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Sega Saturn CD Cracked after 20 Years

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Re: Sega Saturn CD Cracked after 20 Years

#81

Post by Grazester »

MichaelApproved wrote: post #74
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…

Why not just cut the wobble edge of a real CD off and attach it to a burned CD? Maybe you can shave the back of the shimmed wobble edge down, so that it won't stick out as much on the burned CD. This shimmed wobble can be your key for all the burned CDs you have. Maybe double sided tape can keep the wobble shim attached to your burned CD while still allowing it to be removable for other CDs. I've never had a Saturn,…

I seriously loled at this. That would not have been a graceful solution to say the least. This isn't about hacking cdroms just to get it to run on the system. It is about understanding the intricate details of how it worked so that when the cdrom drive itself died you would have a way of playing those games along with full cd bloc emulation

Re: Sega Saturn CD Cracked after 20 Years

#82

Post by StavrosK »

donatj wrote: post #5

I can't wait for him to start selling these! I would buy one in a hot minute. My Saturn is collecting dust and there are so many games I just can't get my hands on for my Saturn, and emulation in my experience hardly works. It's way too weird a machine.

Does anyone know how you go from a PCB to a product? I've made PCBs before, but I wouldn't know where to begin to make it into a product that I can sell to people...

Re: Sega Saturn CD Cracked after 20 Years

#83

Post by aperrien »

stepvhen wrote: post #80
pedrocr wrote: post #38

He mentions archival as a motivation but can we trust the rest of the hardware to last more than a few decades? Isn't emulation the real archival solution?

It would be, but cycle perfect emulation is very difficult and costly. Higan (formerly Bsnes) manages it with Snes emulation and it requires a cpu with a rate over 3GHz. I remember reading the N64 would require a 10GHz cpu to emulate with 100% archival accuracy. long story short, it is the real solution, but its not a practical one by any means.

Have there been any efforts made with FPGA emulation? It might work out better for this type of project.

Re: Sega Saturn CD Cracked after 20 Years

#84

Post by rocky1138 »

Grazester wrote: post #56
donatj wrote: post #5

I can't wait for him to start selling these! I would buy one in a hot minute. My Saturn is collecting dust and there are so many games I just can't get my hands on for my Saturn, and emulation in my experience hardly works. It's way too weird a machine.

There is already an SD card drive for the Saturn. https://gdemu.wordpress.com/ To achieve this did not require fully reverse engineering the cdrom controller but it is great someone did though.

I think you're mistaken: what you've linked is a Dreamcast project. OP's youtube link is for the Sega Saturn (the console before the Dreamcast).

Re: Sega Saturn CD Cracked after 20 Years

#85

Post by rocky1138 »

grawlinson wrote: post #19
Bromskloss wrote: post #17

Does Sega gain anything from not just releasing all the information?

There's zero benefit in doing anything like this. Not to mention that all the relevant information may not exist anymore, or is in a storage facility somewhere growing mold.

Please see Hasbro, regarding release of the Atari Jaguar into the public domain: http://www.atarihq.com/news/1999/990514.html

This included the remark that Hasbro would not go after developers for discovering or bypassing the encryption key (which was discovered shortly after) to run their own software: http://allanswers.org/games/games/video-games/atari/jaguar-4...

Re: Sega Saturn CD Cracked after 20 Years

#87

Post by ethbro »

StavrosK wrote: post #82
donatj wrote: post #5

I can't wait for him to start selling these! I would buy one in a hot minute. My Saturn is collecting dust and there are so many games I just can't get my hands on for my Saturn, and emulation in my experience hardly works. It's way too weird a machine.

Does anyone know how you go from a PCB to a product? I've made PCBs before, but I wouldn't know where to begin to make it into a product that I can sell to people...

Well, if you want to sell it legally, testing and validation with the relevant government departments. If not, eBay and "intended for novelty use only"?

Re: Sega Saturn CD Cracked after 20 Years

#88

Post by mikepavone »

ben174 wrote: post #29
tsao wrote: post #24

One of the YT comments is about how he is not releasing the "ROM dump". Any idea of why he isn't doing this?

Just a guess: might get some serious attention from Sega's Lawyers if he releases that.

Very unlikely that would happen. Sega generally takes a pretty relaxed view to the emulation community and to my knowledge has never pursued anyone for releasing firmware from their systems.

He does claim legal and professional risks as his reasons in the assemblergames forum thread[0] though.

[0] http://assemblergames.com/l/threads/saturn-cd-block-rom-dump...

Re: Sega Saturn CD Cracked after 20 Years

#89

Post by mikepavone »

rocky1138 wrote: post #84
Grazester wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is already an SD card drive for the Saturn. https://gdemu.wordpress.com/ To achieve this did not require fully reverse engineering the cdrom controller but it is great someone did though.

I think you're mistaken: what you've linked is a Dreamcast project. OP's youtube link is for the Sega Saturn (the console before the Dreamcast).

GDEMU is for the Dreamcast, but the same person/group also produced Phoebe and Rhea which are similar products for the Saturn. Those don't have a separate home page, but most of the menu entries at the top of the page have separate Phoebe and Rhea options.

Re: Sega Saturn CD Cracked after 20 Years

#90

Post by elwell »

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.

> Then I killed it trying to mod it.

Ugh, don't remind me. My brother fried our n64 and our ps2 trying to mod them into handheld's (with built-in screen).

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