SEGA CD Mode 1 Player

Chilly Willy

Established Member
There's been a lot of talk since the release of Sonic 1 with Redbook Audio, mainly people asking for code. I can see why they might not want to post their code since it's probably hacked into Sonic 1 pretty bad. However, there still exists a need to show how to use Mode 1. To that end, I did a small demo - this is a tiny CD player done using Mode 1 of the SEGA CD, and includes full source. From this, you should get a good idea of how Mode 1 works. If not, ask questions in the thread here and I'll answer them.

The project was compiled with my gcc toolchain, but it wouldn't take much work to convert the code to whatever you normally use. The player goes beyond what you would use in a game, but it's an example.

Controls:

A - play from current track to end of disc

B - play current track once

C - stop playing

X - show current track info

Y - play current track repeatedly

Z - pause/resume

START - check disc

Notes: The TOC is invalid until you check the disc. The CDBIOS doesn't initialize its TOC until you call DRVINIT (which is what my check disc routine does). So when you first start the player, the status may show wildly wrong disc info (first and last tracks being over 99, e.g.). If the tray/lid is open, it will show that. Insert a disc and press START - you should get proper disc info after the status is done showing "Reading TOC" and goes to "PAUSED". The current track may not be the same as the playing track - you can start a track playing and then change the "current" track to something else. Pressing X to see the track info shows the info for the current track displayed on the screen, not the track playing. The track info consists of the track time and track type; the track type is pretty straightforward - it's either a DATA track (track 1 of mixed mode discs), or a CDDA track for audio tracks. The track time shows the BCD minutes/seconds/frames/track number as MMSSFFTN. It shows where the track starts, while the track number is the same as the track number you asked for info on, or 00 is an error occured.

While this example is a CD audio player, I could have easily also read data discs, showing sector data. I did the audio player since that's mainly what people wanted - to see how to play CDDA from a game in rom. The Sub-CPU program is really simple - wait for commands from the Main-CPU, then do them. The commands all pertain to handling the CD audio, but they could as easily use the ASIC, use the PCM chip, read data from sectors, etc. When I start doing some ASIC tests, this will be the test bed to start from as it's easier for me to write the test file to SD card and run in Mode 1 than to keep burning CDRs.

I've tested this on a Model 2 Genesis + Model 2 CD and on a CDX. Let me know if you have any trouble on other models, but it SHOULD work on anything.

mode1player.zip

Update - 20111219: Should work on the WonderMega and X'Eye, and MIGHT work on the LaserActive. Also changed this version to init the drive if a disc is in place when started so that you can immediately play tracks.

mode1player2.zip

Update - 20120105: Now works with LaserActive.

Mode1Example-20120104.zip
 
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