Sega Saturn modchip maker, who are they?

Have you tried contacting Rob Webb at

http://www.consolegoods.co.uk/

I like his modchip a lot. Not sure if he makes them or not???

 

Also Rob Webb's chips are supposedly more reliable than those which Racketboy sells.

 

I'd definitely be down for a group purchase if the modchips were cheap enough. I still want to start soldering and I figure modding a Model 2 Saturn is a good start.

I'm more curious about Model 1 chips, though. If someone still has a PCB layout of the chip itself, then maybe we could get a manufacturing run/group purchase started. Still, it sounds like an expensive process.

 

The pcb layout is pretty simple from what i remember of my partial reversing of it.

Some of the earlier mods generated their own clock signal (tapped from the bus on later models).

The 3 other chips are a 74ls157 multiplexer, this swaps between the regular cd datastream and the fake one generated by the other 2 chips.

The other pair ar a PALCE16V8 which from what i remember is a fifo/serialiser for the data outputted by the main microcontroller.

And finally the main micro, on older mods ive seen this as a PIC16C54 but on the most common ones its a EMC EM78P154BP, don't quote me on this but i was always led to believe this is just a PIC54 knock off. Either way it monitors and patches the serial control bus and also generates the fake cd data fed into the PALCE fifo.

Cloning the parts for a remake would mean code extraction of both the EMC and the PAL. Doable if needs be.

 

They were made by Xinga, now http://www.ic2005.com/

Yeah the Elan chips are PIC clones.

 

I'd buy at least 5. More likely 10-20.

 

I'd definitely buy a batch

 

Any chance of getting them for the 20pin saturns? then i'd be definitely interested, tho if the 21pin ones are cheap enough for me to accidentally break some trying to mod them i'd pick some up as well

 

x

 

I'm up as well for 2-3

 

I wonder if the best way to track down a supplier is to find someone who can read/write Chinese and have him/her google the Chinese websites?

 

From the site "Does NOT work with the 20 pin version of Saturn", which is unfortunately the saturn i happen to have

 

You can mod the chip though (a lot of work, but if you really need it to work in a 20 pin model...)

Involves re-routing traces and filing down one pin from the connector.

 

I know, that's why i said if they're reasonably cheap through the group buy i'd buy a few. I don't trust myself to get it right on the first shot so i'd rather not drop like $35 to break a modchip

 

I want a model 1 chip.

 

We all do.

 

Not me. ;-)

 

For that price you're probably right. Though at $25-30 that still beats RacketBoy's pricing assuming they're of superior build quality.