Sega Saturn's DRM Cracked Almost 23 Years After Launch (gamasutra.com)

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Sega Saturn's DRM Cracked Almost 23 Years After Launch (gamasutra.com)

Posted by BeauHD on Tuesday July 12, 2016 @12:50PM from the two-decades-later dept.

An anonymous reader writes from a report via Gamasutra: The Sega Saturn's DRM has finally been cracked after it hit store shelves nearly 23 years ago in November 1994. Engineer James Laird-Wah first set forth to break through the console's copy protection in an attempt to harness its chiptune capabilities. Laird-Wah has, however, developed a way to run games and other software from a USB stick in the process. Since disc drive failure is a common fault with the game console, his method circumvents the disc drive altogether, instead reworking the Video CD Slot so it can take games stored on a USB stick and run them directly through the Saturn's CD Block. "This is now at the point where, not only can it boot and run games, I've finished just recently putting in audio support, so it can play audio tracks," explained Laird-Wah, speaking to YouTuber debuglive. "For the time being, I possess the only Saturn in the world that's capable of writing files to a USB stick. There's actually, for developers of home-brew, the ability to read and write files on the USB stick that's attached to the device.

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Wishful thinking... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-12 12:54 · Score: 1

But I wish every consoles could just run games off a USB stick.
I wouldn't mind having to buy a special type of USB stick just for the console, if it means to just "charge" a game to it at a video game store and play the games from that, for faster load time. Or heck, just to get the "download files" and then transfer the finished product to the internal drive, would be great for people still stuck with a slow network connection, where downloading a 50GB game is just too much.
1. Re:Wishful thinking... by AK+Marc · 2016-07-12 13:20 · Score: 1
  
  I would like consoles to work off USB. I can buy a game as DLC, download it and run it off USB. But if I buy the physical game, I can't run it off USB. If I want to use my "favorite 3" and go back and forth between them, I can't install them locally and run them without the physical media in them. I get a better user experience (in an always-connected console) with downloaded games, and a better experience (in a non-connected console) with physical media. It's inconsistent and frustrating.
  
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2. Re:Wishful thinking... by fragMasterFlash · 2016-07-12 15:32 · Score: 1
  
  You would need a USB stick that implemented a secondary device to uniquely identify the USB stick to avoid piracy. Implementing something like ARM TrustZone in a USB secondary function device would seem to suit this purpose nicely. Games downloaded to your USB stick could then only be used when that particular USB stick is physically present on your gaming system.
3. Re: Wishful thinking... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-12 15:52 · Score: 0
  
  Still will run horribly. You can install games all day on external with PC, but if they are heavy, you are going to have serious slowdown. Will not work with current consoles and games.
4. Re: Wishful thinking... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-12 18:20 · Score: 0
  
  That is an excellent idea. Skip the middleman hardware. Rock up to the videogames store, plonk down $20 of your hard earned cash, get a usb stick, take it home, plug it into your pc, plug in the appropriate xbox/ps5 controller and play the game. Can't wait.
5. Re: Wishful thinking... by AK+Marc · 2016-07-12 19:24 · Score: 1
  
  Call home licensing would be fine. Call home licensing on a disk is unacceptable (initial rumors of PS4), but I said nothing that indicated a DRM-free USB was required. I have a USB stick in my console. If I buy a game online, it installs on the USB and plays from the USB. The download game gives more functionality than the disk game. That seems silly.
  
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6. Re:Wishful thinking... by phishybongwaters · 2016-07-12 23:49 · Score: 2
  
  except that the speeds over usb, even usb 3, make trying to use external drives for that type of purpose a complete and utter waste of your time, it will be horrendously slow. The thing is, with a pc, you can do this right now, and you'll see how craptacular it really is. What you are really asking for is a return to game cartridges, which honestly, feels right. We're in a digital download frenzy but not all people have the connection to rely 100% on that, let alone the limited drive space on consoles. I certainly don't want to wait to install anything, but even a TB drive isn't enough to hold that many games considering most clock in a 10GB or more now. the happy medium (ignore the feasibility and price point) would be a solid state mini drive cartridge. Think NES or SEGA genesis, but it's not just a small board and chip, it's actually a tiny purpose built solid state drive. It would be fast as it could be on sata3 or Esata. The price would make it intangible. The life span of the drive might raise some concerns, hopefully one of the many knowledgeable Anonymous Cowards can answer this question: The limited lifespan of a NAND chip is related to the amount of writes, not reads correct? So if we manufacture a purpose build SSD that is NOT writable, only readable, shouldn't this extend the life of the memory? The drive wouldn't have any extra space and effectively would act like a factory pressed DVD, you can not use it as storage. The drive would have part numbers and serial numbers, and could even contain a controller and chip for "on the drive" DRM. I should be trying to patent this.
7. Re:Wishful thinking... by Blaskowicz · 2016-07-13 01:40 · Score: 1
  
  The standard for a real SSD in memory card form factor was in the news recently, it's UFS.
  About a non-writable SSD : what's that? :)
  Your concern about lifespan due to writes is overblown and you can always use flash, but not write to it. Like Nintendo DS games, or your many firmware blobs in your PC that are stored on flash and upgraded never, once or a few times (BIOS/UEFI, hard disk drive firmware, VGA BIOS, etc.)
  I agree something read-only and cheap would be great. But games need updates these days (sadly) so you could do it with additional writable "read-mostly" flash on the side, used for patches. Not very great.
  Also, mask ROMs exist. Perhaps we could make a really huge one? 128Gbit, 256Gbit?
  Sounds great but if the mask costs say one million dollars and you need to make a new one if you made a mistake or change your mind.. this almost makes selling games on an SSD a sensible thing.
8. Re: Wishful thinking... by wbo · 2016-07-13 04:38 · Score: 1
  
  Performance depends on the speed of the USB device. Good quality USB 3 flash drives can be read at 300 MB/s or more making them much faster than the traditional hard drives installed in most consoles - not to mention optical drives.
9. Re:Wishful thinking... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-13 04:44 · Score: 0
  
  maybe your computer is shitty, but i get great transfer speeds from usb3, faster than my sata2 hard drive ffs
10. Re: Wishful thinking... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-13 08:36 · Score: 0
  
  Reading from flash degrades the data (not of the data actually read, but data adjacent to it). The effect is called "read disturb". In an SSD this is handled by rewriting affected areas using various strategies. Aditionally, the flash cell loses its charge over time. This also requires refreshing, hence writes.
  For small flash memory (think BIOS/firmware in a few megabyte) the flash cells are typically SLC type and of low density which means the above effects are not a concern (data retention is over 100 years without rewrite and read-disturb is negligible requiring insane number of reads to show). But a gigabyte device on that tech would be extremely expensive so this isn't possible for an say SSD, not even enterprise grade. And certainly not a game cartridge... so these do require periodic management and rewrites.
  However for a limited lifespan it might be OK. And future tech (also flash tech such as the emerging V-NANDs) might improve/fix it.
11. Re:Wishful thinking... by RockDoctor · 2016-07-14 08:32 · Score: 1
  
  Sounds like games are too complex to bother with these days. I'll stick to CIV and Oolite. Oh, and for a change, XCom.
  
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12. Re: Wishful thinking... by AK+Marc · 2016-07-14 08:45 · Score: 1
  
  I'm running games off USB just fine on XBone. I just can't run games bought on disk on the USB exclusively. Disks are much slower than USB, and I think systems like XBone test performance of USB and if it doesn't run fast enough, it'll not use it for external storage.
  
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Huh? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-12 12:55 · Score: 0

DRM? Didn't the Saturn come out before DRM? Even the copy protection wasn't that powerful to begin with. I've been playing burned games on my Saturn for years now, thanks to a modchip.
1. Re:Huh? by NotInHere · 2016-07-12 13:01 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  He did it without requiring a modchip. If I understood the interview right, he has built a card that can be put into the extension slot which simulates the CD-ROM controller chip. So it essentially fakes a CD-ROM to the OS.
  And yes, those devices do have "DRM" of some sort: its a "wobbly" line at the outer border of the CD-ROM which the reader reads. All writeable CD-ROMs have non-wobbly lines. Without a modchip you'll have problems.
2. Re: Huh? by DaHat · 2016-07-12 13:08 · Score: 1
  
  DRM in some form has existed for years... Even the original Nintendo had it https://hackmii.com/2010/01/th...
  
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3. Re: Huh? by alvinrod · 2016-07-12 13:32 · Score: 2
  
  Interestingly back in the day the laws and courts were more sane and it wasn't illegal for companies to circumvent Nintendo's lockout technology and there were a few companies that produced unlicensed games for the original Nintendo. Even more funny, one of the companies that was (in)famous for doing so produced a lot of bible themed games that they sold through Christian stores because Nintendo started to lean on retailers to stop them from selling unlicensed games.
  
  There were even more primitive versions of "DRM" in older PC games such as the game periodically requiring the user to enter the fifth word on the seventh page of the manual under the assumption that people with a copy wouldn't have the manual. A few others had codewheels that came with the game that served a similar purpose. Eventually this resulted in the pinnacle of copy protection.
4. Re:Huh? by Revek · 2016-07-12 13:44 · Score: 1
  
  Terms change. They tried to make the games impossible to copy. Called it copy protection until someone came up with a new term, DRM. Tada! Didn't work, never works.
  Didn't toilet tissue used to be call toilet paper.
5. Re: Huh? by Miamicanes · 2016-07-12 13:52 · Score: 1
  
  It's even older than NES. The **ATARI 7800** had DRM used to lock out unauthorized cartridges, and it was technically released around 1984 (though 99% of the 7800s sat in warehouses until the early 90s before Tramiel finally dumped them on the market).
6. Re:Huh? by Z80a · 2016-07-12 14:12 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  "News for nerds".
7. Re: Huh? by Miamicanes · 2016-07-12 14:15 · Score: 1
  
  Actually, I vaguely remember that even the TI-99/4A had some kind of DRM that prevented most thirdparty software from running on it. I've never fully understood why, but I think it was something like this:
  * The CPU could only directly access 256 bytes of RAM. The remaining RAM technically belonged to the graphics subsystem.
  * The CPU could only execute code from a ROM cartridge after the graphics subsystem authorized it. I think it was protected by a combination of aggressively-defended patents and some technical means that was ultimately cracked years later.
  * TI BASIC, unlike Commodore, Atari, and Apple BASIC, had no way for users to poke an assembly-language program into ram & begin executing it (with something like "SYS 49152")
  It's sad, because the TI-99/4A was a seriously hot mess. It was technically one of the most powerful computers on the market at the time, but TI arbitrarily crippled its usage so badly that it just withered on the vine while more open platforms (the 3 mentioned, plus probably ZX Spectrum in Europe) flourished. Most people have NO IDEA that the TI-99/4A actually had the same graphics & sound chips as a Colecovision, a faster CPU, and probably more total RAM (though RAM beyond the 256 bytes of SRAM hardwired to the CPU had to be read and written a byte at a time, kind of like copying data to a VGA card's ram). Weirdly enough, the Radio Shack COLOR COMPUTER actually had the same graphics chip, too... though it provides a great example of how a bad design can ruin an otherwise good graphics chip (to cut costs, Tandy eliminated the ram that was supposed to be used for defining background colors of individual characters, and instead hardwired the chip so it always just used green as the background color in any character-based graphics mode).
8. Re:Huh? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-12 14:29 · Score: 0
  
  I don't think it was actually a fake CD-ROM; from the description, he had to take over the processor associated with the disc module (i.e. it's no longer running the original software). Hence the flash of the media player before his menu shows up.
  It seems like a less invasive modchip, basically. No soldering, no rerouting cables.
9. Re: Huh? by dwywit · 2016-07-12 15:42 · Score: 1
  
  Actual printed manuals. That brings back memories...
  Microprose B17 Flying Fortress on 5.25" floppies, a foldout keyboard shortcuts guide, and a printed manual about half an inch thick.
  Now I'm remembering the WordPerfect 5.1 manual.
  
  --
  They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
10. Re: Huh? by ihtoit · 2016-07-12 16:36 · Score: 1
  
  I still play SU-27 Flanker. The original one. With the half inch thick manual.
  (have a copy of Win98SE on Virtualbox just to run that and Homeworld 2 Complex).
  
  --
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11. Re:Huh? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-12 18:21 · Score: 0
  
  "News for Turds. Stuff that splatters."
  That's Fox News
12. Re: Huh? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-12 19:56 · Score: 0
  
  Nerds are not normal people. Nerds are what normal people - beautiful people - shun and shit upon.
13. Re:Huh? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-12 22:09 · Score: 0
  
  Maybe for you, but for me this is definitely "Stuff that matters"
14. Re: Huh? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-12 23:19 · Score: 0
  
  Champions of Krynn had the most pointless "Enter the word on page blah" ever.
  Sure it was easy enough to crack, but all quests descriptions were in the manual so to know where you were supposed to go and what you should do you still needed the manual. Entering the word at start was just an extra inconvenience.
15. Re:Huh? by twistedsymphony · 2016-07-12 23:35 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  I've had a CD-ROM Emulator on my Saturn with no modchip for quite some time now: There are a pair of devices called Rhea and Phoebe. You unplug the CD drive and plug this in it's place, insert an SD card loaded with disc images and that's it.
  
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16. Re:Huh? by phishybongwaters · 2016-07-12 23:51 · Score: 1
  
  copy protection = DRM. DRM is short for Digital Rights Management, which is done via copy protection schemes.
17. Re: Huh? by phishybongwaters · 2016-07-12 23:53 · Score: 1
  
  Chuck Yeagers air combat. First game I remember having "copy protection" that was literally a quiz before you could play, asking you a fact or detail that you'd have to open the game manual to the correct page to find. OR..... You simply keep resetting until you get a question you can answer from one of the many many military war planes trading card sets your wonderful grandfather gave you. Yup, I "cracked" chuck yeagers air combat by learning facts about the planes in the game.
18. Re:Huh? by Zak3056 · 2016-07-13 00:03 · Score: 1
  
  He did it without requiring a modchip. If I understood the interview right, he has built a card
  So he's not using a modchip, he just... built a modchip?
  
  --
  What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
19. Re:Huh? by _merlin · 2016-07-13 00:37 · Score: 1
  
  Saturn modchips connect between the laser unit and the rest of the CD drive to detect when the system is trying to identify whether a disc is genuine and return the required data. This device plugs into the expansion slot and uploads code to run on the CD block processor the way the VCD playback add-on did. It causes CD block commands to read from the flash storage rather than the optical drive.
20. Re: Huh? by StikyPad · 2016-07-13 01:37 · Score: 2
  
  Back then, we called it "copy protection." Because that's what it was. DRM is to copy protection what a tree is to fruit. Or perhaps, as a better analogy, what Sony BMG CDs are to rootkits.
  
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21. Re:Huh? by Zak3056 · 2016-07-13 02:23 · Score: 1
  
  Just because his implementation is different than previous modchips does not make this "not a modchip."
  
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  What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
22. Re:Huh? by SumDog · 2016-07-13 07:13 · Score: 1
  
  Did you watch the video? It's pretty drastically different than the traditional mod chips. His implementation requires no soldering of the existing components. The work is also amazing. He gets pretty detailed and shows the dumped assembly code.
  Also, existing mod chips still require a functioning CD drive, and those parts are slowly dieing in existing units. His modifications allow reading images straight from a modern data source.
23. Re:Huh? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-15 04:48 · Score: 0
  
  Le political. So edgy.
Re:PokÃ©mon is for faggots and pedophile by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-12 13:06 · Score: 0

And parent would know. He's the president of NAMBLA.
Re:PokÃ©mon is for faggots and pedophile by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-12 13:10 · Score: 0

The North American Marlon Brando Look-Alikes?
Re:Wow! Who gives a fuck! by Lead+Butthead · 2016-07-12 13:23 · Score: 1

Yep, had the DRM been broken when the Saturn still had games being made for it, that would have been a big deal.
23 years later? Meh. Just play a rom on a emulator. It upscales, loading times are non existent, can save the game when you want, can have the whole library on one SSD. Why doesn't this guy try to break DRM on systems in circulation?
You do know this isn't going to stop Sega's landsharks from invoking DMCA.

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Just in case anyone read this comment seriously by rsilvergun · 2016-07-12 13:39 · Score: 5, Insightful

the Saturn is nowhere's near perfectly emulated. It is very, very well emulated by a program called SSF thanks to some chap in Japan, but there are significant limitations. It also doesn't upscale and needs a beefy processor to deinterlace. I don't want to make light of the achievement of SSF's author's. The Saturn is a nightmare featureing 7 or 8 different processors with cache ram all over the place. It's a minor miracle what's been achieved. It's still fantastic to see this. The Saturn had a vibrant and incredible library that's largely inaccessible, especially if you're not Japanese. The difficulty of emulation means almost nothing got ported (and many of the "Saturn" ports on Xbox Live/PSN are really Model 2 ports). I always thought it sad Sega couldn't monetize their Saturn back catalog (outside of a very short lived service in Japan for PCs based on a different emulator). I would kill to get Panzer Dragoon 1,2 & Saga on PSN/Steam.

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1. Re:Just in case anyone read this comment seriously by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-12 13:46 · Score: 0
  
  Actually, it's a safe bet that SSF is just a collection of game-specific hacks (which is part of the reason source code was never released), so call it a "good" emulator is debatable depending on how you define "good." Is it "good" because it runs games, or is it "good" because it accurately simulates the hardware?
  Also, SSF has a ton of input lag, so it's basically worthless for serious players.
2. Re:Just in case anyone read this comment seriously by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-12 14:05 · Score: 1
  
  SSF only takes actual discs because the author doesn't want anybody to use it to play pirated games (although everybody uses something that fakes being a disc drive instead). I don't think the author will want to release the source code out of fear somebody may modify it to take ISO files :P (also, the developer is Japanese, and they tend to be a lot more closed over their stuff too)
3. Re:Just in case anyone read this comment seriously by catmistake · 2016-07-12 15:34 · Score: 1
  
  Apprently, Sega Saturn is also emulated with MESS, part of the hugely successful and popular MAME project.
  
  --
  The Admin and the Engineer
4. Re:Just in case anyone read this comment seriously by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-12 16:57 · Score: 0
  
  Makes me wonder if we're at the point that one could write a Saturn emulator on a GPU. Even with the massive loss in performance, it might actually be the best approach until we see 30+ core processors.
5. Re:Just in case anyone read this comment seriously by evilviper · 2016-07-12 17:11 · Score: 1
  
  I would kill to get Panzer Dragoon 1,2 & Saga on PSN/Steam.
  Besides the Sega Saturn, Panzer Dragoon was released on R-Zone, Windows PC, PlayStation 2, and as a bonus in sequel Panzer Dragoon Orta for Xbox. Is there some reason you just have to have the Saturn version of the game?
  
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6. Re:Just in case anyone read this comment seriously by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-12 19:41 · Score: 0
  
  I don't know about 1 & 2, but Dragoon was only ever released for the Saturn.
7. Re:Just in case anyone read this comment seriously by AmiMoJo · 2016-07-12 23:37 · Score: 1
  
  There was the NC1 PCI card, which was basically half a Saturn. There were some Saturn ports for it, but this was back in 1995... I doubt any of them will run on modern systems.
  The Saturn was a great system. Lots of amazing 2D and hybrid 2D/3D games, as well as the odd full 3D gem. I've still got mine, complete with RAM pack and mod chip, but I do worry that the CD ROM will eventually fail. Hopefully this guy will have a solid state replacement available by then.
  
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8. Re:Just in case anyone read this comment seriously by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-13 01:09 · Score: 0
  
  That's as only the original Panzer Dragoon was released, Zwei and Saga (which is regarded as one of the best Saturn RPG's) haven't been. That's be why most people would want to play the series now as it's pretty good for the retro experience.
9. Re:Just in case anyone read this comment seriously by ausekilis · 2016-07-13 01:09 · Score: 1
  
  Don't forget about Yet Another Beautiful and Underrated Saturn Emulator. I've used this a few times and it has done fairly well in the games I did try.
Re:Wow! Who gives a fuck! by spire3661 · 2016-07-12 13:39 · Score: 1

This sort of thing is specifically exempted.

"Computer programs and video games distributed in formats that have become obsolete and which require the original media or hardware as a condition of access."

http://www.copyright.gov/1201/...

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Re:Wow! Who gives a fuck! by jonwil · 2016-07-12 13:45 · Score: 2

The people on the MAME team who work on the Saturn driver would disagree that the Saturn emulator is anywhere near perfect. No emulator currently emulates the co-processor used for the control of the optical drive. (as far as I know the only people who have dumped the internal code of this chip haven't released it to anyone else)
Wrong, wrong, wrong, WRONG! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-12 13:54 · Score: 5, Interesting

The "DRM" (anti-copy protection) was circumvented decades ago, and modchips to perform that function have existed since that time. This is nothing new.
What James figured out was how dump the internal ROM of the CD controller MCU. This in no way "breaks" the copy protection, though it provides useful information about how the MCU works. Keep in mind that he is hoarding *ALL* of this information and has *NO* intention to share it with the public, for example to improve Sega Saturn emulation.
He is selling a mass-produced product to play games on the Saturn over USB and withholding information so nobody else can compete in that market.. This is a Slashvertisement and nothing more.
1. Re:Wrong, wrong, wrong, WRONG! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-12 18:04 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  In a forum post yesterday, he stated that he will include a CD Block firmware dumper as part of the finished product. That way he (in my words) doesn't need to care about the legality of sharing the ROM images that he personally dumped, and rare versions can be dumped without having to ship rare consoles around the world. So you can stop this conspiracy theory bullshit already. He has also been working directly with the Yabause team to improve their emulation.
2. Re:Wrong, wrong, wrong, WRONG! by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-13 02:19 · Score: 0
  
  He states in the interview that what he has found is already helping emulator writers. Also he's not selling anything yet; he isn't sure how he's going to ship it. The interviewer challenges him on neither of these statements. Are you claiming that he's a liar and the interviewer is a shill?
  He also mentions modchips but points out that his solution doesn't involve opening the box and soldering.
3. Re:Wrong, wrong, wrong, WRONG! by SumDog · 2016-07-13 07:19 · Score: 1
  
  Did you...did you watch the video?
  He's already contributed tons to existing emulator projects and posted a lot of his stuff up on the Saturn emulation boards.
  He hasn't released his rom dump yet, but I have a feeling he'll release the tools for people to dump it themselves once he gets his product into production.
  He didn't just circumvent the DRM using a device that you have to solder between the CD drive and the I/O connectors; he cracked open the dedicated CD controller, which had been a black box up until now. Then he used an exploit in the VCD module slot to bypass the protect and load Sega Saturn CD images directly, bypassing the need of a modchip at all.
Scam artist by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-12 14:05 · Score: 2, Interesting

Just a reminder: this guy is a slimebag who refused to share the Saturn SH1 ROM dump with MAMEdev so that he could commercialize this.
He's basically a scam artist.
1. Re:Scam artist by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-12 14:41 · Score: 0
  
  Waaaaaaah.
2. Re:Scam artist by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-12 18:59 · Score: 0
  
  MAMEdev are hoarding scumbags too, just fyi. I find it great to see these sorts irritate one another.
3. Re:Scam artist by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-13 02:09 · Score: 0
  
  How is your comment any better?
4. Re:Scam artist by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-13 05:09 · Score: 0
  
  I never said it was
I did this years ago by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-12 14:41 · Score: 2, Insightful

When I was in high school I did this with a bit of tape. Trick the system into thinking the lid was closed. Start legit game, let it spin twice, swap legit disk with CDR. Play
Super cool, but a little late by jandrese · 2016-07-12 14:56 · Score: 1

While this workaround uses a very novel technique and had the side effect of giving the emulation community a chance to properly emulate the CD control chip, there is already a SD-Card based modchip that plugs into the CD-ROM drive slot and allows you to play games even if the optical bits fail. It works by emulating the CD-ROM hardware instead. Still, this modchip is better because you don't even have to crack the lid to install it, it simply slots into the MPEG card slot built into the console.

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1. Re:Super cool, but a little late by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-12 18:05 · Score: 0
  
  It also avoids the problem of knowing which version of the hardware you have. Different versions of the Saturn had 20-pin and 21-pin CD drive connectors.
TMS9918 != MC6847 by tepples · 2016-07-12 15:16 · Score: 1

The graphics chip in the TI-99/4A, ColecoVision, and SG-1000 was TI's TMS9918. The Tandy Color Computer (CoCo) had a different, less capable one: the Motorola MC6847. In high-resolution mode, the MC6847's graphics were conceptually similar to those of the Apple II: essentially bit-banging an NTSC signal through a frame buffer and relying on composite artifact colors. Compare CoCo graphics to the same game on the Apple II. You might have been thinking of the MSX computer, which also used a TMS9918.
The video chips in the Sega Master System and Sega Genesis are direct descendants of TMS9918, and the NES Picture Processing Unit (PPU) is a blend of TMS9918 concepts (especially searching for sprites in a larger display list that intersect the current scanline) and the background attribute method from the Radar Scope/Donkey Kong video hardware.
1. Re: TMS9918 != MC6847 by Miamicanes · 2016-07-12 16:44 · Score: 1
  
  Hmmm, now I'm intrigued... did the CoCo have the same wacky way of addressing pixels (1 bit per 7 pixels to select red+ blue or green+ purple, then 7 bits to select one or the other, or white if two adjacent pixels were set, and the Venetian-blind ram addressing)?
  Also... what did an Apple II do if you had two adjacent bytes... one with the msb set, one with the msb clear, and set the rightmost pixel/bit of the first byte, and the leftmost pixel/bit (bit 6) of the second byte? Did it make white, because you had two adjacent on pixels, or did the fact that one was a blue or red pixel, and one was a green or purple pixel, make a difference?
2. Re: TMS9918 != MC6847 by UnknownSoldier · 2016-07-13 00:00 · Score: 1
  
  > Also... what did an Apple II do if you had two adjacent bytes... one with the msb set, one with the msb clear, and set the rightmost pixel/bit of the first byte, and the leftmost pixel/bit (bit 0) of the second byte?
  FTFY. bit 0 is the leftmost bit, not 6. Remember the Apple displays bits in reversed order. :-)
  Anyways, if you follow comp.sys.apple2.programmer then it is trivial to try this with Michael's HGR byte inspector:
  * https://github.com/Michaelange...
  Ctrl I
  Ctrl J
  Shift 7
  Shift 8
  L
  Shift 1
  Or you can do this manually:
  HGR
  CALL-151
  2400:C0 01
  2800:C0 01
  3400:00 C0 01
  3800:00 C0 01
  > Did it make white, because you had two adjacent on pixels,
  Yes and No.
  Yes, as two adjacent bits always make white BUT ...
  No, as due to the Apple's video generator and the Monitor's NTSC composite signal conversion it ALSO depends if the first byte was on an even or odd address line ...
  > or did the fact that one was a blue or red pixel, and one was a green or purple pixel, make a difference? ... which determines how the leading and trailing edges of the pixels are colorized.
  2000:C0 00
  2C00:00 01
  3000:00 C0 00
  3C00:00 00 01
  Adjacent pixels on an even address:
  * leading edge is colorized blue, half pixel
  * trailing edge is colorized green, full pixel
  Adjacent pixels on an odd address:
  * leading edge is colorized orange, half pixel
  * trailing edge is colorized purple, full pixel
  You can test this via:
  2080:C0 00 01 C0 00 01
  2480:C0 00 01 C0 00 01
  2880:C0 00 01 C0 00 01
  2C80:C0 00 01 C0 00 01
  NOTE: Apple emulators (with poor NTSC code) won't colorize the pixels properly. They will show it as just white, but on real hardware you'll see:
  [color][white][color]
3. Re: TMS9918 != MC6847 by tepples · 2016-07-13 02:28 · Score: 1
  
  did the CoCo have the same wacky way of addressing pixels (1 bit per 7 pixels to select red+ blue or green+ purple, then 7 bits to select one or the other, or white if two adjacent pixels were set, and the Venetian-blind ram addressing)?
  No. As far as I can tell, the CoCo had 8-pixel slivers, always set to the blue/orange set (same as Apple II with bit 7 on). It just had 32 bytes across (256x192) instead of 40 (280x192), which means bigger side borders.
  
  Also... what did an Apple II do if you had two adjacent bytes... one with the msb set, one with the msb clear, and set the rightmost pixel/bit of the first byte, and the leftmost pixel/bit (bit 6) of the second byte?
  Something like that would set three half-pixels to "on", which makes the same color as one of the sixteen GR colors with three bits set (such as yellow). Bit 7 really controls whether the state changes on the rising or falling state of the pixel clock. If you've done any double hires on a IIe, you might be able to figure it out, as double hires directly controls the half-pixels.
4. Re: TMS9918 != MC6847 by ncc74656 · 2016-07-13 06:00 · Score: 1
  
  Hmmm, now I'm intrigued... did the CoCo have the same wacky way of addressing pixels (1 bit per 7 pixels to select red+ blue or green+ purple, then 7 bits to select one or the other, or white if two adjacent pixels were set, and the Venetian-blind ram addressing)?
  
  No, IIRC. It put all 8 bits on screen as pixels, and the 6847 used linear addressing. I seem to remember it didn't always give you the same colors; between two runs of the same program, you might get swapped colors that would be fixed by hitting Reset until they came up right.
  This also meant that the CoCo's highest-resolution mode yielded only 4 colors, vs. the 6 that you'd get with the Apple II. (To be completely fair, the oldest Apple II motherboards ignored the high bit and also only produced 4 Hi-Res colors, but this was fixed fairly early on...almost certainly by the time the II+ was released.)
  
  --
  20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
SCOTUS in Lexmark upheld interop post-DMCA by tepples · 2016-07-12 15:28 · Score: 1

Even post-DMCA, circumvention involving copying a small amount of code for the sole purpose of interoperability is fair. Lexmark v. Static Control Components.
do you math by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-12 16:05 · Score: 2, Informative

23 years ago would be July 1993. That's a 16 month difference.
1. Re: do you math by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-12 19:03 · Score: 0
  
  23 years is almost 24 years it's just more almoster 23
If it didn't cost a jillion dollars, I would buy 1 by drinkypoo · 2016-07-12 16:40 · Score: 1

I've got a Saturn here, and I've got some decent games for it. It's still IMO the best light gun platform. I've even kept an analog TV around for the purpose...
Thing is, devices like this for consoles tend to cost hundreds of dollars, and it's hard to imagine getting more enjoyment out of it than buying four or five new games, or eight to ten slightly older ones on sale...

--
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Re:Wow! Who gives a fuck! by ihtoit · 2016-07-12 16:41 · Score: 1

interesting... so anything from 2600 cartridges to floppy disks...?

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MATH IS HARD by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-12 20:25 · Score: 0

must be the only explanation.
Almost 22 years.
Radiant Silvergun? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-12 21:44 · Score: 0

Call me when this is a step-by-step guide to Radiant Silvergun :/
Re:PokÃ©mon is for faggots and pedophile by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-12 21:59 · Score: 1

Please ignore the username above, I forgot to check AC.
Did this editor finally clean up his/her/its act? by rebelwarlock · 2016-07-12 22:19 · Score: 1

When I saw BeauHD had posted this, I expected a link to some unrelated Apple bullshit at the end of the summary.
Re:PokÃ©mon is for faggots and pedophile by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-13 00:12 · Score: 0

No, thanks, weird_w. You seem to be quite in to buttlicking.
Re:Wow! Who gives a fuck! by Lead+Butthead · 2016-07-13 02:14 · Score: 1

This sort of thing is specifically exempted.

"Computer programs and video games distributed in formats that have become obsolete and which require the original media or hardware as a condition of access."
http://www.copyright.gov/1201/...

That has never stopped corporate lawyers before, and it'll be very expensive for him to prove himself right.

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ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
Re:If it didn't cost a jillion dollars, I would bu by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-13 02:33 · Score: 0

Check out the Action Replay 4M Plus cart. It lets you play burned backups on your Saturn. It's around $34.00 on Ebay last I checked. You do have to burn a special CD-R (google 'Atlus Installer') and then do the disk swap trick once to install the Atulus software on the cart, but from then on you can use the cart to load burned backups.
Re:If it didn't cost a jillion dollars, I would bu by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-13 04:24 · Score: 0

PS:
The disk swap trick can be a PITA, so don't give up if it doesn't work for you initially. The swap trick also varies depending upon what model of Saturn you have so be sure that you are using the right one for your model. There are a bunch of Youtube vids that show you how to do it.
PPS: Be sure to burn any Saturn backup disks at a slow rate (no faster than 8X). Also, the Saturn laser can be finicky and won't read all CD-R brands equally. The best brand to use is Ritek. You can find them on Ebay or Amazon.
Scam artist? by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-13 05:27 · Score: 0

What scam is he running? Did he rook you? Hornswoggle?
Or are you saying Skam's released some of his music? That's pretty cool, didn't know that.
Bless you Slashdot by uCallHimDrJ0NES · 2016-07-13 05:27 · Score: 1

This news made my day, and the comments were fun too.

--
Cloudiot: A person who does not see offsite storage as a way to lose control over access to his or her own data.
So obeying copyright law makes you a slimebag? by Ungrounded+Lightning · 2016-07-13 06:02 · Score: 1

Just a reminder: this guy is a slimebag who refused to share the Saturn SH1 ROM dump ...
So, in your opinion, choosing not to voluntarily help out a project by violating copyright law (and risking mill-of-the-gods grade legal retribution) makes one a "slimebag"?

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Re:Wow! Who gives a fuck! by spire3661 · 2016-07-13 08:59 · Score: 1

He doesnt have to prove himself right, the opposing side has to prove he infringed. Generally speaking, it would start with a simple C&D, and then from there you can make the economic choice to pursue it or not. Considering there is no real money involved, its really not a big deal.

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Good-bye
Diamond Edge 3D NV1 by HalAtWork · 2016-07-14 04:03 · Score: 1

I think you mean the NV1, which shipped in the Diamond Edge 3D. Many ports were based off of this software. It used quads and spheres to render instead of triangles, close to what the Saturn did.

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Re: Just in case anyone read this comment seriousl by Anonymous Coward · 2016-07-15 11:33 · Score: 0

The first platform you drop is the R-Zone?