Posts tagged "SEGA!"
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Breaking out of the Snail Maze
Snail Maze. Either you know what it is, or your video game system didn’t come with a free video game hidden deep within its logic board. Or you bought a later Sega Master System, which didn’t have it. But what if we could bring Snail Maze to those later Master Systems? What if, indeed?
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Columns Me Maybe
I love Columns. I love its creepy music, I love its chunky gameplay, and I love the way that it invariably hands me my own ass within a few minutes of playing. I also love using it to test suspicious Genesis consoles. Is it possible that one could acquire the power of Columns in a more inconvenient format?
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The Soggy-1000 turns a page
For version 3 of the Soggy-1000 SG-1000 clone, I wanted to make it more useful as a general-purpose computer. Building a new keyboard is going to cost a fortune in parts, so it’s fiscally prudent to find more reasons to use said keyboard. There are only so many SG-1000 games out there, the SC-3000 software library is kind of small, and I was using only 2k of the 32k of RAM that I had on the board. These are all problems that can be solved with a suitably large application of hubris.
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Soaking it in with the SK-1100 Keyboard
If you’ve been following the Soggy-1000, my clone of the Sega SG-1000, then you know what it needs most of all is a keyboard. The original Sega SK-1100 keyboard is hard to find, but I still managed to luck out and get one at auction. Let’s plug it in and find out if it still works.
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An SG-1000 II gets a second chance
As we’ve covered before during the clone saga, the Sega SG-1000 was an unfortunate casualty of the Nintendo juggernaut. But surely the redesigned SG-1000 II would do better, right? No.
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Soggy-1000 ][
![Thumbnail for 'Soggy-1000 ]['](/thumbnails/soggy-1k-v0.2-assembled-boardshot.jpg "Thumbnail for 'Soggy-1000 ]['")
Once I got the Soggy-1000 playing SG-1000 cartridges, the next thing to do was to extend it. In this phase of the project, we’ll take that leap from “interesting” to “slightly ridiculous,” by adding the feature I’m most excited about – at least until I get excited about a different one – the SK-1100 keyboard connector.
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SG-1000 Ways To Leave Your Original
The SG-1000, being Sega’s first home console, has appreciated quite a bit over the years. Its price is now faintly ridiculous, especially when you consider its successor, the relatively inexpensive Mark III. Luckily for us, this console is made out of off-the-shelf components, virtually all of which are also found in the ColecoVision. If only we knew someone who’d cloned the ColecoVision…
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Set Sails For Piracy!
Have you ever wondered how it’s feasible for AliExpress sellers to produce knock-off Sega Genesis cartridges for under five bucks? I sure was, so I bought one and then tore it apart for your edification. You can thank me later.
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Mega Driving on the Wrong Side of the Road
You wouldn’t think it’s hard or expensive to find a Model 2 Genesis, but apparently in Japan it is both. I’d been looking for one of these for a while, and finally got just the right (cheap) console. Let’s explore some Japanese Mega Drive games with it.
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Mark III To The Future
On my latest jaunt to the wild world of Japanese auctions, I found this Sega Mark III that nobody else seemed to love as I got it for only ¥1100. Once it arrived at my home, I realized why. A Sega that can’t play games is too sad for words, so let’s get the thing up and running again.
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Reviving a Game Gear
With the recent success of the PC-9801NS/T capacitor replacement, I had chip-electrolytic capacitors on the brain. And like I said in this article, the easiest place to find more of those leaky little rectangles in my house was in the Game Gear I hadn’t bothered to repair for years.
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The Sega SC-3000 goes to a key party
I fixed up my SC-3000’s cartridge slot almost a year ago, but I haven’t been using the computer. Why not? Because the keyboard is super unusable. It’s time to fix it now, though, because I just paid a king’s ransom for a copy of Flicky.
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A headache from a Sega Nomad
The Sega Nomad. A tiny Genesis you can take on the go, and have access to Phantasy Star IV and Gunstar Heroes on the bus. While that may not seem impressive now, in this age of smartphones that can cure cancer and cause depression, I desperately wanted one when it was new. Ten years ago, I was finally able to get mine. Unfortunately, because I am really cheap, I picked one that was, as the French say, “a little bit broken.”
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Making my SC-3000 become a useful member of society
I was disappointed to find out that my “not working” Sega SC-3000 was in fact not working. However, I had a hunch that it was a common flaw: cold solder joints on the cartridge slot. It also has a more subtle flaw: it smells kind of bad.
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More Japanese exchange students arrived
Another postie-threatening crate arrived on my porch this week. There’s a lot of projects in this one; I’m not even sure a single one is “usable” as-is. This one sort of got away from me, but those are the fun kind!
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VA2 "for parts" Genesis fixed
The more questionable of the three “for parts” Sega Genesises I traded for in the previous entry is now fixed. It didn’t take too much effort - just some attention to detail, a few games of Columns, one cheap spare part, and a soldering iron.
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Rounding up some "parts" Sega Genesises
As part of a project to repair a badly-hurt JVC X’Eye, I’ve been looking for “parts” Genesis IIs to harvest a 315-5660 VDP chip from. Unfortunately, the Genesis II seems to be quite the tough customer. I keep fixing the parts machines before they can be sacrificed.
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Master System update
I finally got the chance to test the Master System with a Genesis controller. Early indications are that it worked great with the built-in games, as well as those in the cartridge slot. The choice of button mapping is a little weird (the “C” button accelerates in Hang-On, and of course there is no Start button).
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Sega Master System pickup
Sometimes the best finds are in your own backyard. I was coming back from breakfast when I saw a garage sale sign. After following it for awhile, I took a wrong turn - and ended up at an even better garage sale, with no sign.
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Sega Genesis - corroded RAM trace
A Model 2 VA1.8 Sega Genesis purchased off eBay as non-working presented as non-working. After several days of diagnosis, tracing and research into the system, I finally figured out that the problem was the corroded trace I identified right off the bat.