antime
Saturn Player
Joined: February 2013
Posts: 86
Location:
|
Post by antime on Mar 9, 2016 19:59:52 GMT
The only thing that immediately sticks out is that diode D5 has been replaced by a solder bridge, but I don't know if that is significant.
Just as a quick overview, the SST chips are the flash memory, the SEC chips are the DRAM and the rest are logic for address decoding etc. As you guessed, the empty footprint is for a latching buffer which would store the data sent to/from the comm port. The four diodes D1-D4 on the right-hand side are what is used to generate the cartridge ID byte, which is what games use to detect what type of cartridge is plugged in. Since the rest of the cartridge works, I would guess that ID generation logic is broken, and I believe that is controlled by the programmable logic IC in the upper right corner. If that is indeed the case, it is unfortunately not easy to fix, since the logic equations used to program the device are not known.
|
|
antime
Saturn Player
Joined: February 2013
Posts: 86
Location:
|
Post by antime on Feb 24, 2016 22:17:59 GMT
I had no idea that the Netlink never made it to the PAL regions. It was released in Finland, and the web browser was even translated into Finnish ( some footage here). I think I went online with it once ca. 2003. The browser was too old to show most websites by that time, but the IRC client worked.
|
|
antime
Saturn Player
Joined: February 2013
Posts: 86
Location:
|
Post by antime on Jan 27, 2016 6:12:46 GMT
I recently picked up my first game which requires the RAM expansion (Waku Waku 7) and figured I'd have no issues at all since this cart is supposed to automatically boot as 1m or 4m, right? No, a 4M cart is always a 4M cart. The 1M games are compatible with both the 1M and 4M expansions. If the Action Replay menu appears, there's probably nothing wrong with the cartridge port. Since you've opened the cartridge, are there actually RAM chips in it? If you're unsure, take a photo and post it.
|
|
antime
Saturn Player
Joined: February 2013
Posts: 86
Location:
|
Post by antime on Jan 21, 2016 20:50:03 GMT
It's a basic Action Replay clone. There's no expansion RAM, but it's got the basic region free, cheat, and save game functionality. I've got a couple that are identical, except the soldermask is blue instead of violet.
|
|
antime
Saturn Player
Joined: February 2013
Posts: 86
Location:
|
Post by antime on Aug 21, 2015 18:52:36 GMT
And if anyone else wants it, you can download it here.
|
|
antime
Saturn Player
Joined: February 2013
Posts: 86
Location:
|
Post by antime on Aug 6, 2015 20:15:03 GMT
Did you verify the burned discs? Also try burning at the speed the discs are rated for. I've never had much success burning 8x or faster rated discs at 1x/2x .
|
|
antime
Saturn Player
Joined: February 2013
Posts: 86
Location:
|
Post by antime on Jul 23, 2015 21:07:45 GMT
It's an open source project, people do what they like.
|
|
antime
Saturn Player
Joined: February 2013
Posts: 86
Location:
|
Post by antime on Jun 10, 2015 4:15:40 GMT
Is your Saturn running at 50 or 60Hz? For RF it neets to run at 50Hz (PAL).
|
|
antime
Saturn Player
Joined: February 2013
Posts: 86
Location:
|
Post by antime on May 28, 2015 17:46:21 GMT
There are scalers (eg. the CSLUX-1080P), but they usually have problems with the weird not-quite-standard video signals produced by old consoles and computers. This site has a long list of reviews of scalers and video processors specifically with gaming in mind. I believe the current gold standard is still the XRGB-Mini, although it is kind of expensive and hard to get hold of (also note that the input cable supplied with the unit is wired for Japanese SCART, you will need a third-party cable for connecting European SCART cables). On the Shmups forum they will talk about video conversion until you're sick of it.
|
|
antime
Saturn Player
Joined: February 2013
Posts: 86
Location:
|
Post by antime on May 26, 2015 15:14:18 GMT
1mm. You can find a footprint and schematic symbol in KiCad format here (CC BY-SA 3.0).
|
|
antime
Saturn Player
Joined: February 2013
Posts: 86
Location:
|
Post by antime on May 12, 2015 7:11:32 GMT
Since the schematics of the Saturn are available, you can check for yourself that there's no connection from the cartridge port to the backup battery. Whatever is going on, that's not it. Try what MIK suggested and disconnect all cables (but do copy your saves over to the cartridge first).
|
|
antime
Saturn Player
Joined: February 2013
Posts: 86
Location:
|
Post by antime on Mar 18, 2015 20:58:38 GMT
In marketing speak of the era, "MEG" usually meant megabits, so the capacity would be 1 megabyte. The back of the box claims 32 times the 32K built-in memory, which also equals one megabyte.
|
|
antime
Saturn Player
Joined: February 2013
Posts: 86
Location:
|
Post by antime on Mar 7, 2015 13:25:29 GMT
IIRC Nights uses XA tracks instead of the usual data+audio.
|
|
antime
Saturn Player
Joined: February 2013
Posts: 86
Location:
|
Post by antime on Mar 6, 2015 20:02:38 GMT
When the 3D pad is put into digital mode, it only reports the controls that are found on the normal pad (no analog stick, no analog shoulder buttons), but at the protocol level it's still different from a joypad. Normally the Saturn's SMPC chip is used to read the controller, and it handles the differences automatically. It is also possible for programmers to bypass the SMPC and read controllers manually, but games aren't supposed to do this, and doing so would in fact make them fail certification. I guess that either this game slipped through the cracks or the rule was not in place yet.
|
|
antime
Saturn Player
Joined: February 2013
Posts: 86
Location:
|
Post by antime on Jan 13, 2015 7:28:57 GMT
How would you go about cutting the cart open? I have a few dead Saturns here, and a hot air station. After desoldering, the outer metal shell should come off pretty easily. Then, using a Dremel or similar cutting tool I'd slice off the end to get a good cross-section, and finally cut the rest open lengthwise.
|
|