Saturn portable

Link89 · Post by **Link89** » Mon Jun 28, 2004 7:11 pm

I know this isn't the place to put stuff for a Sega Saturn portable but I don't know where else to put it. I got one today and I'm thinking about portablizing but don't know much about it. Has anyone took one apart or attempted a portable. Any good mods for? (Why isn't there a Saturn portable Spot?)

Post by **Sparkfist** » Tue Jun 29, 2004 5:23 am

First there is one mod I know that aloues you to play homebrew games. Other then that a cartrage is used for playing Pal games on the NTSC versions.
Second I've never seen the inside of a Saturn personally, there are tons of pics to look at on the internet to give you a good idea.
Third the reason the Saturn doesnt have a fourm of its own is it wasnt very popular in America, but as its a 32-bit system I cant see the harm it having topic about it here.

Link89 · Post by **Link89** » Tue Jun 29, 2004 4:11 pm

GAAAAAAAAAAAAA I took apart the Saturn. It is a beast. The CD drive is really old. The laser has gears to make it move up and down. The whole CD Drive is about 2 inchs high. I'm definitly going to move it down on my portables to build list.

vb_master · Post by **vb_master** » Tue Jun 29, 2004 7:34 pm

Link89 wrote:GAAAAAAAAAAAAA I took apart the Saturn. It is a beast. The CD drive is really old. The laser has gears to make it move up and down. The whole CD Drive is about 2 inchs high. I'm definitly going to move it down on my portables to build list.

Hey, it's probably modifiable, who makes the drive?

Post by **Sparkfist** » Tue Jun 29, 2004 9:30 pm

well the Saturn was Saga's second time working with cd-roms, and its a 2x. Why not see what type of interface it has and see if its possible to just replace with a newer rom.
And before you go to far. Are you going to get the movie/photo/ebook card. It has a port in the back to take a card so you can watch VCD/Mpeg 1 videos (it also improves lunar).

Other then that if you feel its possible and want to work towards it good luck.

vb_master · Post by **vb_master** » Wed Jun 30, 2004 6:46 am

Sparkfist wrote:1. Why not see what type of interface it has and see if its possible to just replace with a newer rom.
2. Are you going to get the movie/photo/ebook card.

1. It uses a flat white ribbon cable, I don't know what interface that is.
2. There's an EBook card

?

Post by **Sparkfist** » Wed Jun 30, 2004 7:18 am

Flat white cable can mean its an IDE, but as I cant see it and I dont know how much Sega invested in that was proprietary I cant be sure. If it has a pink strip on one side yes it is defenitly an IDE cable the line is to show you that is pin 1.

There were 3 licensed manufatures for the Saturn; Sega (ofcourse), Vector and Hitachi. Sega made a card that just ran movies, but Vector and hitachi when a step further and added the photo cd and ebook option. As a note the card from Hitachi is only avalable with the Hi-Saturn but you can look for the Vector card.

If your courious to where I got this info there is a page (maybe link in doomportables) that taked about a large veriaty of systems (encluding Playstation w/ VCD ablity), its not hard to find. When I get a chance I'll post the URL

stereth · Post by **stereth** » Wed Jun 30, 2004 12:00 pm

Sparkfist wrote:If it has a pink strip on one side yes it is defenitly an IDE cable the line is to show you that is pin 1.

Flat white cable means flat white cable. It's a common way to make lots of connections over a short distance. Colored strip means pin 1, yes, but is far from guaranteeing IDE compatibility. I'd be surprised if any of these portable systems uses IDE, except the Xbox. All CD drives that I've seen use ribbon cables.

It's likely a proprietary interface. Has anyone had any luck with replacing any optical drive in a console? I've seen one with the Xbox, but that doesn't really count, since it wasn't a full replacement.

Post by **Sparkfist** » Thu Jul 01, 2004 8:55 pm

For anyone interested in that video card for the saturn here http://assembler.roarvgm.com/SatVCD/satvcd.html

I'll look to find some pics of the mobo, optics drive, ect. I'll post the good ones or the page their from.

MR.MOD · Post by **MR.MOD** » Fri Jul 02, 2004 9:29 pm

I don't know if it is an ide or not. I thought i heard once that saturns fall into piracy was because they used standard ide cables. Hey vb_master are you into gamecube dev? Your at the gcdev forums arn't you?

vb_master · Post by **vb_master** » Sat Jul 03, 2004 7:19 am

It's probably not IDE, you would have to figure out a way to do that your self. Yes, I'm at the GCDev.com forums, though I havn't the knowledge to program for the GC, I do have a BBA, but I will be getting a Max Drive Pro. I am one of the more famous GC Dev members because of my enourmous post count

shelter pitfall · Post by **shelter pitfall** » Sat Jul 10, 2004 5:24 pm

I wonder if any of the other saturn models have a different drive size.
Though I wouldn't want to take apart one of the HI-Saturns.

Link89 · Post by **Link89** » Fri Aug 06, 2004 3:43 pm

I'm going to start on the portable soon now. The plan is to rip out the cd drive and power supply. Then I need to find an itx or some voltage converters that will work for powering it. Once I've found those I'll put a mod chip in. After that comes the hard part changing the drive out. I'll find a DVD drive that's small and pit that and then here's the tricky part I have to flash some of the bios and stuf so they'll read the cd's in the new drive. Maybe when all of that's done I'll try to cut the mobo in half and solder the leads to make gba sp style. Then the case and I'm done. What do you guys think. If any knows the voltages the spots in the saturn take and replacing the drive would help so much.

Edit:
Forget cutting it in half there's way to many leads and I think it has two layers. Can anyone help me on replacing the drive though.

Link89 · Post by **Link89** » Fri Aug 06, 2004 7:52 pm

Does anyone know who makes the cd drive?

vb_master · Post by **vb_master** » Fri Aug 06, 2004 8:09 pm

It's here (I think!), just search for 'CD Communication Interface' in the Find box.