Saturn Optical Drive Emulator

While there's still plenty of working systems out there, not having to burn and store potentially hundreds of CD-Rs is a nice luxury. Having to burn a stack of games on outdated media in 2016 is ridiculous. It would be like if the Everdrives for the cart based systems only held one game at a time. A 100 spindle count of CD-Rs can fit on a similarly priced SD/usb card with room to spare. And this device specifically speeds up the process for homebrew devs.

 

The homebrew angle is actually why I'm interested in the PS-IO project but disappointed at its lack of availability. I've not looked into Sega Saturn homebrew but if you're into the system that way this certainly becomes something you'd absolutely want to have. While just playing games isn't that bad with CD-Rs, game development can be a serious pain with CD-Rs. Although you might be able to get by with less CD-Rs with good emulators. But eventually you're going to have to run it on a real system.

But yes, for just game players it's a very nice luxury to store a massive amount of Disc Images on USB storage instead of a spindle, cd wallet or cd book full of CD-Rs. I did just think besides homebrew developers that it also might help out translators in developing and testing their translations. There is certainly no shortage of games that could be translated for Sega Saturn.

 

Another thing to think about though is eventually cd-rs will cease to be produced.

 

They still make tapes, so probably not for a long time.

 

They still produce vinyl 360kb floppy discs, so I wouldn't worry too much about CD-Rs. In terms of posterity, the main issue will be preserving/obtaining digital images for rarer titles when the original Saturn discs start to decay.

 

That's another thing to consider. Every time there's a patch update, you need to burn yourself a new copy and toss the old. So for example, a huge Shining Force 3 fan might have burned through a few coasters now keeping up with the translation project which I think now sits at v17. If you pride yourself on recycling, hopefully you would have sent those discs out for proper disposal. Even then, they're never really going to going away, as eventually they will make their way into a product that ends up being tossed, or breaks down into tiny pieces and ends up in the ocean hanging out in one of the huge garbage patches. Even for normal game isos, it would be better if those CD-R's weren't needed in the first place. Just think about for every copy Sega legitimately pressed, how many more were burned? And across all the systems folks have created a veritable mountain of plastic waste.

Saying to still burn optical media is sensible, is like walking into a 7-11 and having the cashier triple bag the one energy drink you bought, then immediately walk outside and toss the bags into the can. So I guess you could consider the ODE's a green product as well.

 

Your analogy only makes sense if you are burning the media, then taking it out of your burner and throwing it straight into the trash.

Which I doubt anyone is doing. Also, you choose a very specific example to prove your point - when 99% of games burnt to a CDR for the saturn will never change.

I am all for this device and the benefits (if only convenience), but your post is just cherry picking a situation that doesnt exist 99% of the time.

 

No, the point is you're generating plastic waste when you don't need to. Doesn't matter if you keep that game 5 seconds or 10 years. Plastic doesn't go away, million + year life span. So the amount of time you use it is irrelevant. The only real solution is to stop the point of use.

 

The amount of time you use something isn't irrelevant.

In that case, I hope you have a solar car - it doesnt matter than petrol ones are cheaper. By your own logic.

To be fair, you shouldnt even have solar - the footprint to make its panels is actually quite high. You better just walk everywhere, else you cant preach on the internet.

Lets not even start on packaging on your food..

Unless you live in a cabin in the forest and grow all your own food. In that case, I take it all back.

 

Again, the point of grabbing bags at 7-11 was you did so without needing them. Same as burning CD-R's, considering there's now other solutions. Plastic really is one of the worst things mankind has ever created. Your solar example is pointless to the discussion. http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Not_as_bad_as

 

Your whole argument is someone should buy this, instead of cdrs because cdrs generate waste - regardless of increased costs etc.

So you should get a solar car, because petrol powered ones generate more waste. If not, you are being a hypocrite. It's exactly the same logic, considering you are completely ignoring costs in your original point, so it's fair I do the same in mine.

Your link is fun, but unrelated. I'm not saying you are wrong because cars are worse. I'm saying you arent in a position to preach about people using cdrs over a more expensive alternative, if you arent doing the same in any other area I decide to cherry pick.

 

x

 

You guys are actually making my point for me. You have no actual argument FOR the continued behavior of injecting data into 2 lbs worth of plastic, when the same results could be gained with something that had the foot print of a postage stamp. All you have is "well, X is worse". That's not an argument for defending something

The cost of these devices is not so out of reach for those who even bother with retro gaming on actual hardware.

 

Anyway, On Topic,

If doing Micro sd, would there be support for SDHC and SDXC for larger cards?

 

I want one cause I am lazy and don't want to have to carry CDs around.

By the time the saturn came out, any issue with disc rot were solved. So real pressed saturn discs should last 100+ years before any issue occurs. You know as long as they are taken care of.

I would figure that the only issue with doing SDXC is that by the default standard, they are formatted as exFAT, which is a file system microsoft charges for. You can format them for FAT32, as long as you don't use the format commands built into windows, but that can confuse people(that is, by the way, how you get micro SDXC cards to work with the new 3DS). If that would confuse sthe type of people trying to run games on a twenty year old game console, might be a different story.

 

I have no knowledge of the technical reasons, but from a hardware preservation standpoint. The cart slot is even less durable than the CD drive. Makes more sense to leave that alone and utilize the port that's sitting empty on pretty much every Saturn outside of Japan.

 

x

 

Wow, this topic went off on a tangent...

100 year estimations for disc rot have been proven to be *highly* optimistic, and those estimates are generally made for specifically engineered archival media, and not general commerical presses like a Saturn game.

In other words, optical media is incredibly fragile, but it's much more of a concern for the twenty year old original Saturn games (especially those rare games with limited pressings like Panzer Dragoon Saga), than it is for whatever modern CD-R media we copy that media too.

Which brings me back to the utility of the "Satisfier" device itself.
While it certainly provides a better alternative to optical media for archiving (as JHL has discussed himself), I think presently the main draw is the convenience of a localized storage device, and the added utility to homebrew developers.

 

It would be cool if this device could access a special cartridge in the cartridge port with an SD card. If it was possible for the saturn optical drive emulator to communicate with the cartridge slot and simply copy a selected file off an SD card to memory as an alternative option. I presume there's some sort of technical reason it isn't feasible, but it'd certainly be neat. Plus you wouldn't have to remove such a cartridge and it could probably also function for saves. If it is technically possible it'd be something interesting to see in the distant future.

 

I don't understand what advantage this would provide over accessing a storage device through the back bay slot?

In fact, I just mod-chipped a couple of my Saturn's in an attempt to keep my cartridge slot free for my Netlinks, USB uplinks, etc. Why would I want to tie-up that slot when there's an unutilized alternative being developed?