japanese sega mega drive with two pcbs

sorry if this is in the wrong forum,
i was at a thrift store and found a mega drive in the box with all the packaging and manuals and stuff. its the md1? the first model with the volume slider. when i got it home i found all the screws missing, when i lifted the cover there were two pcbs. ive opened a lot of sega genesis systems and ive never seen two pcbs. but ive never seen a japanese mega drive so i dont know if this is really common or not. i searched around on the internet but couldnt find anything. it says sega on both circut boards, has model numbers and identifying marks. if anyone has any ideas or explinations id appreciate it.

thank you

 

Could you please post a picture ?

 

2 PCBs???? That is very strange. Pictures please :nod:

Yakumo

 

Uhh, if it has model numbers, wouldn't it have been prudent to give them? ;-)

A picture would certainly be good.

I wonder if it is just a mod. I had a modded Japanese Mega Drive. It had an additional circuit that converted the 60hz signal to 50hz and put it through RF, as SCART was rather uncommon in the UK back then. Perhaps it could have been something like that? Although as you say thrift store, I assume you're American and hence it would be odd for there to be such a circuit!

 

I was going to say the same as Retro as a mate had a Super Famicom that had an extra circuit board in it that basically took the 60Hz NTSC signal and forced into a nasty 50Hz PAL one. Interesting piece of hardware that was obviously created to solve a problem that later got resolved through switch mods etc.

As you point out though the use of the term "thrift store" would suggest this is in the States which means signal conversion wouldn't be an issue. Region mod wouldn't make much sense either would it as many of the games were playable on any system subject to cartridge slot widening so I'm at a loss on this one but intrigued.

Whereabouts is the second board? e.g. where is it attached to te "main" board? Does one board look like the regular board found in a Megadrive and the other looks smaller? Or did some very early machines have two boards (perhaps one for the "Megadrive/Genesis" part and the second board for the sound/Master System part) before being consolidated into one board?

 

The switch mod doesn't solve the problem. The problem is that you can't display a 60Hz signal on a 50Hz television via RF. At best, you'll get a black and white picture. The Mega Drive I have is also switched, but if I run it in 60Hz (to play Japanese games - and originally of course, that's all you could play) then I wouldn't get a colour picture on RF. Hence the mod. The Japanese Mega Drive doesn't have an RF modulator, so that is part of the mod, too.

 

I'll believe it when I see it. And the model number on the bottom of the console would be useful.

 

sorry, short post no keyboard long story

i will get picture
second pcb is much smaller
it says sega 839-0231
model no:HAA-2510
serial no: 88M95955
sega icbd m5 837-6656

 

Maybe but why would they have two PCBs? I thought timed kiosk units ran special software that contained the timer? This sure is an interesting item unless it is just a region mod on an extra PCB.

Yakumo

 

The kiosk we had in our Boots store ran Sonic for something like 2 minutes, then reset. Pretty sure they swapped out games, too, and they all did that. It could well have been modded, I guess.

 

I was going to say who doesn't have a keyboard nowadays, but he doesn't even have a keyboard! :lol:

Probably best to wait for a pic rather than speculate. That said, could you describe what components are on the board? What chips are on there?

 

sorry bad pic
53mhz
any ideas?

http://i62.photobucket.com/albums/h113/goregrime/DSCN0174.jpg

 

There's an oscillator. It's probably an early version with a fix for something, maybe video. Does the motherboard have a revision number?

Hmm, I wonder where my Japanese MD is.....

 

Sweet!!! Never seen anything like that before, where do the wires hook up to? Any chance of a better pic from above minus the cart?

EDIT:
Is it electronically attached to the main board by anything other than the two wires?

I really want to see a better pic of this

 

Wow, I never saw anything like that. O.O

 

What does the chips on the second PCB say?