Terraonion MODE - 2 in 1 ODE works in Sega Saturn AND Dreamcast!

[Anthony817]

This thing looks pretty damn cool! I have a GDEMU so no need for this, but I must admit this is pretty fucking sweet! You can use multiple storage options, SATA, USB or Micro SD! It looks to be the new definitive solution for both systems possibly!

You can see the menu in action in madlittlepixel's video.

Tech Data:

• 32-bit MCU at 168MHz with 192KB RAM


• High performance FPGA for accurate data transfer speeds


• USB 2.0 High Speed PHY for high transfer speed from SATA & USB


• Full speed Memory card interface supporting up to 12MB/s


• SATA to USB 2.0 bridge for high speed SATA hard disk access


• Level translators to properly convert signal levels, and support Dreamcast VA0


• Saturn 20pin and 21pin interface with mainboard autodetection


• User IO connector for expansion, and support custom interface boards


• Reset generation and Region selection for Saturn

100% compatible with all Saturn and Dreamcast games!

• Compatible with Redump and Tosec images (for both Dreamcast/Saturn)


• Compatible with CDI, GDI, CCD, MDF, bin/iso+cue images


• Plug and play, no soldering required!


• 2 User interfaces: Simple list view and Advanced Cover Art


• Supports multiple Disc games


• Zero seek times providing faster load times


• Supports Mpeg card, ActionReplay/PseudoSaturnKai, Saturn RAM cart compatible


• DC Digital, DreamPSU and PicoPSU compatible

Price is €182.00 approximately $200 USD.

Terraonion MODE - Dreamcast & Saturn ODE

Terraonion MODE - Dreamcast & Saturn ODE

shop.terraonion.com

 

[darcagn]

This thing looks pretty cool, but I'm pretty surprised we have a new entry to this market after the super low cost clones have invaded.
I commend them for spending the up-front development cost on this and gambling on whether the community will embrace a high-end ODE for Dreamcast.
I suspect this is maybe why they rolled it into a single product--the Saturn ODE market is much more an open race than the Dreamcast market; they could just add a little more dev cost on the Saturn ODE to make it DC-compatible and be part of 2 markets. Maintaining one product for both markets means they don't take a gamble on having nobody buy the Dreamcast product because GDEMU is so much cheaper. Saturn people will still buy that inventory.
Otherwise it makes no sense to do a 2-in-1 product, it just adds complexity to the product.

Good news is, it looks pretty damn nice, and I'll be picking one up most likely.
I am curious if anyone has heard anything about SD card layout and if there is a menu API.
It sounds like simple list view will let you browse the filesystem like USB-GDROM...
But advanced cover art sounds like a premade library layout style like GDEMU? Maybe it supports both.
But if there is no menu API like GDEMU, we still can't have custom-coded menus, and have to stick with what TerraOnion designed.
What would be awesome is if it checked for a menu.bin binary on the storage device and loaded that for a custom menu with exposed API if present, and if not present, loaded its own menu built-in.

I absolutely love the ODEs and flash carts that allow me to make the menus look as close as something "stock" as possible and GDMenu already does that decently well. It would suck to see the open menu on the clone hardware limited to SD cards and the awesome hardware with storage options limited to a closed or branded menu. I would really like to see what @neo 's OpenMenu turns into if he does put more time into it.

Also, since Mnemo is exiting the market for whatever reason pretending like he can't get connectors anymore, this fills the USB drive hole in the market, and with a better device anyway.

Other questions I'm wondering is if the disc access time can be tweaked (to avoid e.g. the Code Veronica ODE bug)
How advanced the disc image emulation is (does its CCD support include what is necessary to mount a bleemcast disc)


(edit: i've gone ahead and used their contact link to question them about these topics. I'll update with an answer if I receive a response)

 

[HI_RICKY]

nice stuff, if it work on katana, Saturn dev will cool

 

[FamilyGuy]

That looks very interesting, albeit I won't get one as my GDEMU does the job for me and this is quite expensive.

I'm also waiting to see the Satiator before I commit to a Saturn ODE.

 

[Anthony817]

I am curious if anyone has heard anything about SD card layout and if there is a menu API.
It sounds like simple list view will let you browse the filesystem like USB-GDROM...
But advanced cover art sounds like a premade library layout style like GDEMU? Maybe it supports both.
But if there is no menu API like GDEMU, we still can't have custom-coded menus, and have to stick with what TerraOnion designed.
What would be awesome is if it checked for a menu.bin binary on the storage device and loaded that for a custom menu with exposed API if present, and if not present, loaded its own menu built-in.

I absolutely love the ODEs and flash carts that allow me to make the menus look as close as something "stock" as possible and GDMenu already does that decently well. It would suck to see the open menu on the clone hardware limited to SD cards and the awesome hardware with storage options limited to a closed or branded menu. I would really like to see what @neo 's OpenMenu turns into if he does put more time into it.

Please refer to madlittlepixel's video I posted. It shows off the menu and it looks pretty damn good with game cover art, as well as a nice description when you select a game. It looks similar to how neo's menu will in that respect, so seems more advanced than GDMENU in ways for sure.

As for retail or hell, even beta Bleem support, no word on that. Remember Dunan has to patch in support for the beta in the first place, and as of now no ODE or even the IDE solution can do retail Bleem stuff.

The good news here is JC updated us literally I would say 3-4 days ago saying he had about 4-6 projects in the works releasing very soon if memory serves me correctly. So I have faith he is releasing something with the Bleem project he was working on soonish.

 

[FamilyGuy]

Please refer to madlittlepixel's video I posted. It shows off the menu and it looks pretty damn good with game cover art, as well as a nice description when you select a game. It looks similar to how neo's menu will in that respect, so seems more advanced than GDMENU in ways for sure.

As for retail or hell, even beta Bleem support, no word on that. Remember Dunan has to patch in support for the beta in the first place, and as of now no ODE or even the IDE solution can do retail Bleem stuff.

The good news here is JC updated us literally I would say 3-4 days ago saying he had about 4-6 projects in the works releasing very soon if memory serves me correctly. So I have faith he is releasing something with the Bleem project he was working on soonish.

That seems like a very capable menu, but I think @darcagn would like something customizable. Their aesthetic is as little tacky of you ask me.

Customizability would be a great selling point.

 

[Anthony817]

Ah my mistake I missunderstood him. You are correct. Yeah not sure about how customizeable it is. Hopefully when he updates us about contacting them it is good news. I may never get one as I am quite happy with GDEMU and we will eventually have 2 options at least menu-wise. 4 if you count the menus that megavolt85 made, Bleemshell and a nice Neo4all menu that allows us to have custom made .cdi images with custom cover art so it feels more complete. Doubtful if the api is not open sourced like the one for GDEMU is, we will see anything remotely like this on the new product.

 

[darcagn]

Please refer to madlittlepixel's video I posted. It shows off the menu and it looks pretty damn good with game cover art, as well as a nice description when you select a game. It looks similar to how neo's menu will in that respect, so seems more advanced than GDMENU in ways for sure.

Yeah, like @FamilyGuy said, their menu's not quite what I'm looking for.
Since the original DC dev days when Dan Potter hacked an IDE HDD into his Dreamcast Navi project, I'd wanted to create a Dreamcast that had every game on it with a completely stock-like menu that would fit right along with other stock menu loading software like the BIOS menu or the demo disc menus, or some awesome Sega themes.
Right now, with GDMenu, we have something close to that, I have a custom dark theme I made that is very basic but uses official-looking art.
With OpenMenu, we'd be able to create some really cool looking menus that totally fit in with Sega style!
Hell, in time we could even incorporate memory card and system settings (language etc.) management within OpenMenu, making exiting to the BIOS unnecessary, and perhaps tweaking Cpajuste's dreamboot BIOS to autoload OpenMenu and skip the beginning BIOS completely.

I guess what you could say I'm going for is a device as close as possible to what a "Dreamcast mini" type experience would be. Turn on device, pick a game in an official-looking menu with perfect compatibility experience. We are so close to that already.

To me, even if the menu looks nice, having a "TerraOnion MODE" branded menu every time I turn my system on is a step backwards IMO.

The good news here is JC updated us literally I would say 3-4 days ago saying he had about 4-6 projects in the works releasing very soon if memory serves me correctly. So I have faith he is releasing something with the Bleem project he was working on soonish.

I saw that, you liked my tweet in response to him, haha. Looking forward to having a proper crack so none of this is even necessary.

 

[Anthony817]

Yeah I totally understand that thought process. On my modded Xbox I do use XBMC and a custom 360 Blades theme, but when in the UnleashedX dashboard I have it looking more like the official Xbox menu. I also wanted something similar to that with Dreamcast for ages now too. So we think alike as far as wanting a legit official looking menu. Hopefully neo's menu will allow us to get closer to that. Otherwise we will need to see if somebody else like JC or Megavolt can take a shot at it, but I have high hopes for neo's menu. It looks to be like it will become the most feature rich menu thus far for loading games.

And hopefully when JC releases his updated retail Bleem emu discs with protections removed they will be able to be incorporated into megavolt's Bleemshell menu as cores. Thus having a more compatible emulator, especially since we discovered that more games could be run from the retails.

 

[FamilyGuy]

Doubtful if the api is not open sourced like the one for GDEMU

Correct me if I'm wrong, but GDEMU's API was reversed by, I believe, @megavolt85 et al. Not released by Deunan.

While I can understand not releasing the firmware of a commercial product, eventhough DCHDMI is a proof that it can be viable, releasing an API would be a great selling point, and indirectly give you free development time.

 

[Anthony817]

No you are right I missspoke lol. My understanding was that originally it was closed and only released to Neuroacid, but then later megavolt reverse engineered it since we have no contact from neuroacid since like I believe September of 2018. So neuroacid had access to the API origianlly is what I meant. Deunan didn't want to release anything because of the fear of it being cloned, which in hindsight is super ironic now haha.

 

[darcagn]

releasing an API would be a great selling point, and indirectly give you free development time.

In my message I made sure to point out how it would clearly make them the superior product if they did so
But I'm not really holding my breath for it.

Anyway, since it is getting hard to remember all the differences between the ODE options available right now, I made a chart:

Optical drive replacements - dreamcast.wiki

dreamcast.wiki

Let me know if I missed anything or if there are additional details that could be added.

 

[psydefx]

so for dreamcast usb you have to cut the back case like the early usb-gdrom?

 

[darcagn]

so for dreamcast usb you have to cut the back case like the early usb-gdrom?

In the TerraOnion video they said the PCB shown is a preproduction model and the final model will have the USB port on the top "for easy access" so I'd assume the USB port would be facing inwards instead too. They also say you only need a screwdriver for installation.

 

[Greg2600]

SOLD

I will likely wait on the Satiator for the Saturn, but the DC has no choice but to have the GDR drive replaced. I'm personally sick of the trash menu's in the Mnemo and Deunan offerings I've had for years, so adios to those.

 

[FamilyGuy]

SOLD

I will likely wait on the Satiator for the Saturn, but the DC has no choice but to have the GDR drive replaced. I'm personally sick of the trash menu's in the Mnemo and Deunan offerings I've had for years, so adios to those.

I like Mnemo just as must as the average geek, but what's wrong with GDMenu?

 

[Greg2600]

I like Mnemo just as must as the average geek, but what's wrong with GDMenu?

The 3rd-party menu is fine, but hasn't been updated in years. You need another application just to copy things to the SD card in the proper folders, etc. There's nothing "wrong" with either, but I'm just someone who prefers the level of professionalism in the products and their presentation that you get from T.O., Krikzz, Retro HQ, etc.

 

[Nully]

Didn't someone else release one for $60 a few weeks ago? You could buy 3 of those for the price of this and not have to swap it in and out of two consoles, is there an actual difference in performance to warrant the price?

 

[Anthony817]

Do you mean the GDEMU clones Nully? Those can be had for that price. This thing however is compatible on all of the variants of each console, where the other devices are only compatible on certain revisions. This also has 3 different storage solutions on a single device. The Rhea/Phoebe and GDEMU only support SD cards.

 

[Nully]

Fenrir Saturn ODE

The Fenrir is a new Optical Drive Emulator (ODE) for the Sega Saturn. You can now replace the old CD-rom drive in your Sega Saturn with the Fenrir which, not only does it give you better loading times, but you can also store as many games as you want in the microSD. It's very easy and quick to...

8bitmods.com

I remembered the price incorrectly. $104 Saturn only.