has anyone have any information on the revision history of Saturn - especially JPN version? I've seen numerous different model# for JPN Saturn over the years and after reading that Sega had revised Saturn internals - to reduce the manufacturing cost among other things - during its run I'm thinking what were the major changes and what not. Logically Sega would reduce the number of chips used - probably went to ASIC from multiple chips on board - in order to reduce the raw cost of unit plus few other revision. Among these would be the constant changing of CD-ROM board - anyone who tried to install the mod chip will be familiar with this. personally I opened several Saturn I have including pre-launch prototype and the M/B layout are in fact slightly differ. cheers
. well I was more interted in internal changes. Even among oval button Saturn there seem to be slight changes internally - M/B and etc. cheers
I can confirm the internal changes. I just effed up my 2nd Saturn, trying to do a cool mod like Yakumos. Serves me right, he even warned me. The 2nd one I played CLOSE attention to, but as I unscrewed that contraption that holds the lid in to get a closer look, it literally came apart. 480 yen down the tubes. Anyways, the MOBO layout is very different between the two gray Saturns I destroyed. One had a couple of boards on the top part (the plugged in on the bottom) and the other had none. NOTE: The white Saturn has a much more intuitive way of keeping the lid closed. A white one will be my next victim. Hell, now that Yakumo's out of a job, maybe I should pay him to paint me one.
. I opened all my Saturn - for cleaning - and never had any problem? Anyway white and M2 V-Saturn definitely tidy and neat inside compared to HST(?)-0001 unit I have which is jungle of wires... Surprisingly prototype unit is much tidy inside than first retail units? cheers
Try taking the lid off of one (any of the grey models), and then putting it back on. It's a pain in the ass. I just gave up.
I hope you kept the CD drive? I might even be interested in that as they break down every now and then... Anyhow, there's indeed a number of revisions. IBarracudaI from SegaXtreme was going to catalog them all but I think he gave up. From my own experience, the first model Saturns have the PSU on a separate board and have indeed some very annoying wires connecting both lids. Then there's the next revision (from early 1996) where the PSU is integrated with the mainboard, the lid mechanism is somewhat different but the CD drive is still the same (in fact I swapped em around as one of my Saturn motherboards started showing distorted video). Also, the early models have a switch behind the VCD card cover to reset the internal memory. I have not yet thoroughly taken apart my white Saturn (but I will very soon as my modchips came in today!) but from what I've heard Sega has integrated the twin SH2 CPUs in a single package.
