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Sega Saturn CD Cracked after 20 Years

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Re: Sega Saturn CD Cracked after 20 Years

#171

Post by centizen »

Unklejoe wrote: post #165

Great work. These crazy reverse engineering projects kind of make me feel insecure about my own abilities, as weird as it sounds. I wonder if I would have been able to come up with the same solution if I worked at it. My fear is that I would not, but who knows. A lot of it is purely analytical, but there is a portion that relies on pure creativity and problem solving abilities. I understand the process he went throug…

If it took 20 years for the reverse engineer community to get to this point I wouldn't sweat it if you don't think you could do it on your own.

Re: Sega Saturn CD Cracked after 20 Years

#172

Post by phjesusthatguy3 »

Griever wrote: post #99
jonhohle wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going through this as a relatively new PS Vita owner. Sony decided to go with proprietary game cartridges, proprietary memory cards, and DRM'd digital distribution. Despite the quality of the games and hardware, the system didn't do well commercially and it appears Sony has lost interest in the system and it's sibling PS TV/Vita TV. There are a lot of great games (including PS1 and PSP games) for the system, but…

Absolutely. The PSP is still my favorite way to go and play the classic PS1 games like FF7, Metal Gear Solid, etc. It really is a wonderful device, but the DRM Sony has repeatedly strengthened over the years has made using it somewhat of a gamble. It'd be a shame if we suddenly couldn't play these classics anymore just because Sony wants us to repurchase it on Console XYZ.

The PSP has been thoroughly owned, and just about every game for it is available somewhere on the internet. Even emulating the PSP is getting pretty good.

That said, the Vita is much nicer for PS1 games, and if your firmware is old enough, you can even convert your old discs yourself for it.

Re: Sega Saturn CD Cracked after 20 Years

#173

Post by jandrese »

serge2k wrote: post #72
christoph wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In case it helps, there is actually a very low tech solution to booting copied games on Saturn hardware that works with the vast majority of games released (especially expensive/rare/hard to find games like the Treasure releases). Tape/wedge the drive lid sensor down, power up with a real game in (you don't need to close the lid as the sensor believes the lid is always shut) and allow it do the initial copy protectio…

I practiced this trick with my original playstation years ago. Then I killed it trying to mod it. Got a PS1 instead, couldn't figure out the trick anymore. It was funny that they kept on changing the points where the disc would read info, you had to swap multiple times at different points. They wouldn't stop either, just slow down.

Modding the PS2 is still one of the hardest soldering jobs I've ever done. The worst part is that the modchips were apparently pretty crude in how they worked and ended up burning out the laser diode after about 6 months even if you only used it for imported games and not burned games.

Re: Sega Saturn CD Cracked after 20 Years

#174

Post by jandrese »

Frenchgeek wrote: post #149
city41 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can already buy the Saturn Rhea. It is pretty much the same thing except SD based and it replaces the CD drive. I have one and absolutely love it. It's honestly the best retro gaming purchase I have made in a very long time.

Does the Rhea have write support too?

I doubt it. As I understand it, it emulates the CD-ROM hardware and doesn't even touch the drive controller chip.

Re: Sega Saturn CD Cracked after 20 Years

#175

Post by shabble »

lunchTime42 wrote: post #151
quakeguy wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Breaking DRM is like finding a cure for insanity ;)" Well said.

Remeber those Arcade Game-Memory manufactured into the battery? You had to break the battery and (suppossedly) cut the powersupply to get to them. Isane.

Are you thinking of Suicide Batteries?[1]

IIRC, tehy're a major hindrance to people who want to legitimately restore old arcade/pinball machines, rather than just grabbing a cracked rom.

[1] http://www.arcadecollecting.com/dead/

Re: Sega Saturn CD Cracked after 20 Years

#176

Post by DigitalJack »

bluesign wrote: post #152

I am not good with electronics tbh but why it is not possible to mitm the connection between CD drive and motherboard? As far as I see from 'swap disk' technique outer protection track is not changing depending on game

you can, but the drives are starting to fail now.

Re: Sega Saturn CD Cracked after 20 Years

#177

Post by shabble »

StavrosK wrote: post #148
elliottcarlson wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For PCB printing, OSH Park is a highly recommended one: https://oshpark.com/ For PCB assembly, http://www.4pcb.com/ is recommended. Some reviews from Lady Ada: http://www.ladyada.net/library/pcb/manufacturers.html Also check out http://pcbshopper.com/

Thank you, I've never seen a PCB assembly service, so that will be useful. I guess one would also need to design some sort of cover as well and talk to a company that makes plastics? Are there plastic assembly companies as well (for if your product has buttons/sprints/etc)?

There's Protomold[1] which does relatively cheap short runs of plastic manufacturing. I'm sure there are plenty of alternatives (and I recall seeing a massive chinese 3d printing contract manufacturer, but forget the name).

Not sure about assembling all the parts into the case. Depending on who does the PCB production and assembly, they might also offer a full assembly service, or not.

The Factory Floor series[2] by Bunnie Huang might be an interesting read about some of the steps necessary for getting an idea to production.

[1] https://www.protolabs.com/injection-molding

[2] https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?page_id=2812

Re: Sega Saturn CD Cracked after 20 Years

#178

Post by StavrosK »

shabble wrote: post #177
StavrosK wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you, I've never seen a PCB assembly service, so that will be useful. I guess one would also need to design some sort of cover as well and talk to a company that makes plastics? Are there plastic assembly companies as well (for if your product has buttons/sprints/etc)?

There's Protomold[1] which does relatively cheap short runs of plastic manufacturing. I'm sure there are plenty of alternatives (and I recall seeing a massive chinese 3d printing contract manufacturer, but forget the name). Not sure about assembling all the parts into the case. Depending on who does the PCB production and assembly, they might also offer a full assembly service, or not. The Factory Floor series[2] by…

This looks great, thank you. They're still prohibitively expensive for small runs (for 10 boards, above, the cost was $100/board, but for 1000 it fell down to $2/board, and I'm sure protolabs is similar), but at least your comment and the GP takes me from "I wouldn't know how to even begin making this thing" to "Looks like I can just send these guys designs and my box prototype and get assembled PCBs and boxes back", which is almost there, pretty much.

Thanks again!

Re: Sega Saturn CD Cracked after 20 Years

#179

Post by rsync »

It may interest folks to know that all Sega Saturn games have their audio encoded as plain old CD audio tracks. You can put your Sega Saturn disc into any old CD player and play all of the music tracks.

You can also rip a sega saturn CD in your computer. I particularly enjoy the music from Sega Rally Championship and Virtua Fighter 2.

Re: Sega Saturn CD Cracked after 20 Years

#180

Post by space_ghost »

rsync wrote: post #179

It may interest folks to know that all Sega Saturn games have their audio encoded as plain old CD audio tracks. You can put your Sega Saturn disc into any old CD player and play all of the music tracks. You can also rip a sega saturn CD in your computer. I particularly enjoy the music from Sega Rally Championship and Virtua Fighter 2.

This was pretty common with original Playstation games as well. CD Track 1 was the game data, the following tracks were music.
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