Need some help: Sophia Systems Programming Box

Congratulations!!!!!!

What did you do? Did you get a PGA SH2??

 

Yup. I got the Graphics box that ccovell was nice enough to give away in the free stuff thread and then I transplanted one of the SH2's into the programming box. Works like a charm now!
It actually seems to be the easiest way to get one of these to work as the E7000 is a pain to find complete.

 

Sweet! I believe I have read that the Sophia programming box accepts CD-Rs and CD-emulators (without the need for the usual System Disc to unlock the CD system). Is this correct?

 

It plays the Duck CD-R just fine, but I haven't tried a game on cd-r yet. I've been meaning to try out that beta that Segafreak_NL released two years ago, but haven't yet. I'll try to do that today and let you know.

 

that's really cool
allways nice to hear a dev system being brought back to life.

 

Wow, I am lazy...
I tried out Xtreme today, but it wouldn't load. Then I tried out the Scud beta that Segafreak released this past week and it works great! Don't know if Xtreme burned improperly or if I do indeed need a system disk for that one, but I would think it odd not to need it for one game but then to need it for another. ::shrug::

 

Strange... have you tried more discs?

I am happy that the Scud beta worked. It makes me believe that the Programming Box can run CD-Rs without a system disc (aka. key disc) like the official Sega docs says....

 

The Earthworm Jim beta works great as well. I tried extreme again, and while it doesn't resognize the disc as a saturn game, it does play an audio track with a japanese woman saying this is a sega saturn game disc...Then I thought I remembered someone saying the disc is region coded to japan. I'm gonna check the dipswitches and see if I can change it from us to japan and see if that helps.

UPDATE:
Changed the dipswitches to japan region coding and now extreme works just fine. I guess this confirms that a system disc is not needed to play betas on the sophia. Now I just need to get my hands on an original saturn beta...