I would love to have a saturn disc emulator that plugs in between the cd drive and the mother board and be greeted by a menu asking me which games I would like to load off of my 80 GB hard drive. That would be the appeal of a cd emulator but of course solutions exist right now.
I can't believe someone would understand the appeal of modchip but not understand the greater appeal of an optical drive emulator. It's pretty obvious that an iso file on an external HDD is more convenient than burning off a CDR each time.
Absolute nonsense. Several people have already listed the main reasons why there would be demand for such devices for Saturn/PS1/Dreamcast.
The hope or idea is that you could replace the optical assembly (by removing the data ribbon cable and power cables) and put in place some other sort of interface that would be able to serve an ISO off some kind of mass storage in the way the optical assembly serves data off a disc. I'm sure it's possible but I don't have any idea how difficult or expensive such a device would be to produce. A device similar to this idea exists for the Nintendo Wii. One called WODE I think, another called SunDriver. SunDriver can replace the Nintendo Wii Optical Unit with a Hard Drive and a built in Menu or switches can be used to select the ISO to use as the inserted disc. Basically this is what people would like to see for PS1 or Saturn. It would definitely be appealing to some people as without the optical discs the PS1 is pretty solid and would work for a long time. Plus you wouldn't have to deal with a bunch of discs, no worries about scratches or bad cd-r media.
I checked those Wii devices out, they seem easy to install. On the development front, I'd expect you're talking a lot more money to do. One of those had custom plastics, which of course costs several thousand bucks in most countries to have done. You're also talking about hard disk controlling, USB connecting, and getting power to the hard disk. From what we've seen, I think it's within Krikzz's ability to accomplish it. I guess if he could do with without having to do any custom plastics, and could apply the solution to multiply systems (DC, Saturn, PSX, others), it could be worth it for him.
As someone who recently had his Saturn's laser die, I would definitely be interested in switching it out with a hard drive. It would be very cool if saves could be written to the hard drive as well instead of the internal memory or a cart like the Action Replay.
I actually heard that they have a PS1 clone in China that can play the PS1 games off an SD card. However I also heard the system has some major slowdown issues and load times are terrible. Hopefully its something they improve on.
It'll be an emulator, not a clone, and you can guarantee that it'll never be anything close to the original hardware in terms of compatibility. You'd be much better off playing an emulator on a PC.
Does anyone know if that SunDriver supports all forms of audio-streaming? The WODE doesn't, which is its main flaw.
it's more of the idea, on why waste your time, when you could create other flash cards as in N64, GG, Gameboy, etc. Have you seen the WODE for WII, it was a huge failure. Plus personally I make disc labels and cases for all my backups, so they actually look really good next to my legit copies. Wynd
The WODE is a failure because better solutions existed (before it was released) for the problem it primarily tries to solve. To make matters worse, it fails (partially) at what many consider its most useful feature (running GameCube games via HDD/SD/USB). It's a flawed product. They didn't give the project the due care and attention it deserved. Optical drive emulation for older systems is a completely different kettle of fish. Laser assemblies won't last forever, so an ODE for those systems is highly desirable, not least because of the substantial amount of convenience having all your games on a single USB device brings.
First let me say I completely agree with you. What your asking for would be awesome. However, if it were easy it would have been done long ago. Although I am sure it is possible with enough R&D how practical would it be to sell? Lets say Igor decides he wants to tackle this project. Lets say he finally completes it 4 years later working 20 hours a week on it. We can all agree here that time is money. Lets go on the low side and say his time is only worth $10/hr. That ends up being $41,600 in time alone to complete this project. This does not count all the other expenses. Lets low ball it and only add $3400 in other expenses to make it an even $45,000. So to realistically cover all R&D he would have to make $45K. And thats completely low-balling what his time is really worth. Even low ball thats not chump change for such a limited market item. There's also one other glaring problem with such a product. Since its not a plug and play solution like a flash cart is you are eliminating a huge majority of prospective customs that would like such an item, but can not install it themselves. Yes a few would just pay someone else to do it, but many won't bother. At this point in time I don't think Igor is just making flash carts because they are neat and fun. He is making them to provide for a family. Something like this is would be a great project for some college engineering students to tackle while they are still living off their parents. Classic gaming is a niche market. This would be a niche item for a niche market. Again like I said I hope someone does do something like this someday. I think it would be amazing to see and I would sure buy some. However there's more to making something than just whether its possible or not.
Unfortunately Stoneagegamer is probably right. Unless Krikzz somehow found a way to make a huge breakthrough fast then it's probably not a job for him. But I can definitely see a group of college students pulling this off.
i want say something about laser drive emulators. who know how laser drive works? i guess that only cords pinout available in best case, and no any info about data transfer protocol, laser drive control etc. so here is need deep reverse engineering work, but reverse engineering is not a thing where i have a good skill, also i not like to hack something or perform reverse engineer. i have dreamcast, ps1 and panasonic 3do where laser drive is dead, and will be good to replace them by some flash based drive, but i need more info about systems hardware for make something
StoneAgeGamer - I think you're missing the point a little. I doubt that any of these people making these backup devices make as much as money as their skills are actually worth. I think most people do it because its their passion, and if they can make a little money out of it, then so be it. That's certainly the been the nature of many complex projects that I've undertaken over the years. Also, I think you're over-stating the nature of the install for ODEs. The hardest part for the WODE installation was the opening of the actual console, not the installing part. It really was that easy. No soldering required.
I agree most people do this stuff because its fun and they have a passion for it. However people have to make a living as well. I am not saying it can't and won't be done. I wouldn't be surprised if someday it is. Maybe Igor will do it, I don't know. I have been there. Not only do I own my store, but I am also a software engineer who develops software that control industrial machines. However in my younger days I did many software projects just for fun of it. However, nowadays that I have family, mortgage, car payments, etc. Fun projects are not a high priority unless there is some money in the end. If I had the free time I would love to work on a project. I have always wanted to develop a 2600 game just for fun. Maybe someday. That being said. I am not your enemy on this. Like I said I would love to see it. I was just giving my opinion on why I think its going to be hard to justify doing for many people. This also may explain why it hasn't really been done yet.
Unfortunately I don't have any information on the PS1 Ribbon Cable pinout or how it works but someone might. If anyone has seen or sees such information they might post it here.
I remembered that I had one of these old cartridge devices for the PS1 so decided to dig it out of the loft, and it is indeed as fasman says - it has its own menu system running on its own ROM, so he was actually correct - it is posible to run programs from the rear parallel port.
