genesis 1 board with pic (big)

phantom92opera · Post by **phantom92opera** » Sat Jun 07, 2008 7:56 pm

hey folks, i researched the chips found where to get stereo, rgb and input voltage and was wondering where i can cut the board to help minimize size and portabilize the mobo to make a portable. i ofcourse will remove the expansion slot.

heres a pic of the board

Mister X · Post by **Mister X** » Sat Jun 07, 2008 8:52 pm

Why trash a Genesis 1 board when you could simply use a Genesis 3 or one of those Radica units? The worst thing about most handheld projects is the ungainly size of the finished product, and the Genesis 1 requires MUCH more power than any subsequent clones or revisions.

phantom92opera · Post by **phantom92opera** » Sat Jun 07, 2008 9:03 pm

because i got it for $3 today at salvation army...

Mister X · Post by **Mister X** » Sat Jun 07, 2008 10:11 pm

So install an s-video amp, pop out some RCA jacks for audio, region switches, and sell it. Radica units typically go for $2 at yard sales, Genesis 3 systems only slightly more.

lovablechevy · Post by **lovablechevy** » Sat Jun 07, 2008 10:57 pm

phantom92opera wrote:because i got it for $3 today at salvation army...

i say go for it!

i am one to always encourage any project at all. if you want to do it, then do it!

besides, genesis 3 does not have full compatibility. the radica can be extremely hard to modify to use carts, and it has terrible compatibility. and clones are small, sure, but again, not fully compatible.

there isn't much you can cut off of the genesis 1 board. you can cut off most of the grounding strips on the sides, if i remember correctly.

bacteria · Post by **bacteria** » Sun Jun 08, 2008 4:59 am

I had a MegaDrive 1 a while back, large board, so got a MegaDrive 2 (actually 3 of them), a bit smaller but not by much! Can't get MegaDrive 3 in UK and what I read it is hard to hard wire a cart slot to a Radica and get it to work (I have one of these too), and hardly anyone has got it to work.

phantom92opera · Post by **phantom92opera** » Sun Jun 08, 2008 8:16 am

im thinking of removing the red areas cuz they are all rewireable or insignificant.

also can some of the capacitators in the upper left area be removed because im removing that video circuit(s)?

i have a pinout of the chip that exerts rgb from it and wondered do i need to attatch a circuit to the pins before i attatch them to the psone screen? (for example the y and chroma need a circuit attatched before made into svideo pins)

heres the chip info pdf - skip to the 3rd page
http://www.datasheet4u.com/download.php?id=199042

thank you all for your support this will be my brothers birthday/graduation gift

bacteria · Post by **bacteria** » Sun Jun 08, 2008 10:28 am

Should be ok to remove the red areas, just be careful you don't damage any traces. You need to take a view of "oh well" if you take off too much and the board doesn't work.

You need to keep the capacitors, they are there for a reason, however you can relocate them easily.

Just connect the RGB connectors from the mobo to the PSone mobo and that will be fine. You need to connect: Red, Green, Blue (ie the three RGB wires), C-sync (also known as composite sync) and ground; and the console and PSone screen need to have their grounds connected.

Mister X · Post by **Mister X** » Sun Jun 08, 2008 11:50 am

I must state again that it would cost a pittance to modify a working Genesis 1 to the nines. If you have one with HIGH DEFINITION GRAPHICS printed on top, you have a pretty good chance of having a Genesis with SUPERIOR audio hardware, which will make it much more desirable.

The board isn't possible to minimize anywhere near as greatly as the NES mainboard, and again, smaller Genesis/MD boards have already been made. To effectively shrink the Genesis 1 mainboard, you would have to re-engineer much of it, replacing various sections with ICs and DIP capacitor packages. Then the project starts getting expensive, when you realize you're just reinventing a wheel that Sega made like 16 versions of over ten years ago. Why try to make a handheld that's the size of a pizza box and drinks batteries dry in mere minutes? LOL, TURBO EXPRESS, GAME GEAR.

The only modification that takes any real effort (as far as mods you can perform without engineering training) is TmEE's audio mod (though the results are phenomenal), and the Genesis 1 (and some of its revisions) does not need it, mainly the Genesis 2 and beyond. The modifications are cheap, simple to perform, low-risk, and will either net you the funds to work on a much more compact handheld project, or if nothing else, net you a kickass Genesis to use as your primary system.

I'd rather not be a party to the death of an otherwise functional game system. Your motivation and goals are admirable, but wouldn't you rather have a handheld where the screen isn't surrounded by vast stretches of pointless bezel?

lovablechevy · Post by **lovablechevy** » Sun Jun 08, 2008 4:03 pm

Mister X wrote:Your motivation and goals are admirable, but wouldn't you rather have a handheld where the screen isn't surrounded by vast stretches of pointless bezel?

why do you have to be so negative?

the genesis 1 will be a good system for a starter system. especially if you aren't used to case building. bigger can be a lot easier to learn with.

again, i totally say go for it!

and i look forward to your progress!

Post by **bicostp** » Sun Jun 08, 2008 4:20 pm

The most important thing you can do is take good pictures of both sides of the board!

That way if you lop something off that turns out to be essential, you can solder a jumper wire on to restore functionality.

You shouldn't have a problem unless you cut a chip in half.

A digital camera can be a modder's best friend, no matter what the project. Don't remember what goes where? Look at the pictures!

Bibin · Post by **Bibin** » Sun Jun 08, 2008 5:55 pm

lovablechevy wrote:
Mister X wrote:Your motivation and goals are admirable, but wouldn't you rather have a handheld where the screen isn't surrounded by vast stretches of pointless bezel?
why do you have to be so negative?

the genesis 1 will be a good system for a starter system. especially if you aren't used to case building. bigger can be a lot easier to learn with.

again, i totally say go for it!

and i look forward to your progress!

Because he's right? Beginner does not equal "bad" beginner should equal "easy". This fulfills both bad and potentially difficult.

Mister X · Post by **Mister X** » Sun Jun 08, 2008 5:56 pm

lovablechevy wrote:why do you have to be so negative?

If you think that is negative, how in creation can you be a regular on a board where grammar nazism is not rebuked, where harsh exclamations of WRONG FORUM STUPID aren't deleted?

You don't just feed somebody mindless drivel when they ask for opinions and assistance. What, do you think I'm just talking out of the side of my mouth when I say that there is nothing to cut off of the Genesis 1 board? The whole point in trimming boards is to make them smaller, and like I keep having to say, apparently, is that much smaller, more power efficient versions of the Genesis mainboard already exist.

If one is capable of chopping the Genesis 1 board up without ruining it straight away; rerouting traces, jumping the gaps to replace traces, and replacing sections with more compact versions, one would not need to ask where to cut it. It's not packed with wide expanses of nothingness; there is little to no fat to trim. While it is alleged that Sega's marketing was piss-poor, their engineering was most certainly not. So, what, will trimming a quarter-inch off of each side be worth the effort required to repair the required paths that were cut in the process?

lovablechevy · Post by **lovablechevy** » Sun Jun 08, 2008 6:49 pm

Mister X wrote:
lovablechevy wrote:why do you have to be so negative?
If you think that is negative, how in creation can you be a regular on a board where grammar nazism is not rebuked, where harsh exclamations of WRONG FORUM STUPID aren't deleted?

You don't just feed somebody mindless drivel when they ask for opinions and assistance. What, do you think I'm just talking out of the side of my mouth when I say that there is nothing to cut off of the Genesis 1 board? The whole point in trimming boards is to make them smaller, and like I keep having to say, apparently, is that much smaller, more power efficient versions of the Genesis mainboard already exist.

If one is capable of chopping the Genesis 1 board up without ruining it straight away; rerouting traces, jumping the gaps to replace traces, and replacing sections with more compact versions, one would not need to ask where to cut it. It's not packed with wide expanses of nothingness; there is little to no fat to trim. While it is alleged that Sega's marketing was piss-poor, their engineering was most certainly not. So, what, will trimming a quarter-inch off of each side be worth the effort required to repair the required paths that were cut in the process?

you are being negative because you are basically bashing his idea for working with a model 1 genesis. i never once said he can chop a lot of of the board.

if he got it for cheap, then why not make it into a portable? geeze.

and besides, i didn't say you were being a jerk. i said you were being negative. there is a big difference. now you are bordering on jerk.

phantom92opera · Post by **phantom92opera** » Mon Jun 09, 2008 6:14 am

thank you all for your input. i finished modding my psone screen last night with white leds, and now need to know if i need to amplify the rgb signals from the chip before connecting the leads. i have seen in the svideo extention an amplifier had to be on y and chroma. and same for the snes rgb. if it does could someone send me the plans for that?

thanks!
phantom

PS (EDIT): there is a csync on the chip! now i just need to know if i amplify them or not! i found this schematic

but want to check on parts. what are the 3 parallel lines after the input
they are marked 10uF and +16V but they arent capacitators are they???
thanks for your help again.