Elite Sega

Elite was formed in October '95, the reason why we decided to make a move on the Sega Megadrive is that nobody did any more Trainers for this machine. It started out as a request of loads of other people in the Console scene, and after some checking around I noticed that still a lot of Quality games were coming out for the Sega. So it would be a new challenge to explore the Sega.

The coding wouldn't be much of a problem, since the Megadrive has as Main processor the 68000. And since we have been doing a lot of Atari stuff ( the atari is based on a 68000 processor as well ), our code could be converted easily. Our Snes assembler was converted to a Sega assembler after some weeks of digging around in the Sega Manual. Main change was adding the music part, but that was easy enough.

A friend of mine borrowed his Sega Copier to MCA, so he could start coding a Trainer Screen. We tried the Action Replay cart on the Sega + Copier, but it DIDNT work ! No more handy tools to help out.., then again it wouldn't matter much, since there was nobody else doing anything on the Megadrive. Time pressure was a thing of the past on this machine, we stopped on several occasions a Sega Trainer , to do a SNES one first. Since the pressure was still on in the SNES Scene. And competition was getting fierce with other groups on the prowl. The first Trainers were made by MCA on his own, after a while I joined in with the big search. Hunting through the code on the search for Cheat modes or Increases or Decreases of the Usual Lives / Energy / Levels stuff. Good thing was that 90% of the games that we did Train, had most of the time an ingame Cheatmode, not that it makes it any easier to Activate. We haven't Trained that many games on the Sega, not as many as on the SNES anyway.

Fixing games on the Sega was a bit irritating, since Sega was so funny to introduce 3 different versions of there machines ( JAP / US / EURO ), so it was always tricky to fix a game. You could fix it for the Euro version, but then it would no longer work on the US machines, and vice versa. Also a checksum was added on top of every game, so after a few bytes would be changed the whole Image had to be re-calculated to get the game working again. MCA did quit a few fixes, then BamBam told me that a guy on his bbs could do fixes for Elite. It was JARRE, who had been a veteran on the Sega scene, he had been in the very first groups that released Sega games. And he had coded intro's on the Sega as well. So we asked if he could join, and he did . From that time on he was taking care of most of the fixes that were needed for the stuff that came out. Jarre even managed to fix some games that were out already for a while . But that nobody could get to work, it came closer to cracking on these quit a bit of code had to be Manipulated.

More Utilities & tools written by MCA for the Sega Megadrive on the Atari ST (You can D/L the Sega Utility if you click on the image above as well)

	description
Sega debugger 1.0	Debugger for the Megadrive on the Atari.
Program gluer 2.0	Glue's programs together (check it yourself)
ST File utility 1.0	Plits & Joins files. Creates and uses *.IPS files.
Sega Utility 1.00	Multi purpose utility for the Megadrive. (Can be used as .ACC or as .PRG)
Sega Assembler	Assembler for the Megadrive
Trainer Utility 1.0	ProFighter Q Trainer utility 1.0

Like I already explained in the Elitendo story, this was mainly done to piss some guys of at the time. Some games have been imported by Sharon / BamBam and Sledge. Unplayable jap shit got dumped under the SUSHI label. It was fun for a short while.

MCA coded a Sega-Tool for the PC, coz there was no real program there that could do it all. The fixing part of this program has never been perfected. Most of the fixes could not be done automatically. But it was still better then most tools that were there.

Like I mentioned before, the Sega Copier MCA had was borrowed. The owner wanted it back cause he had financial trouble, and he had a buyer for it. Later on I sold my Double Pro Fighter as well. because I wanted a 32 Mb Snes Copier. BamBam and Jarre still did some releases and fixes , but after a few months Elite on the Sega kicked the bucket... Around the same time that Elitendo stopped, Elite was Death and burried as well.