Tutorial 4: Five Minute Fun with your Monku R1: At Games Sega Genesis Handheld SD Card
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Author: Brian A. Ree
Sections
0: Tools Needed
- A Monku Retro 1,2,3 / ODROID-C1+,2,XU4: link C1+ link C2 link XU4
(It's expected these devices are configured with Ubuntu and MATE. Click here
for R1 and R2 devices, and here for R3 devices.)
- An At Games Sega Genesis Handheld x1 $53.99: link
- A 8Gb or Greater Micro SD Card x1 $4.99: link
- SD card to USB Converter x1 $9.99: link
1: Introduction and Tutorial Goals
Now that you have your cool new retro gaming console all setup and you're enjoying playing some retro games
let's take a moment to think about what else we can do with our ODROID device.
You'll need a Monku Retro device, like the one we show you how to build here (R1, R2),
and here (R3), you can use it to create an expansion SD card
for the At Games line of Sega Genesis handheld devices. We'll show you how to prepare the SD card, which can only be done on a Linux
based system, aka, your ODROID. This is actually pretty cool. The device isn't as awesome as an
ODROID-GO but it does play Sega Genesis games
very well and it has support for extending the game list with your own ROMs.
Get your ODROID device ready and let's start the tutorial.
2: The SD Card
As it so happens you can't use a Mac or a Windows machine to create a properly supported SD card for the At Games series of
Sega Genesis handhelds. It also just so happens that your ODROID device running Ubuntu is one of the only devices
that can create a properly working one. Get the tools you'll need ready. I've laid out those that we'll need for this tutorial
below.
For this little project we'll need an At Games Sega Genesis handheld with an SD card expansion slot,
depicted below. We'll also need an SD card of some kind. Here we are using a micro SD card with SD card adapter.
An SD card reader of some kind will also be required. Here we are using a dual SD, micro SD card to USB reader.
Links for these parts are listed above.
Get a copy of your Sega Genesis ROM collection. You'll need to make some changes to the way the files are named.
The game ROMs should be copied into a folder on the root of the prepared SD card named Game. The game ROMs should have a
.bin file extension and should be named camel case with any non alpha numeric characters and spaces removed.
Plug your SD card and SD card reader into your ODROID device. You should see a new icon appear on the desktop if the SD card
has a recognized file system. Ignore it for now. If you don't have gparted installed please run the following commands.
Open the mate terminal at this menu location Applications -> System Tools -> MATE Terminal.
sudo apt-get install gparted -y
Next, run gparted. Open this menu location System -> Administration -> GParted. An application
like the one depicted below should appear. If you are prompted for a password enter in the default root password, odroid, or the
password you are using.
Select your SD card from the drop down list in the top right-hand corner of the application window.
ALERT: Double check to make sure you are referencing the new SD card and not the one the ODROID is running
off of. Right click on any partitions that you see listed for the SD card and select unmount. Right click
again and select delete. Do this until no partitions are available only unallocated space.
Create a new primary partition with the settings depicted in the screen shot below.
Set the following options.
Free Space Preceding: 1
New Size: maximum available
Free Space Following: 0
Align To: MiB
File System: Fat32
Create As: Primary Partition
Label: S_GEN_HH
Gparted has logged the changes we're planning to make to the partitions on the new SD card but hasn't done anything yet.
In order to execute the steps we've outlined you must click the Apply All Operations green checkbox, top of the window, as depicted below.
The steps will be executed and we'll end up with a single unmounted partition with the settings listed above.
Wait for the process to complete then click the Close button. Close gparted, then disconnect and reconnect the SD
card to get it to mount again cleanly.
You can now copy the ROMs into the Game directory on the SD card you've just created.
Pop the SD card into your device and turn it on.
Select the SD Card option from the built in menu system, it'll be on the last menu screen. Select it and
you should see a Searching For Games... message.
And viola! You can now play any Sega Genesis ROM on your At Games Sega Genesis handheld device thanks to your ODROID.
Enjoy the fun!!
