The FRAM mod for the #SegaSaturn is possibly unnecessary, but I was bored and reached a decent pause point on maug and nothing else was doing it for me.
Fortunately there was no epoxy under the SRAM in this VA7 Saturn, but I *really* underestimated how fragile those pads were without a heat gun! Fortunately I was able to bodge the legs for the torn pads to the associated vias.
Looks gnarly, but passes the continuity tests and the "save/load a SimCity2k city" test...
Today my In-Game-Reset board arrived... a tiny little sub board that attaches to the controller port through-holes and listens for L2 + R2 + Start +Select and resets the PlayStation when they're held down. Goes really well with the Xstation Optical Drive Emulator... which was on the fritz and going right to the BIOS menu until I re-flowed one of the through-board solder joints on the ODE attachment!
I've blown three 800ma fuses on this #PSOne trying to add an RS-232 port using a MAX232... it's always the 8V supply to the 3.3v regulator. It might be time to go with a USB FTDI chip that brings its own power, but that means filling in the gaping hole I cut for the serial port, somehow... It also means no serial peripherals(!) Time for either trying my own 3.3V regulator on a separate rail or some 3D printing experiments tomorrow, I guess...
For a change of pace, today I dug out the #OGXBox my friend gave me because her ex left it. This isn't the one I bought off the back of a minivan at SPAC. This is the Ex Box.
I figured I'd check the clock capacitor on this one and... it was leaky! It kept turning off, so I cleaned it up and soldered some magnet wire and now it seems to stay on! Just traces A-D seem to be enough! For now!
I also soft modded it! Apparently we can do that now! Neat!
I just wanna play Sexy Parodius on real #PS1 hardware......
I ordered a lot of 7 broken #PS1 PlayStations off of ebay and this SCPH-1001 played my entire Michie-M "World's Greatest Idol" CD and the intro of Chrono Cross with no skips or problems. Broken my foot! What false advertising...
Gorgeous na Shock!