Welcome to MAME/DOOM on the WebTV Plus. On this page i'm going to provide information on how to customize your WebTV Plus unit. When this project first started the goal was to simply get MAME working and provide some sort of way to start it up. While in the process of looking for the best way to start MAME the project started to grow to include more stuff and of course with more stuff you need some kind of user interface. It took a lot of work, special tools, and a lot of help from a couple close friends and finally we have something. The progress videos below you can see some of the progress made later on in the project this will give you an idea of what this custom build does. At this point the project is complete and I will provide a instructional video on how to set this up on your WebTV and download links below.
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Goals for the custom final build are:
- Get MAME working on WebTV Plus and Derby Plus- 100% complete
- Get Doom working - 100% - Finally - it only took 7 years :-)
- Make all original WebTV midi's available for listening - 100% complete (Karaoke player only avail for Old Plus not Derby.)
- Layout and custom pages - 100%
- Progress last updated 4/24/2021 - Original start of project 10/29/2014
Now that all goals are complete I'm not going to say i'm 100% done with this build. I may find other cool things to get on the WebTV plus. Who knows. Update: All new custom build for the Old WebTV plus and Derby! everthing has been redone, to many updates to list! Check out the video below. Last Updated 11-19-2022
This hack should work on any OLD Plus and DERBY Plus that have the hard drive, will not work on the newer plus that has a Flash Disk. Check the model number on the back of your unit and then check the list below.
HOW DO I KNOW IF I HAVE A DERBY? First look through the top vents on your unit, on the right side you should be able to see a hard drive. If you don't you have a NEW Plus, this hack will not work. If you see a hard drive but don't see your model number listed below you most likely have a DERBY. Another thing you can try is if you have a hard drive and are unsure if it's a Derby or not then while the power is off point the keyboard at your WebTV and hit the options button and then enter in the numbers 411 the lights on your unit should flash, now turn on your WebTV. You should see a WebTV Tech Info screen and at the bottum of that screen you should see Modem info, if it says something about a SoftModem then it's a Derby if it don't then it's the Old Plus (Note: depending on your current build you might not see anything about a modem at all). Best method is if you know you have a hard drive and your going to install this hack then your going to have to take apart your WebTV anyway so look on the motherboard you should see the word DERBY. Worst case is you install the old plus build on your box and it doesn't work then you know you have a Derby, just reinstall the build but use the Dreby one this time ;-)
The list below shows all WebTV models that this will and will not work on. Please note that this list is not complete it may be missing some models. If you have a WebTV that is not listed here please E-Mail Me and let me know!
Brand | Model | Type | Modem | RAM | ROM | Storage | CPU speed | CPU chip | Install Hack |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Sony | INT-W100 | Classic | V.34 | 2 MB (2 MiB) | 2 MB (2 MiB) | 2 MB | 112 MHz | R4640 | No |
Philips | MAT-960 | Classic | V.34 | 2 MB | 2 MB | 2 MB | 112 MHz | R4640 | No |
Sony | INT-WJ200 | Classic (Japan) | V.90 | 8 MB | 4 MB | 1.1 GB | 150 MHz | R4640 | No |
Sony | INT-W150 | New Classic | V.90 | 8 MB | 2 MB | 2 MB | 150 MHz | RM5230 | No |
Philips | MAT-965 | New Classic | V.90 | 8 MB | 2 MB | 2 MB | 150 MHz | RM5230 | No |
RCA | RW-2100 | New Classic | V.90 | 8 MB | 2 MB | 2 MB | 150 MHz | RM5230 | No |
RCA | RM-2100 | New Classic | V.90 | 8 MB | 2 MB | 2 MB | 150 MHz | RM5230 | No |
Sony | INT-W200 | Plus | V.90 | 8 MB | 2 MB | 1.1 GB | 150 MHz | R4640 | YES |
Sony | INT-W200 CND | Derby Plus | V.90 soft modem | 8 MB | 2 MB | 1.1 GB | 167 MHz | RM5230 | YES |
Philips | MAT-972 | Plus | V.90 | 8 MB | 2 MB | 1.1 GB | 150 MHz | R4640 | YES |
Samsung | SIS-100 | Plus | V.90 | 8 MB | 2 MB | 1.1 GB | 150 MHz | R4640 | YES |
Mitsubishi | WB-2000 (RW- ?) | Plus | V.90 | 8 MB | 2 MB | 1.1 GB | 150 MHz | R4640 | YES |
La-Z-Boy | Leather | Plus | V.90 | 8 MB | 2 MB | 1.1 GB | 150 MHz | R4640 | YES |
La-Z-Boy | Fabric | Plus | V.90 | 8 MB | 2 MB | 1.1 GB | 150 MHz | R4640 | YES |
Sony | INT-WJ300 | Plus (Japan) | V.90 soft modem | 16 MB | 4 MB | 1.1 GB | 167 MHz | RM5230 | No |
RCA | RW-2110 | New Plus | V.90 soft modem | 16 MB | 8 MB | Flash Disk | 167 MHz | RM5230 | No |
Sony | INT-W250 | New Plus | V.90 soft modem | 16 MB | 8 MB | Flash Disk | 167 MHz | RM5230 | No |
Philips | MAT-976 | New Plus | V.90 soft modem | 16 MB | 8 MB | Flash Disk | 167 MHz | RM5230 | No |
Echostar | Dishplayer 7100 | DISH tuner | V.90 soft modem | 16 MB | 4 MB | 8.6 GB | 167 MHz | RM5230 | SEE HERE |
Echostar | Dishplayer 7200 | DISH tuner | V.90 soft modem | 16 MB | 4 MB | 17.6 GB | 167 MHz | RM5230 | SEE HERE |
RCA | UltimateTV | DirecTV tuner | V.90 soft modem | 32 MB | 4 MB | 40 GB | 167 MHz | RM5230 | No |
RCA | RM-4100 | MSNTV2 | V.90 / Ethernet | 128 MB | none | 64 MB | 733 MHz | Celeron | No |
RCA | RM-4100 (2) | MSNTV2 | V.90 / Ethernet | 256 MB | none | 64 MB | 733 MHz | Celeron | No |
Notes: It is unclear if any other manufacturers made a Derby unit other than Sony. It's also unclear what units came with the La-Z-Boy 'e-cliner' (likely sony) and unknown if it's Old Plus or Derby Plus. lol who actually has/had one of these??
Needed Files
OLD PLUS
Download - Custom_OLD-PLUS_WTV_Build_7352_MAME-DOOM-YDKJ-ExtraBuild.img Last Updated 7-23-2023
PLUS DERBY
Download - Custom_DERBY_WTV_Build_7.2.5.3_MAME-DOOM-YDKJ-ExtraBuild.img Last Updated 11-20-2022
Download WinHex:
WinHex 19.6 Full Version
Download 7zip form:
7zip
Troubleshooting
- WARNING - Please make sure you unplug your WebTV every time you remove or plug your hard drive back in. This is important! I have popped a few fuses on my plus units by forgetting to do this. You can repair it but it's a pain in the ass repairing those mini fuses on the board!
- MAME - Once you start MAME you will stay in MAME, meaning everytime you trun on your box MAME will start up. If you want to get back to the HackTV Home Page you need to unplug your WebTV for 30 sec then plug it back in and when you power back on you should be back at HackTV Home. Or you can use power off code 8673094 witch will exit out of the MAME build and restore the HackTV build. Update: New exit button added to MAME, shutsdown MAME properly and restores HackTV build. If you don't exit with the button the above still applies.
- I DON'T HAVE A IDE CONNECTION ON MY PC! - If you have a spare SATA drive sitting around you can use that. You'll need to get a IDE to SATA connector, then you can ZERO out the drive with WinHex. Goto Tools - Open Disk, select your WebTV drive. Then goto Edit - Select All - Edit again - Fill Block. Fill with Hex values 00 (Those are ZERO's) and click on OK. Once thats done just use WinHex to write the img to the drive (same as install video) and your done. Please note this may not work with all drives. You can also use a SD card, see video below.
- New info regarding hard drive locking. If your using a hdd other than the original wtv hdd that supports locking then anything from 2.6-2.9 Daily Debug will lock that drive. Anything 2.5 Daily Debug and below is safe. If your using sd card with adapter your safe. Also from testing it looks as though they removed that locking shit on production builds. So you should be good on 2.9 and below if using a production build. No other testing has been done so weekly, genesis, export builds i have no idea. The custom HackTV img is 100% safe to use on anything!
The back story for those interested goes like this. Back in 98 when a group of guys known as WebTV Explores discovered a WebTV service known as Test-drive and on the server found that one could download games such as Doom and YDKJ. It was also rumored that other games existed that could be downloaded as well so a few of them tried to enter in different names of games in the download code to see if anything took, games like Duke Nukem, Quake, etc. but nothing seemed to work. One of the members tried Mame but it was thought at the time that nothing worked. As time went on that member blew the power supply in his box and never returned to the WebTV service again. Fast forward to 2014 out of no where I receive an e-mail from an old friend who stated that he dug his old WebTV box out from the closet and repaired the power supply so he could mess around with WebTV again, hooked it up and noticed he still had an old internal build on the unit from the test drive days so he hooked up his WebTV hard drive to a PC and realized he had something called MAME. Could it be?? All this time and he never realized that MAME on WebTV was real?? After a little rework of the Doom start up command MAME starts up. I was sent the exact hard drive image and loaded it up on my WebTV and the rest is history.
I remember Webtv was upset at the time when we released Doom and YDKJ to the public but can you imagine there reaction if we actually knew we had MAME and released that? MAME it's self wouldn't have been a big deal but having MAME complete with the roms built in released to the public might have upset them more since the roms them selves I believe is illegal.