Sega Saturn Gurus / tech people?

[dtp30]

Hello all,

Any Sega Saturn Gurus or tech people here? Trying to find the service manual for the round buttion Sega saturn.. Have searched and only found the oval one.

Also is anyone else working on BIOS mods for it?

Thanks,
D.

 

[TecXero]

I couldn't help you on the manual side. As for mods and homebrew, there are some floating around, google searching should point you to most of them. Overall, due to its complexity and age, you won't find nearly as much for it as say the Dreamcast. Always a good idea to keep software developers in mind when designing a console.

 

[DjoeN]

Depends on what you mean with bios mod?
I have on my old page that is still up and running a guide on how to modify the Saturn to play in 50/60Mhz and a AR4in1 mod to play all imports

http://djoen.dommel.be/djoen.html

Look on the left for Sega Saturn Model 2 and the AR mod is right under it
This lets me play all Saturn imports

Note: I Also have a model 1 Saturn (Oval button) and 2 other saturn model 1 and model 2 with a modchip in it and 1 with regionfree bios mod

http://www.segastyle.com/saturnmod.html

And here's more info about a regionfree bios mod:
http://www.mmmonkey.co.uk/sega-saturn-region-free-bios/

Alot of info you can find here:
http://segaretro.org/Sega_Saturn

[EDIT]
Have to say, it was AGES ago i did all this myself, i just collected things and modded everything i could, now they all are stored in boxes on the attic and never looked at again, the last was the bios mod, some guy sold it, don't know anymore who it was from a sega forum a few years ago

 

[dtp30]

Well my BIOS mod i was hoping to change the way the SRAM for saves is addressed. If i add the next 2 address lines and mount a 1mbit chip... it would have 4 times the save space. i did this in the hope maybe the factory bios will auto detect the extra space... Like i presume it does in the cart slot... But it doesn't.

So i have programed a PIC chip to toggle the extra address lines each time the reset buttion is pressed...

That way you have 4 "pages" of 256k that are independent of each other. With a 2mbit chip i could make 8 pages.

I finished the code today (first time i had programed a PIC chip).. Just doing a few code mods before adding it to the saturn i'm working on.

I have added a dual led in place of the green power led.. It will shine red/orange when "page 0" is selected... That way you know how many resets to push..... You won't get stuck not knowing which page is next.

I don't know if others would want this mod.. but it does free up the cart slot.....

Also the backup battery can be run at 4.5V... so that will extend the sram data retention time.

 

[dtp30]

Here is the PIC wired up and doing bank switching. Work really well!!

Power led is "orange" when you are at bank 00... So if you loose track of where you are.. just keep pressing reset till power led goes orange.

D.

 

[luney]

Interesting that someone is still playing with the Saturn. I actually just picked up my first ever Saturn maybe 2 months ago. First thing I did was drop in a chip. I absolutely love it. It sucks that some of the best games for it are so expensive. That is the whole reason behind the chip. You should look into the Rhea. As soon as preorders for them reopen, I will surely be signing up for one. I can't wait for that. The load times on my Saturn are painfully slow but, from what I have read anyway, the Rhea reduces them exponentially. Still a beautiful console though. Alot of interesting games were released on it. It's great to see someone showing interest in it since it truly has become one of my personal favorite pieces of retro hardware.

 

[dtp30]

I don't know if anyone would want to do this mod... But here it is. If i did it again i think i would use a 2mbit chip to give 8 pages.. Plus i think it is easy to get a FRAM chip in that size. FRAM doesn't need the BATTERY back up to hold its data.

For the rest of my saturns a mod chip and a action replay i think is probibly the best combo.

 

[WigWrm]

Great job. Clean up that flux though!!! Could've ran the wires a little neater .

 

[dtp30]

It had had a few difrent hook ups befor i got to the final one. It still would be cool if the bios could be modded to just use the extra space... I emailed the guy who did the modded BIOS.. But he is away??? So had no reply...