Sega Saturn Cartridge Slot for MD Games ?

[djtwok]

Was the Cartridge Slot ever be planned to be used for Genesis Games, as long as Saturn was in development ? And I heard Rumors that Datel had planned an Adapter for playing Genesis Games on MD ?

[j_factor]

I don't know about the Datel thing. Sega never planned for the cartridge port to be used for Genesis games per se (it was always intended for memory carts and such), but they did plan to have an adapter. I believe some difficulty arose out of the Saturn not having a Z80 in it. However, I'm sure what really killed it was Sega of Japan, with their "forget everything but Saturn" attitude combined with their penchant for being controlling.

[Elusive]

I suppose it may be possible in theory to run Mega Drive games via a Saturn; use an external unit with a Mega Drive-on-a-chip and a cartridge port, feed data to the Saturn through its cart port. Of course, technically then it's the passthrough unit doing the work, not the Saturn :I

I know that a Master System emulator is available for the Saturn, though. Homebrew.

[Joe Redifer]

Sega has their own SMS emulator as well as a Genesis emulator for the Saturn. Ever play Phantasy Star Collection? Anyway all a passtrough adapter would need would be a Z80 processor and maybe a couple of other minor chips. It would also need instructions telling the Saturn to run its 68000 at 7.6Mhz and to let the 68000 control the system. Of course I'm not sure if the Saturn BIOS would allow for the 68000 to take control like the Genesis does with the Z80.

I think the Saturn even has a basic 3DO emulator because there was a lot of 3DO software in the beginning on the machine.

[David J.]

I thought Phantasy Star Collection was slightly different versions of the games? I thought a few features t osave your game whenever where added?

[Joe Redifer]

Maybe you're thinking of the PS2 versions?

I have Phantasy Star Collection and it is just the Japanese versions of the games with some extra artwork and commercials in a different section. Phantasy Star games have always allowed you to save your game. Plus the Saturn Genesis emulator was used on other games like Castle of Illusion, the Thunder Force games, and others. People have actually ripped the Phantasy star 1 ROM from the saturn PS Collection and it runs in any SMS emulator

[David J.]

Hmm. I'll try and remember what I heard about the Genesis games on the PSC collection. I heard something was changed, but nothing HUGE, other than being in Japanese.

I hope you didn't pay out the hose for the Phantasy Star Collection.

[Joe Redifer]

I think it was around $59 or so (maybe even a bit less) when it came out brand new at the local game store back when I bought it. Is it worth more now?

[Melf]

I think it had more to do with the Saturn's messy innards than anything else. Tom Kalinske himself admits that the console was a mess, so I'm not surprised that it didn't support Genesis games.

Lol, only Sega could release a console with a cartridge port and not make it backwards compatible. :lol: