Sega Genesis Development System
The Genesis development system consists of a circuit board, cable and diskette. The board plugs into the cartridge slot of the Sega Genesis. The cable connects to the board on one end, and to a compatible bi-directional PC parallel port on the other. The board can either have 2 megabytes or 4 megabytes of memory. The pseudo-static srams the board used (512Kbytes each) were equivalent to the toshiba TC518512PL-80. Pricing for the 2 megabyte version wass $580, and the 4 megabyte version was $660. Shipping was extra. Depending on availability of the scarce memory chips used on the board, those prices may be reduced by $40 and $80 each. A bare board with no memory costs $500.
The diskette contains AmigaOS utilities, comprehensive documentation, and several examples. Also included are source to the utilities to communicate with the development board, in the spirit of open architecture. There is a 68000 assembler included with partial Z80 support. There is a music and voice editor for working with the Genesis' FM synthesis chip, similiar to common sound tracker programs. There are detailed docs on the Genesis hardware and memory map--everything needed for an experienced programmer to develop software on the Genesis.
The main utilities have been ported to Linux and are available for that OS as well. There is even an MS-DOS version.