Control Processing and achieves 64-bit through parallel compilers.
Having Two different buses running the SAME bit power made MMU a moot point during the Mid 90s. Mircocomputers like Motorola 68000 and Ricoh A522 used Separate Controller mechanisms which meant that Memory Corruption could be balanced easier since M68000 had its DMA duties and Data Register running Double 16-bit Power. Although its Hidden Compiler Address Bus could read 32-bits with simultaneous 16-bit speed and Read Instructions achieving pipeline 32-bit power.
Ricoh A522 was limited to just 16-bit address and data because its DMA Controller was litterally half assembled averaging out only 8-bits. Remember, A522 is Apple IIGS SoC, so being System on a Chip, it Databanked through lower memory streams, but it was balanced using a Slave Co Processor CPU the SA-1. The SA-1 had a 16-bit DMA but it ran balanced only and contained DSP Data.
The configuration of SH-2 and NEC VR4300 meant that the Memory Banks had to be piled on and could not be balanced out or sorted because the Data Buses had the same nodes as the Address Buses since it used the same Bit C Language Makeup.
@Sega United Nothing in those designs stops exploitable memory corruption. Not even classic stack explotation. You could fuzz parsers with disc and cart spec or even controller interfaces, or use that dump in IDA and find something with static analysis.... Can't and hasn't been done are entirely different things; no way all that firmware doesn't have exploitable race conditions or bounds bugs
@Abc Xyz
Fascinating and Interesting at the same time. Sounds like due to both Aurora/Saturn and Ultra 64/Nintendo 64's Chipsets and Designs being thrown together hastily(Aurora/Saturn's design was already in Pipeline during Early September 1993 and Nintendo's Ultra 64 design was finished rather quickly with a Prototype up by June of 1994 and its Beta Builds and Interfaces running internally by October), the Exploitable Memory Corruption in SH-2 and NECVR4300 wasn't configured or explored regarding controller interfaces.
SEGA through tons of Money on Lowjacked CD Drivers since they had decided that CD-ROM was going to be Saturn's proprietary format at the last minute. They decided on the SH-1 Piggyback CPU because it could be configured through MIMD parsers. The SH-1 could operate solitary and Never interfere with the SH-2 or the other Processors including the M68000 Lake Sound CPU.
Nintendo was hellbent on getting ahold of CDX. That's why Ultra 64 was delayed in 1995. Nintendo wanted N64 out in time for 1995, but Sony's Corporate Backbiting prevented Nintendo from finding a Partner Willing to offer them a CDX license. Sony talked trash and spread gossip to various OEMs about Nintendo, lying about what occurred between them regarding the Super Famicom CD project. Interesting enough, had Nintendo gone to JVC or Toshiba for CDR, N64 would have gotten CD ROM and would have launched in time for 1995.
When it was decided in May 1995 that N64 was going to continue to use Cartridges after 7 months of aggressive talks and negotiations with Panasonic,Pioneer and Kenwood to obtain a CDX license fell through, Nintendo chose a Cost Cutting Anti Piracy method by encoding,and encrypting the NECVR4300 CPU with built in Anti Piracy Middleware called "Orca" which Imprisoned all the parse SDK Programs for ROMs deep inside the CPU's explotation memory bank into the RAM Bank, meaning that Programs could not be written and encoded into the N64's Assembly Language without Orca, since Orca was programmed ONLY to run on Nintendo 64 ROM Chips in its Cartridges. Without Orca, it was next to impossible to jailbreak the N64's RAM Bank.
BTW, Our friends at Alethiea Games are looking for someone who can Configure a Planned ISA and Write its Assembly on ASIC, are you interested? Please don't hesitate to let us know.;)
@Sega United Apple A12 can be exploited and has state of the art mitigations, so anything is vulnerable
Wow I was utterly amazed by this guys dedication and brilliance. Would love to put this guy on my reddit ama.
Every once in awhile I'll see this vid pop up again on my recommendations.
I watch it every time.
And so do I. Really interesting. The good thing is though, every time I watch it, I understand a tiny bit more due to own experience made.
This is the kind of person who designs processor chips - his knowledge at such a relatively young age just blows me away. One in a million - literally!.
CPUs are easy. Designing Graphics ASICs is the tough one !!
@Gazza-in-the-usa Our friends at AG have already implemented Graphics ASICs for RAZOR.
And i am sitting here struggling with CRUD operations on my web app.
If Alien invade us one day in city size ships with giant green laser, this dude is totally going to be the guy who'll disable their shield.
Will Smith movie
Independence day
😜😆
@01102 01102 let's just hope the alien's software is mac compatible.
After 20 years plz.
No humanity more sry. Hahahahahaha
@01102 01102 👍
even if its only 20 years after most of humanity has died.
It's been three years since this interview and an entire year since his last post on patreon. It would be a shame if this project died :(
They've released a beta in Jan 2020.
@jattada1 Oh?
@jattada1 Where would you find that info?
@James Maddox on their patreon, have a look on the video description for a link.
Maybe he got hit with a cease and desist
Thank (God/Darwin) for reminding me HOW my LIFE was BEFORE Crystal Meth and how bright my star could STILL SHINE before that (SILENT (GOOD/BAD) NIGHT/DIRT NAP).
PEACE OUT
WES
FYI, I developed the hardware interface (cartridge slot) for the cross compiler (CodeScape) along with a cd emulator back in 1993 ish for the Saturn. It's weird seeing it 25+ years later!!! I also developed a whole host of other ICE and Emulator hardware for other game consoles. This was for a company that was then called Cross Products in the UK.
The Saturn had 2x SH4 cpus and a 68K for sound IIRC. Don't have any info now though. Basically a SCSI2 interface to the PC for download/upload. The CD Emulator was a switch that multiplexed a SCSI2 HDD between a PC and the Saturn.
The CD image was placed on the HDD and the Saturn booted it up. (from memory so this might be incorrect). I had the FPGA/CPLD do all the memory mapping of the SCIS2 and some DPRAM as the interface to a serial converter for CD loading with RS422 buffers IIRC. There was an FPGA (Xilinx 3000 series and a XC95xxx CPLD IIR), DPRAM and an SH2 as the main cpu on the emulator, I also had a front panel LCD + Buttons. Some of my talented colleagues developed the firmware on the emulator. My boss at the time was a very well recognised games programmer. A brilliant man who surrounded himself with other very talented people. I am very proud to have worked with a team of people like this in my career. Serious talent in a small building in Leeds !! I now develop ASICs and high complexity FPGAs.
@Gazza-in-the-usa You stated that you worked on the HW Interfaces, yet you didn't mention anything about the DSP, the VLIW Latency of Saturn's SH-2 Aurora, its PARALLEL Assembly, Saturn's DUAL 32-bit Address Bus which was contained on BOTH Wafers, the Sophia's ability to add up to 8 MBs of Expandable Memory, Saturn's Recaculation and Hardware Multi Threading Remapping Capabilities OR its ability to add Perspective Correction and Z Buffering you then claimed the obviously WEAKER PSX hardware to be technically superior to Saturn which is ludicrous since the PSX(based off of STOLEN Sega Jupiter Hardware) uses only ONE single 32-bit Address Register, ONE 32-bit Data Register, and was incapable of Recaculating and Correcting the Rendered Polygons and Textures and did a relatively POOR job at mapping and layering, which was Saturn's BIGGEST 3D Capability.
You also didn't even mention anything regarding the OP on how Saturn's Anti Piracy functions, we've explained how it functions and how the SH-1 Milkyway preforms Checksums for the SH-2 Aurora.
We're not trying to be cynical , but it is clear to us that you didn't learn enough about the Saturn hardware, we regret SOA's POOR judgement and the sloppily mistranslated and cumbersome Documentation of Saturn.
There's now videos of Homebrewers who are utilizing and showcasing Saturn's abilities, they've obvious learned far more about Saturn's Trade Secrets far more than what you've let us on.
We would appreciate it if you'd try to take the time to learn more about Saturn's Hardware. There's quite alot that you've missed.
To Clarify (since this was rusty - I checked my old CV/Resume) I developed the CD multiplexer interface to the Saturn (along with the CD Emulator which used an SH2), The Atari Jaguar was the Cartridge slot interface (as I said this was a very long time ago and I have done so much since that this is not in my memory).
@Gazza-in-the-usa Saturn's CD Drivers use an SH-1 CPU. Codenamed "Milkyway". The Saturn's Anti Piracy method is called "Lowjacking". The SH-1 communicates with the SH-2 Aurora by checksuming it a CDR Disc equipped with SEGA licensed Key BIOS Code. The SH-2 will ONLY read Discs licensed by SEGA as the SH-1's sole job is to tell it whether or not the CD is licensed. The Discs themselves specially pressed and are also lowjacked with a Squiggle Line, locking the TOC on the Core of the Disc. The Line acts as a Master Key Lock on the Saturn CDR.
If the CD is unlicensed, SH-1's Checksum will alert the SH-2 Aurora, thus the Disc won't be read or playable on Saturn.
@Sega United Well done, you've learnt something. Who's a good boy, yes it's you. Here have a treat.
@Herbal Thanks!LOL!
This is probably the most impressive thing I've watched on Youtube.
Thank god for people like this, mad respect!
why are you thanking them?
Messing with old technology? Making the world a better place? For “bit tunes?” Lol wtf.
You are better off using a DAW and there is a lot of plugins that do similar things.
I guess I just dont see the point of this in terms of music production. I feel like you’d just get loads of artifacts.
gods have the least to do with this.
God : )
this is one of my favorite videos ever.
and all this has been developped LONG time ago!
30 mins of watching and still confused as to what was really done
i feel so much smarter after watching this in 2019!
No way, after all this time! This is awesome!
Really well made video, too :)
LGR no, no!! this has already been done for decades ... this console was unlocked and cracked decades ago! This video is pathetic! shows something that was already done decades ago!
Marcus Halloway no, no!! this has already been done for decades ... this console was unlocked and cracked decades ago! This video is pathetic! shows something that was already done decades ago!
Correct! This console has been unlocked and cracked for decades on a hardware level (I grew up with it) - but it required mods. :-) Earlier solutions required backup CD's or a replaced CD block section that fed in data to work (AFAIK - ask Dr Abrasive from this vid as he will know more). That's where this is different - this is a software hack via the VCD expansion slot on the back. No soldering. No mods. No taking the case apart. Cartridge goes in the slot... game menu come up... run (with emulated CD audio). Existing hardware is untouched and stock. Pull the cartridge out of the machine... and no one would have ever known it's run a backup. 100% software using it's native expansion interface. More importantly, it allows easy running of code and access to registers, etc, for direct running of code if you want to develop home brew software.
Hacked Saturn with woodgrain
@Marcus Halloway oh lol look at us now
I wish I knew half of what he’s talking about! I’m impressed with myself when I can get Netflix to work on my smart tv.
And I thought I was smart when I could plug in my toaster
Jose Sanchez - 2018-01-08
This guy is reverse engineering legacy hardware while many of us can't even unzip an emulator lol.
hi hi - 2020-03-02
@Sega United thats so crazy
Kronos - 2020-03-08
@Psychedelic Haze You clearly know nothing about anything. Doing a ROM dump on a chip then learning how it works allows you to extrapolate your knowledge and then understand how other things work.
rept1le - 2020-03-12
Time to work on Sony ps5 system architecture
I will - 2020-03-15
Sega United do you have a book somewhere about all of this? It’s extremely interesting; the depth and breath of your explanations.
Nick Shepherd - 2020-03-18
I dont even know what an emulator is lol