Not sure which one is the "proper" one, but in any case getting the PAL cable should be a pretty safe bet. The wiring is mostly identical, but PAL Saturns don't output a dedicated sync signal on the AV connector (instead Sega just put a constant 12(?)V on that pin, because reasons), so sync is taken from the composite line instead - which also happens to work on NTSC consoles.
It doesn't matter because the Saturn end of the cable is the same for PAL or NTSC. It's the end which plugs in to your TV that matters. Does your TV use PAL or Japanese 21 pin RGB standard?
You have to take a little caution. Mess this up bad enough, and 12v will go straight into the TV's sync input.
Yes I know. So he should be asking what form of scart would a (his country's TV) use? Not what type of scart does a Tectoy Saturn use as all Saturn's use the same pin layout.
Yakumo, it isn't the same for both NTSC and PAL consoles. PAL Saturns output +9.5v on pin 1 whereas NTSC Saturns output C-Sync on that pin instead iirc. There are universal cables that work on both NTSC and PAL consoles but they use either Composite Video as sync or Luma as sync and leave pin 1 disconnected. With that being said, are Tectoy Saturns NTSC or PAL at heart?
Are you talking about the TV end of the plug or the Saturn end? I'm talking about the Saturn end. I know the TV ends are different.
I use SCART, not JP21. Pretty much this is my question. I have both NTSC and PAL RGB SCART cables for my NTSC and PAL Saturns. I want to make sure which is the correct cable for a Tectoy Saturn, since it's PAL-M and not NTSC or PAL.
It is? Well I never knew that. Why is that the case? Mega Drives and Super Famicom / SNES aren't different are they?
I'm not sure why they changed it. If I had to guess, it was probably because PAL TVs needed 9.5-12V to force 4:3 aspect ratio on SCART pin 8, which is for Status and Aspect Ratio iirc. Mega Drive/Genesis is the same but the SNES is different. PAL SNES units output 12V on pin 3 of the AV Out whereas NTSC units output C-Sync on Pin 3 instead of 12V. Also the cables need different components. NTSC SNES units need 220uf caps on the RGB lines while PAL units need 75ohm resistors on the RGB lines as well as the S-Video and Composite video lines.
Because JP-21 or whatever you want to call it doesn't have switching. SCART needs it. And that comes from the input device. When SCART was invented (well, Peritel), there was no widescreen. That was added much later. Originally, pin 8 was an on/off signal, for which 5V was adequate... hence the Master System and Mega Drive were fine. SNES was released in the Nineties, by which time they were thinking about widescreen. It came out in Japan in 1990, when there was no widescreen, so I guess they thought that 5V switching was fine. By 1992 when Europe got the console, Japan had demonstrated 16:9 television. I would have to look through old standards, but I guess the changeover to the SCART standard was in the 1990 specification and so Nintendo hurriedly complied when they released the European console. Sega probably did it (and maybe Nintendo) to be awkward and add another factor to importing consoles. Back to the OP...... Technically, it doesn't matter if you don't mind having to modify your cable. PAL would be easier to modify, in theory. If I can find my Tec Toy schematics, I could take a look and tell you how it's wired, though. Or I guess I could dig one of my Tec Toys out.
