MK1 Japanese Sega Saturn Complete Mod.

Hi all

Not sure if this is the correct pace to post this. But thought I should let you know what I have done with a broken Saturn.

I bought a mk1 Japanese Sega Saturn off eBay for £30. I had the correct converter for it and all the bits from my friends Saturn which he donated to me a few years ago but the unit ha since died. Now this is where the story starts... I order a region free BIOS off Bad_Ad84. It arrived and...........

I set about installing it. All was going well till the end of the removal of the original bios when I managed to pull a whole track off the board. I was gutted.. But at least I had not damaged the new chip and it will live to go into another machine some day.

I was sitting on the toilet thinking (a lot of my ideas come from when I am on the toilet) and though what could I use the case for. And then like a frisbee coming towards me. It hit me!!!

I'll turn it into a PC.

I had already stripped the case apart so I could get the motherboard out to do the bios mod and there would only be a few more tiny bits to remove. So I set to work.

I located stand offs I would need to close the case and removed bits of the case I would not need or that was on the way of the mITX board I am going to use. I then remembered the console my friend gave to me and it was still stored in the garage with its games. So off I trot and dig it out. This to was a mk1 unit but it was a later model. I now had 2 consoles and I could swap bits over.

The first 6 pics are of the console whenI bought it. The other 2 are when I have gutted in insides changed the lid. Also the cart slot will have a cart in it but will house the hard drive.

I hope to keep it looking as standard as possible with only these alterations:

1 - Keep original power/rest buttons do the same as before
2 - Keep lights to show unit is on and hard drive is being used (will try to use the original pcb)
3 - Video port on the back will be used as the access point for power
4 - Communication port will be covered up
6 - Open button will do nothing, but look pretty
7 - There is no number 5
8 - You've gone back and checked again
7 - CD lid will do nothing but has been changed to black as it is in better condition than the original
8 - Cart slot will house a cart with holds the hard drive
9 - The controller posts will have USB connectors there

I hope I will be able to update you guys with the process of this build, and this Saturn will Kick A$$

 

If it's just a single track, why did you decide to trash the entire board instead of repairing that single track?

 

Yup... Schematics and a jumper would have done the trick

 

My first thought too is that repairing a track would have been an easy fix. It sounds like you trashed a perfectly good saturn. Such a waste