3DO Emulator (Help wanted)

[PeteDabbs]

Hi folks,

I'm currently searching (so far with no luck) for technical info on 3DO so I can begin work on emulation of the system. I already know the processor, how much ram it has and all the other stuff from the 3do faq's that are around. I'm looking for programmers manuals, example source code, docs on the file formats, what was used to convert the graphics to .cel and .anim formats etc.

I plan to tackle this emulator in the same way as I have my CD-i emulator (cdice.emuhq.com) Theres not enough space on this forum to go into the details of this process, but I believe it will allow for an emulation of the system.

Thanks for reading.

Pete

 

[ossuary]

all ive got is the instructions that came with my 3do

if you need any info from that let me know .

and good luck !

 

[SkankinMonkey]

here's some stuff i found, dunno if it will help or not:

http://www.classicgaming.com/museum/3do/3dofaq.shtml

http://www.thepong.com/Sites/Left/3DO/Tech.htm

http://www.essi.fr/~buffa/videogames/3do_faq2.4.html

hope that helps any?

 

[PeteDabbs]

Thanks for trying guys but unfortunatly any info (such as the links provided) is readilly available at quite a few webesites and trust me, I've found them all after MANY hours of searching in different search engines, and doesn't really help with an emulation project..

What I'm looking for is the documentation programmers would have on the system, not the actual console spec.

Probably the only people who would have this is ex 3do developers. I got an email from someone suggesting I email Panasonic and some other companies, hmm, not really a good idea... Although the way my search is going at the moment I might try it 🙂

Pete

 

[VertigoXX]

While you're at it, you could also try e-mailing 3DO themselves. Just say that there seems to be a small but noticable fanbase for their old hardware property, and you'd be interested in writing a software based emulator for it. I'm sure almost everyone who worked on designing the 3DO system is long gone, but they might still have some old records lying around amongst all the newer third party game work.

 

[ExCyber]

There is a program floating around to extract files from a 3DO filesystem, but from looking at the source (unfortunately I lost it in an HD crash, but someone on these boards probably has it) it seems not everything about it is understood; there's not enough info there to assemble a 3DO filesystem image. At this point, it seems the best option for finding tech info would be to reverse engineer a BIOS dump and work from there. Having tried to do this before (with Neo-Geo, not 3DO), I'd understand completely if you want to avoid that route 🙂 .

edit: minor typo

(Edited by ExCyber at 3:57 am on Aug. 12, 2001)