Mattel HyperScan can run Doom

[SylverReZ]

@ppcasm whose been in the HyperScan homebrew scene around the time when it launched, has managed to get Doom running; albeit with slowdown due to the hardware's limitations. LiraNuna reversed engineered the firmware's functionality to make this possible.

Download: https://github.com/ppcasm/HyperScan-SPG29x-SDK/tree/main/System/HyperScan/examples/USB/DOOM

 

[ppcasm]

Interesting, I remember that I should note that I haven't been doing HyperScan development ALL this time, haha. I did it for a short period way back then, and then more recently like the last 3 months or so I got tired of nothing being done on it, so I reverse engineered USB, ported FATFS, wrote a USB loader menu, reverse engineered the controllers, wrote some libraries, wrote custom firmware and a custom bootloader, all kinda shits. I'd consider the DOOM port HIGHLY experimental right now, but hopefully I'll get a chance to really push it to run properly some day. The SDK is open source and includes other demos in case anyone wants to mess with things. It's not very well documented yet other than in the code, but hopefully this will be of interest to someone who cares to see it progress.

 

[onfy]

I always hoped this console would get some homebrew. Maybe one day I'll find a HyperScam Scan and I'll be able to burn a CD-R of Doom or something else to play on it, so it isn't a useless pile of crap. Also nice to have another entry in "Doom runs on everything".

 

[SylverReZ]

I always hoped this console would get some homebrew. Maybe one day I'll find a HyperScam Scan and I'll be able to burn a CD-R of Doom or something else to play on it, so it isn't a useless pile of crap. Also nice to have another entry in "Doom runs on everything".

There is also some custom firmware in the works. Not sure what capabilities it may have, but this will surely open up the box to some new opportunities.

 

[onfy]

There is also some custom firmware in the works. Not sure what capabilities it may have, but this will surely open up the box to some new opportunities.

The HyperScan hardware is rather limited if I remember correctly, but anything will have to be an improvement over the games it already has, right?

 

[SylverReZ]

The HyperScan hardware is rather limited if I remember correctly, but anything will have to be an improvement over the games it already has, right?

Its quite limited to what it can do, but it does have its potential. The HyperScan runs on an SPG290 chipset with S+Core7 . SunPlus were also responsible for developing hardware for VTech and those plug-and-play handhelds by Jakks Pacific.

Attached are the documentation that I've collected over the years to give you some ideas.

 

[onfy]

Thanks, but I'm not likely to get much from technical CPU documentation. All I know is this CPU architecture isn't widely supported, emulated, or used in anything super visible really. I think I do have one of those Jakks plug n plays, they're fascinating.

But "anything that boots is beautiful", so if anybody gets anything interesting out of these chips, I like that.

 

[ppcasm]

The custom firmware right now allows booting a usb loader directly on boot without running the hyperscan OS directly. The usb loader menu let's you easily put multiple apps in a folder with accompanying files and run them. They still retain their hyper.exe layout so generally they can run the same as normal homebrew. Eventually I'm going to see about having it patch the OS so it'll run OEM games from usb, which in theory should load somewhat faster.

 

[Jayro]

I never even heard of this system before, but I always love seeing obscure hardware running DOOM.

 

[SylverReZ]

I never even heard of this system before, but I always love seeing obscure hardware running DOOM.

The HyperScan was a competitor to VTech's V.Flash console. VTech's console was based on an ARM9 CPU core with 3D graphics, whereas the HyperScan used a SunPlus SoC with S+core which couldn't do 3D and is very limited. Both used compact discs as a storage medium, which does not contain copy protection. Mattel only sold this for a short period before it was discontinued as it never sold well.

 

[tech3475]

Funnily enough I just watched this a couple of weeks ago, so at least now the system has a decent game:

 

[ppcasm]

Yikes, I need to stop lying about my age randomly on forums. I'm not as old AF as it shows... yet, haha. I think the system could feasibly run doom at fullspeed, if fullspeed is considered 30FPS. There's a lot of room for optimization in the port, I just unfortunately haven't had much time to work on it. The only real reason I bothered was to really see how far the SDK and reverse engineering efforts had gotten. The biggest breakthrough imo is the USB access and FATFS porting effort, because now homebrew can take advantage of a much more reliable medium, and also the UART access which greatly pushed development and testing time to sane levels. I wouldn't mind seeing an NES emulator that utilized the USB. Unfortunately I'll probably be down on doing much development on any of this stuff for some time, but there's a few others that are messing around with what's there already and hopefully it'll pick up at least a following of some people who really like obscure systems. The actual plan with the SDK is to (if I get time) hopefully be used to do homebrew on other spg29x based system, for example, the zone3d.

<no self advertisement>