I remember when I thought of the M2 as just another unreleased console. An interesting what if, but little more. This channel has made it so much more real and tangible to me than I ever could have imagined, and I'm grateful for that. My understanding of and appreciation for obscure games and hardware is enhanced by every video you make. This channel is so valuable to the gaming community!
As someone who just discovered your channel and is now an M2 fan thanks to your videos I hope to one day be able to obtain an M2 and learn more about this fascinating system. Thank you for all your dedication and hard work.
The King of M2 strikes again! Really amazed by this, can't believe the 3DO compatibility was going to happen (Sure I read in an interview somewhere it wasn't possible). Looking forward to the next find!
The original plan was that 3DO software would be run like an application. Thus the dedicated OS side of 3DO with game running on top of it. Something that Microsoft would eventually adopt with Xbox One and the three simultaneous OS model. With that they would be able to allow future models to run older software and even potentially enhance them with the newer hardware. This is why there is a cheat code in Doom that allowed it to run in full screen despite the awful performance - they were hoping that the next 3DO would alleviate the problem. Funnily enough, Doom uses the multiple application function of 3DO to hide the initial load times - the opening screens/logos are a separate program to the main game code - The OS handles all of this in the background. 3DO was incredibly forward thinking, it just was a little to early to execute it well. Anyway, once they abandoned the ARM CPU in favor of the PPC 602 I think that whole OS upgrade to software plan when out the window. If they where to put the original 3DO hardware in the system, I suspect it would have had a similar role to what the Ps1 hardware the Ps2. It would be used as both backwards compatibility and to run some lower end functions. I suppose they could have used it for stuff like I/O, Audio, data decompression etc. This is all just speculation.
Some excellent stuff that is good for historical preservation as well as hopefully gleaning more insight into the M2. Thanks for caring about M2 and other video game conservancy.
Thanks for releasing this. A great thing for 3DO preservation. I'd love to try finishing a 3DO FPGA core, but I don't know if I'll ever get enough time. I got the 3DO BIOS to do some very small accesses to the (non-existent) custom chips a few years ago, using an ARM core on the DE10, but that was as far as I got.
About a year ago on Faceplant, I asked RJ Mical if he might still have *ANY* prototype boards, manuals, dev kits, or code for the 3DO. Sadly, he said "The company took all that stuff from me when I left". :( Some of the devs don't always realize how many people are still interested in this old stuff. To many of them, it was just something they worked on in the past, and they might assume it's obsolete tech which nobody is too interested in preserving. So it's always worth asking. ;)
There was a clip from "From Bedrooms To Billions" (I think?), where another engineer, and one of RJ's close friends was being interviewed on camera. RJ was so shocked to find out that his friend had worked on the N64 that he had to butt-in and stop the interview. But it became one of the best clips on the whole documentary. lol It might have been an Commodore documentary. I'll try to find the clip again and post it here.
Holly heck I remember back when I started getting into the M2 back in 2005 thinking stuff like this was never out there, lost to time but I'm so glad it's all coming out. I'm no expert, I'm just a fan of retro gaming and obscure stuff but these videos are super interesting thanks for all you do for the M2.
@@VideoGameEsoterica it's definitely appreciated. Seeing the Dev PC was a big thing for me, then the console with N64 style controller but now all of this is even better. Has the blue cased console ever surfaced or still limited to press/magazine photos?
Well that's the first time I've ever heard about backwards compatibility on 3DO M2. They had been doing those advertisements for years "Don't play a Dodo". 3DO M2 had been advertised as an upgrade to the original 3DO and I was always confused about this. So it makes more sense now to find out they had a whole 3DO on a chip for backwards compatibility. So thankfully you can play Plumbers Dont Wear Ties on the 3DO M2 as well.
@@VideoGameEsoterica Damn I hope so. 3DO playing on a "Car Navigation M2" would be incredible. You could make a video titled "top 5 wierd and strange M2 based devices" and include it, then play IMSA and Plumbers on it. Nobody needs to know there are only 5 M2 based devices XD.
@@VideoGameEsoterica I did. Also did a lot of the inital bringup in our bulldog lab (including debugging the first and second spins of the 602), working around a serious error by our fab in the first build of the M2 asic (just before our crucial E3 demos). Omg so much work, but lots of good friends (even to today) and one of the most rewarding jobs I had.
Curious if you have any builds of software left. I am always trying to preserve and share as much as possible. You can email me. VideoGameEsoterica at the Google owned company ;)
@@VideoGameEsoterica I wish. Some others have asked in the past and I "knew a friend" who had the foresight to burn the source code to EVERYTHING onto a DVD. But apparent "that friend" was a dumbass and lost it at some point.
Hello, What great news, it's just amazing. I hope that we will see the birth of projects such as a functional emulator for example. Thank you for your passion in particular on this 3DO M2 which made me dream so much at the time :) Good continuation 👍
I mean anyone can develop for it. Issue is not many people have hardware to test what they develop on. Hopefully if we can get MAME to execute non-arcade executables that will change
Very cool Anthony. And the best is that you share. I hardly have time to watch, with my family an all, but I hope people understand your Moral stand point. You are ab icon, you know. All the best.
I hope there is a MISTer core in the works.That would be so cool. Back in the 97 I was given 2 Panasonic Interactive Machines one was labeled 3DO the other was labeled M2. I never put 2 and 2 together till today I had 2 3DO dev units that just happened to be dropped of to me.
Wow what a treasure trove :-) Some info regarding the files; each of those folders contain .h and .c files, the .h being a header file and the .c which contains the code. The Makefile describes how all these files are compiled into files that can be used (like a .DLL or .EXE). I’m not deep into .c code compilation but usually whenever you execute a compiler in the folder with the Makefile that is located in the root, everything will be built and you’ll theoretically end up with an executable :-)
Thank you for releasing this, I hate it when people make it so much big of a deal when they come across some piece of software for a machine 20-25-30 years old and they go bananas about respecting the IP and crap like that. End result, that piece of software is forever lost, one way or the other and the (theoretical) IP holder couldn't care less. Thank you again for standing out.
HO-LY SH*T ! The whole time watching this vid I felt like I'd hit the frickin jackpot :D ! Thank you, I always like your vids but this is special my dude 🙏👍
Never been a big fan of 3DO but this is really cool. I don't have a problem with the adds, but when one interrupted what you were saying I was extremely jarred! Not the adds fault, I was just that into what was being talked about😂. Overall good work. I've been looking for a good solution for my games set up. If or when ps1 and Saturn make their way to mister I'm all in.
Also next one that comes up for sale I need for testing! I still don’t have a functioning one...and it’s needed for testing :) so if you see one...ping me!
By curiosty, what contain the "M2_3.1e, MiscStuff, Miscstuff.[7z/zip]" folder/files contain? Did those got released somewhere too :) ? Anyways, thanks for this insane find and insane release !
3.1 was Ironblood builds and the demos from the disc I released. There is one demo that’s still broken I am working on and some extra bits of Ironblood that need to be coded back into the executable. Misc stuff was a few Windows based tools for image conversion for M2. Shared already but no press since it was inconsequential
@@VideoGameEsoterica the potential for 3d glasses and some of the other peripherals that never came out are mentioned in the patents for the controller. I was looking into that when I wanted to know why the console can mux around the audio coming out the headphone jack
This is basically video game archeology. Congratulations on making the SDK public.
Happy to do it :)
What a great comment. Video Game Archeology, thats a New field of science.
@@Tekknorg 🙂
I remember when I thought of the M2 as just another unreleased console. An interesting what if, but little more. This channel has made it so much more real and tangible to me than I ever could have imagined, and I'm grateful for that. My understanding of and appreciation for obscure games and hardware is enhanced by every video you make. This channel is so valuable to the gaming community!
Thanks for that :) it’s genuinely appreciated :)
Like an archaeologist uncovering part of something larger. I have never been excited to see files from 1996 before.
haha same...I just feel bad I didn't figure it out sooner!
This is huge! First Portfolio, and now M2's source code? It's going to be a busy month, thank you so much for sharing!
Always happy to do it. Great things hopefully coming out of this
As someone who just discovered your channel and is now an M2 fan thanks to your videos I hope to one day be able to obtain an M2 and learn more about this fascinating system. Thank you for all your dedication and hard work.
They aren’t as hard to find as one would think. There is a Tobe Polystars for sale on TOPS Japan currently :)
The King of M2 strikes again! Really amazed by this, can't believe the 3DO compatibility was going to happen (Sure I read in an interview somewhere it wasn't possible). Looking forward to the next find!
Yes compatibility was said to have been abandoned but there is all the info showing the two custom chips hold an ARM and a Cel inside of them
The original plan was that 3DO software would be run like an application. Thus the dedicated OS side of 3DO with game running on top of it. Something that Microsoft would eventually adopt with Xbox One and the three simultaneous OS model. With that they would be able to allow future models to run older software and even potentially enhance them with the newer hardware. This is why there is a cheat code in Doom that allowed it to run in full screen despite the awful performance - they were hoping that the next 3DO would alleviate the problem. Funnily enough, Doom uses the multiple application function of 3DO to hide the initial load times - the opening screens/logos are a separate program to the main game code - The OS handles all of this in the background. 3DO was incredibly forward thinking, it just was a little to early to execute it well.
Anyway, once they abandoned the ARM CPU in favor of the PPC 602 I think that whole OS upgrade to software plan when out the window.
If they where to put the original 3DO hardware in the system, I suspect it would have had a similar role to what the Ps1 hardware the Ps2. It would be used as both backwards compatibility and to run some lower end functions. I suppose they could have used it for stuff like I/O, Audio, data decompression etc. This is all just speculation.
All the speculation though. Always a good time to wonder what if, especially with hardware
Not all heroes wear capes!
Thank you very much for your continues efforts in game and hardware preservation!
I really appreciate it! ❤️
haha thanks. Always love doing it! Hopefully more info and fun videos come out of it soon!
Some excellent stuff that is good for historical preservation as well as hopefully gleaning more insight into the M2. Thanks for caring about M2 and other video game conservancy.
I do what I can when I can :)
SDK + source is a big deal for emulation. That's a really great find.
it will be very beneficial for emulation no question
didnt the m2 had like 6-7 crappy games?
It had five arcade games. None crappy
Keeping my fingers crossed that this leads to proper emulation of total vice and evil night that only kinda work at the moment.
We’re you looking over my shoulder yesterday? LOL was working on a MAME M2 video
Thanks for doing your best to preserve this stuff.
Always happy to do it :) it’s fun for me
Thanks for releasing this. A great thing for 3DO preservation.
I'd love to try finishing a 3DO FPGA core, but I don't know if I'll ever get enough time.
I got the 3DO BIOS to do some very small accesses to the (non-existent) custom chips a few years ago, using an ARM core on the DE10, but that was as far as I got.
Oh, I think the ARM core I used was called "Amber". The same one used for the Archimedes core.
The lack of 3DO on MisTer is a bummer
About a year ago on Faceplant, I asked RJ Mical if he might still have *ANY* prototype boards, manuals, dev kits, or code for the 3DO.
Sadly, he said "The company took all that stuff from me when I left". :(
Some of the devs don't always realize how many people are still interested in this old stuff.
To many of them, it was just something they worked on in the past, and they might assume it's obsolete tech which nobody is too interested in preserving. So it's always worth asking. ;)
There was a clip from "From Bedrooms To Billions" (I think?), where another engineer, and one of RJ's close friends was being interviewed on camera. RJ was so shocked to find out that his friend had worked on the N64 that he had to butt-in and stop the interview.
But it became one of the best clips on the whole documentary. lol
It might have been an Commodore documentary. I'll try to find the clip again and post it here.
Yes sadly it’s diminishing returns as time goes on. Only a few more things left that I need to find and less and less leads on where to find them
Holly heck I remember back when I started getting into the M2 back in 2005 thinking stuff like this was never out there, lost to time but I'm so glad it's all coming out.
I'm no expert, I'm just a fan of retro gaming and obscure stuff but these videos are super interesting thanks for all you do for the M2.
Happy to do it! I love sharing all this with people as a lot of people know M2 but not that so much of it still exists
@@VideoGameEsoterica it's definitely appreciated. Seeing the Dev PC was a big thing for me, then the console with N64 style controller but now all of this is even better.
Has the blue cased console ever surfaced or still limited to press/magazine photos?
Never surfaced. No evidence of it outside the photos you are referencing
Excellent informative video. Its like the kid in the candy shop finding this code :) Looking forward to future videos!
Plenty more videos coming!
Well that's the first time I've ever heard about backwards compatibility on 3DO M2. They had been doing those advertisements for years "Don't play a Dodo". 3DO M2 had been advertised as an upgrade to the original 3DO and I was always confused about this. So it makes more sense now to find out they had a whole 3DO on a chip for backwards compatibility. So thankfully you can play Plumbers Dont Wear Ties on the 3DO M2 as well.
Haha maybe one day. You never know
This stuff just gets me so excited! So many new opportunities opening up! And 3DO in the silicon! I want to figure out if that's still usable!
Hopefully we know soon. Counting on Fixel for that
@@VideoGameEsoterica Damn I hope so. 3DO playing on a "Car Navigation M2" would be incredible. You could make a video titled "top 5 wierd and strange M2 based devices" and include it, then play IMSA and Plumbers on it. Nobody needs to know there are only 5 M2 based devices XD.
Hahaha
thanks for posting this, I spent a few years writing fair portion of kernel goo for this fun machine ;-)
You wrote for M2? Sorry not sure what you mean. At least I think haha
@@VideoGameEsoterica I did. Also did a lot of the inital bringup in our bulldog lab (including debugging the first and second spins of the 602), working around a serious error by our fab in the first build of the M2 asic (just before our crucial E3 demos). Omg so much work, but lots of good friends (even to today) and one of the most rewarding jobs I had.
Curious if you have any builds of software left. I am always trying to preserve and share as much as possible. You can email me. VideoGameEsoterica at the Google owned company ;)
@@VideoGameEsoterica I wish. Some others have asked in the past and I "knew a friend" who had the foresight to burn the source code to EVERYTHING onto a DVD. But apparent "that friend" was a dumbass and lost it at some point.
Haha that will happen. So nothing left then? Even builds of demos or games? Just trying to check things off my list
Hello,
What great news, it's just amazing.
I hope that we will see the birth of projects such as a functional emulator for example.
Thank you for your passion in particular on this 3DO M2 which made me dream so much at the time :)
Good continuation 👍
Happy to do it :)
Every day we get a little closer to emulating True Vice and Evil Night! Looking forward to playing them with my Sinden Light Guns!!!!
This should help a LOT!
Thats amazing! I hope this also will do for the arcade version, i would love to have some other games on it, somehow.
It very well may :)
I wonder if this thing turns into a dedicated homebrew of sorts at some point.
I mean anyone can develop for it. Issue is not many people have hardware to test what they develop on. Hopefully if we can get MAME to execute non-arcade executables that will change
Awesome contribution right here, very exciting developments happening as I’m catching up 😮
Thanks. More M2 fun coming!
Awesome work finding this!
Re-finding it LOL. I had it for years. Just didn’t notice 😂
@@VideoGameEsoterica Happens to all of us! I guess it's like rewatching a movie a noticing things you didnt before.
Something like that yeah :)
Very cool Anthony. And the best is that you share. I hardly have time to watch, with my family an all, but I hope people understand your Moral stand point. You are ab icon, you know. All the best.
How’s the family? I haven’t heard from you in awhile. Hope all is well!
I hope there is a MISTer core in the works.That would be so cool. Back in the 97 I was given 2 Panasonic Interactive Machines one was labeled 3DO the other was labeled M2. I never put 2 and 2 together till today I had 2 3DO dev units that just happened to be dropped of to me.
Def going to be beyond the capabilities of MiSTer I believe
This is awesome! Happy to see you are releasing this stuff and not hoarding it.
Never hoarding. Whatever I have everyone can have :)
Wow what a treasure trove :-) Some info regarding the files; each of those folders contain .h and .c files, the .h being a header file and the .c which contains the code. The Makefile describes how all these files are compiled into files that can be used (like a .DLL or .EXE). I’m not deep into .c code compilation but usually whenever you execute a compiler in the folder with the Makefile that is located in the root, everything will be built and you’ll theoretically end up with an executable :-)
Yes it’s pretty comprehensive in detail and executable
Thank you for releasing this, I hate it when people make it so much big of a deal when they come across some piece of software for a machine 20-25-30 years old and they go bananas about respecting the IP and crap like that. End result, that piece of software is forever lost, one way or the other and the (theoretical) IP holder couldn't care less. Thank you again for standing out.
I do what I can :)
This is amazing. Thank you for all your hard work and dedication.
Happy to do it :)
HO-LY SH*T ! The whole time watching this vid I felt like I'd hit the frickin jackpot :D !
Thank you, I always like your vids but this is special my dude 🙏👍
Glad you enjoyed it!
Nice story and nice find!
Thanks!
Never been a big fan of 3DO but this is really cool. I don't have a problem with the adds, but when one interrupted what you were saying I was extremely jarred! Not the adds fault, I was just that into what was being talked about😂.
Overall good work. I've been looking for a good solution for my games set up. If or when ps1 and Saturn make their way to mister I'm all in.
Haha YT picks when they appear. Never works quite right
This is just awesome! Great find!!!
Haha had I only realized I had it awhile ago
@@VideoGameEsoterica Do you think that maybe something from D2 may appear someday?
The one model I released on the demo disc surfaced so I remain hopeful but I have no reason to justify that hope with evidence lol
Would be amazing if people started making homebrew games for the M2!!
That’s the hope! More fun stuff should be coming to M2 in 2022 ;)
Yoooo. Doing the Good Lord's work I see.
I do love giving away all this stuff :) belongs to the community to do fun stuff with!
So, not being the sharpest on these things, does the emergence of the enc key, mean my FZ-21 might not just be a pretty looking doorstop anymore?
Eventually yes. More steps involved
Also next one that comes up for sale I need for testing! I still don’t have a functioning one...and it’s needed for testing :) so if you see one...ping me!
Wow this video is really amazing
Glad you enjoyed
This maybe mean that we could do emulation then.
Which would be stellar
It does :)
Awesome stuff as always.
The antici....pation grows for the next exciting chapter
Appreciate it :)
haha Rocky Horror reference gets a +1 for me and yes what comes next from this will be the real fun!
I wonder if there is any hope of the MiSTer ever running 3D0 at all.
It’ll definitely work. Someone just needs to take on the project
By curiosty, what contain the "M2_3.1e, MiscStuff, Miscstuff.[7z/zip]" folder/files contain? Did those got released somewhere too :) ?
Anyways, thanks for this insane find and insane release !
3.1 was Ironblood builds and the demos from the disc I released. There is one demo that’s still broken I am working on and some extra bits of Ironblood that need to be coded back into the executable. Misc stuff was a few Windows based tools for image conversion for M2. Shared already but no press since it was inconsequential
@@VideoGameEsoterica Okay, i see ! Thanks for the explanation :)
Is there anymore D2 findings?
Nothing as of yet. Still on the case though. I do have new published print materials to scan though. More dev history. Just nothing you can play
this is kind of incredible!
Haha thanks
By the way, do you know how many console resources "3DO OS" (memory for example) take? And what left for games?
Variable. The ram is pooled so depending on what services you need active it will reduce / increase what’s left of the pool
Incredible!
Yes I am super glad it’s preserved and out in the world for people to work with
Now if someone dumps the the internal rom encription of the Namco system 10...
Maybe one day. Won’t be me though lol
God damn is love this channel.
Haha thanks. You’ll love it more soon too :)
God bless you man appreciate the info
Always happy to do it!
YOU RULE MAN!!!! THANK YOU!!!
My pleasure. The more M2 out in the world the more people get interested in it and the more fun we can all have!
The glasses are in the patent for the chainable controller
Sorry this has been a minute. I can’t remember what you are referencing
@@VideoGameEsoterica the potential for 3d glasses and some of the other peripherals that never came out are mentioned in the patents for the controller. I was looking into that when I wanted to know why the console can mux around the audio coming out the headphone jack
Ahh yes. So many drivers for peripherals we never got
hello, do you sell it or could you help me get one?, preferably the white one.
Join my Discord...no promises
Holy free free holy!!
Lolol
awesome
it really is :)
The konami games of M2 is excellent
They are a ton of fun!
@@VideoGameEsoterica Yes, indeed!
🤘
haha so wordy this morning trap
Yoooooooooooooooo!
Adrian!!!!!!
😍
:)