Using Cold Heat to solder?

[David J.]

I am thinking of adding a English/Japanese language switch to my Genesis and this is the best I have lying around... Will it work good?

[evildragon]

I tried one, and it did nothing but a horrible job.

Oh, and cold heat uses high amperage to melt solder, not heat. So, it might damage the electronics in the Genesis.

[David J.]

It worked great for my SCART -> RGB Transcoder when I modded it for audio, but there where only three points to solder, and the points where not as tiny.

[evildragon]

But you didn't have those connected to an IC. ;)

This is connected to the GLU chip on the Genesis, the high amperage may damage the IC. I remember when soldering an LED, it actually LIT on me.

[David J.]

What is a GLU Chip?

I think I have a revision 2 Genesis 1 if it helps you... with your revision guide topic.

[evildragon]

The glue chip is where everything interfaces with, including those region switches. If the glue is dead, nothing works.

[Joe Redifer]

A region switch is about the easiest mod you can do. Solder the wires to the switch using any method you want. Now tape, not solder, the wires to the motherboard. Use tape that won't lose its sticky too easily. Scotch tape works fine. Unless you have a habit of shaking your Genesis or pulling on the switch, the wires will remain where they should be forever and you'll avoid the risk of damaging the board.

You can see how I taped the wire down to make one of my Genesises a Mega Drive here (http://pixelcraze.film-tech.net/crap/genrev2.jpg). Soldering is definitely a more permanent connection, but not really necessary in this case. Just be careful when putting your Genesis back together.

BTW the IDE cables that come with hard drives make great wires for this kind of stuff when used individually.

[David J.]

where do I cut the Trace? JP2?

[Joe Redifer]

Yes.

JP1 and JP4 together = Japan

JP2 and JP4 together = US

Nobody cares about UK.

[evildragon]

Nobody cares about UK.
That can be taken out of context so badly.

Btw, even programmers love to use the PAL mode on the Genesis ,because it not only gains a few more pixels vertically (if a game supported it, and also makes the pixels square too), but the CPU has less wasted cycles.

Too bad games were limited to 50fps though.

[Joe Redifer]

Isn't the PAL Mega Drive CPU a bit slower than the Genesis CPU as a result? That would make the "wasted cycles" ratio about the same.

[evildragon]

Isn't the PAL Mega Drive CPU a bit slower than the Genesis CPU as a result? That would make the "wasted cycles" ratio about the same.
Nope, it will not. It's only slower by a VERY small margin. Only 51KHz.

And with 10Vints less to handle, that ration actually gives you still, more cycles to use.

[Joe Redifer]

Perhaps so, but 50Hz is still lame. Quite useless. And what programmer would want to make something that can only be run in PAL mode? Nobody. The countries in PAL land should be denied video game systems and maybe even nuked twice a day because of the whole 50Hz thing.

[evildragon]

HOWEVER, they did get higher resolution, better colorspace than NTSC, and to top it off, something a little closer to 24fps cinematic video, than NTSC can achieve.

Besides, in the 50Hz world and MegaDrives, Blast Processing was even better. ;)

[Joe Redifer]

How many games took advantage of the extra vertical resolution? Now count how many of THOSE games are even worth a shit. NTSC can do 23.98fps which is a lot closer to 24fps than 25 is. And since Genesis video is mostly all progressive all the time you don't even have to worry about interlace drop frames. Anyway, that would make for one choppy game.

[TmEE]

I'd still use conventional soldering iron, with thin, well tinned tip, and my steady hands for all soldering work (including soldering surface mount chips).

And PAL is LOT better than NTSC, since the games that lag on NTSC, never do it on PAL, and as EvilDragon said, 50Hz means less interruptions to CPU per second so CPU can do more (thus the lack of lag), BUT unfortunately there are few games that are especially written for PAL systems :( So most NTSC ports suck (but don't lag). And I really like to use PAL 320x240 in my MD stuff. I don'y know how much do I have to degrade NTSC version of CA the Meowian (it's one of the few especially for PAL games, though in WiP state), NTSC is so lame. 10MHz NTSC machine = 7MHz PAL machine, and the difference in PAL vs NTSC clock speeds means nothing according to my benchmark program.

[megadriveworld]

Yep, I think its real problem was developers not bothering updating their games for PAL. A lot of work is involved apparantly, they have to rewrite entire sections of code (among other changes) to get it working at full speed on a PAL unit.

Still, playing Sonic at 50HZ is pretty much unbearable when you've played it at the full 60, however, those in Europe who only knew Sonic as the 50HZ version still enjoyed it immensly and it did just aswell in Europe.

[Joe Redifer]

And PAL is LOT better than NTSC, since the games that lag on NTSC, never do it on PAL
That's because the entire game runs slower in PAL, so in effect it's 100% lag. PAL is definitely the odd man out. Both US and JAP run in NTSC, they make the games that matter, so there's really no reason for a PAL switch on a Genesis unless you like futbol games or something. You can have your PAL. Nobody yet cares about CA the Mewonian.

[TmEE]

Well see about that !!! And remember, there's a NTSC version coming too, which is inferior to PAL one, since effective speed of NTSC machine is around 5MHz compared to PAL unit...
There's no point in arguing, you say NTSC is good, PAL sucks, I say the opposite, and there's nothing that will change our minds...
And I play the game in NTSC IF the game displays lockout screen, or seems too slow... but in other cases, it'll be PAL.