Flappy Bird on the Sega Dreamcast VMU

Hackster Staff
Jul 20, 2017 · 2 min read

If you remember the Sega Dreamcast, you might also recall their innovative Visual Memory Units (VMUs). Unlike most storage devices, instead of simply storing files that you could interface with using the game system, they had a small LCD panel and controls that allowed you to interact with it as a sort of a mini gaming system. Though officially available for only a few years circa 2000, VMUs can be obtained today for a paltry $3.

This price piqued Grinberg’s curiosity, and after receiving the unit, he set to work reverse engineering the system, resulting in a visualization of a Mandelbrot set, as well as a port of Flappy Bird.

To accomplish this, Grinberg developed an ARM emulator for the tiny, under-powered device. While the Cortex-M0 would’ve been a good target, it lacked some of the instructions that he liked; rather, he chose to write an emulator on the Cortex-M23, equipped had all the missing features he’d wanted.

He documents the entire process here, an amazing feat of finding and applying knowledge from older documentation (including this 778 page PDF file), in order to explore this older technology.

[h/t: Gizmodo]

Hackster Blog

Hackster.io, an Avnet community, is the world’s largest network for hardware & software developers. With 1 million members and 17,000+ projects, beginners and professionals can learn and share how to build robotics, industrial automation systems, AI-powered machines, and more.

)
Hackster Staff

Written by

Hackster Blog

Hackster.io, an Avnet community, is the world’s largest network for hardware & software developers. With 1 million members and 17,000+ projects, beginners and professionals can learn and share how to build robotics, industrial automation systems, AI-powered machines, and more.

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade