I recently come across that forum where someone claimed he hacked the Saturn BIOS and turned it region free. http://segaxtreme.net/community/topic/16676-saturn-bios-hacked/ Is such BIOS ever be made available? at least it look like that guy didn't. I know you can either use a switch mod or an action replay to play genuine Saturn import. But the action replay didn't help for KOF95/96 who need ROM cart and it's annoying to need to toggle a switch (yeais I might be too lazy . Anyway, If anyone know more info about this let me know!
Sorry if bumping this offends anyone but it does deserve a bit of attention... IIRC (and I'm not a Saturn expert by any metric), the modchip that exists for the Saturn sits between the laser assembly and the rest of the Saturn boards. As such it ONLY handles play of CD-R media and thus requires switches/solder/PIC with proper code to change the region. At the very least I suppose flashing a modified bios onto an EPROM would allow it to play games from any region much like the SegaCD modification does. I have yet to see a BIOS floating about for this purpose but I cannot think of any reason why this *couldn't* happen. Just need someone with the skills to come along and take a shot at it. I'd gladly buy another Saturn to hack apart for this.
That would be could for sure, but the Saturn interest seam ratter low on assembler forum, at least in this forum I guess no one read that forum anyway, there is too much SEGA forum, the sum of thread in all three sega forum is below the total of both the Nintendo and Sony section and those only have one forum....
I don't believe all Saturn have DIP ROMs, so that might be something stopping people from attempting this. I for one HATE when people wire in ROMs. One thing in favor of a modified BIOS though is that swap-assist code and an AR could probably be integrated. (Yay, no more slot use OR dirty modchip OR motor wear OR ugly switches OR silly overkill microcontrollers.)
Already replaced the BIOS for both my Sega CD and Dreamcast. Not that hard at all (Just solder over the old BIOS for most pin, exept CE line). It's nice to not bother about region anymore without need of switching or using other hardware.
What's wrong with switches? It's simple. You have to be REALLY lazy not to be able to operate a switch. And it still wouldn't stop the machine running at the wrong speed in several cases.
And infinitely more likely to destroy your cart slot given they're a little larger than they should be. Switches are perfectly safe, and extremely easy to install if you know which end of a soldering iron to hold. An AR cart is the lazy mans way out.
