The SEGA Multi-Mega (released as the Genesis CDX in North America) is a hybrid Mega Drive and Mega-CD console that only uses a single power adapter. Released in North America and Europe in April 1994, the system is also made to be used a personal CD player that can be powered with use of 2 AA batteries and an additional LCD display and navigation buttons that have been added to the console’s fascia. The console was discontinued later in 1994 to allow SEGA to focus on production of the 32X.

The Multi-Mega was the 3rd Mega Drive/Mega-CD hybrid console. It was preceded by the Wondermega in 1992 and followed by the Wondermega M2/X’Eye in 1993. The difference is the Multi-Mega is a first party hardware release by SEGA, while the Wondermega and X’Eye were officially licensed by SEGA, but manufactured by Victor and JVC.

The Multi-Mega is fully compatible with the original Master System Power Base Converter and the 32X. However, using these peripherals can block access to the disc tray. Certain peripherals that make use of both of the 9 pin controller ports like the infra red control pads are made incompatible with the Multi-Mega due to the increased spacing between these ports. The Multi-Mega uses the same smaller video-out connector as a Mega Drive II and the console runs an exclusive 2.21 revision of the Mega-CD system BIOS. Functionality is largely identical to a Mega Drive II and Mega-CD II combo.

Specifications

CPU
Motorola 68000 @ 12.5 MHz
Zilog Z80 @ 3.58 MHz

Display
Progressive: 320×224, 256×224 (NTSC) or 320×240, 256×240 (PAL) pixels, 512 color palette, 61 colors on-screen
Interlaced: 320×448, 256×448 (NTSC) or 320×480, 256×480 (PAL)

Audio
Ricoh RF5C164
Yamaha YM2612
Texas Instruments SN76489

RAM
72 kB of RAM (Mega Drive portion)
64 kB of video RAM (Mega Drive portion)
6 Mbit (Mega-CD portion)
512 Kbit to PCM waveform memory (Mega-CD portion)
128 Kbit to CD-ROM data cache memory (Mega-CD portion)
64 Kbit are allocated as the backup memory (Mega-CD portion)

Storage
CD-ROM discs
CD+G discs
ROM cartridges

Images