The Ben Heck Show

Sega Saturn Teardown (8x5)

Air date: Mar 02, 2018

Ben does a teardown of the Sega Saturn by popular request. The console was a rush release to beat out the Sony PlayStation which had a lower price point and subsequently had a better adoption rate. The Sega Saturn was a fourth generation console that was released in North America in 1995. One of the first things Ben notices is that it has a multi-out on the back. It's been tested on an RF video connector from a 4K television to confirm modern televisions still use analog tuners. It also had a battery backup for your games. There’s also a slot for memory cartridge to allow you to have more backup spaces. There was also a RAM expansion that added more frames of animation to games like Street Fighter AlphaIt also had a battery backup for your games. There’s also a slot for memory cartridge to allow you to have more backup spaces. There was also a RAM expansion that added more frames of animation to games like Street Fighter Alpha. Ben unscrews the Sega Saturn on the back to take a look at what’s inside. The top half of the enclosure has a nice mechanical spring-boarded lid. There is an LED with an acrylic light pipe over it to bring the light up to the indicator hole. It’s cheaper than making a separate circuit board. He disconnects the AC to DC Power Supply to take a look at it. It allows 9 volts at 3 amps, 5 volts at 2 amps, 3.3 volts at .6 amps, and ground. The assembly of this is quite similar to the Playstation One, including the built-in power supply. He removes the AC power switch with the capacitor on it. There’s a ribbon cable to control the CD ROM and another ribbon cable going to the controller port. If you were to make a portable of this, the CD ROM would probably be the most difficult part. You’d probably be better off with a SD to CD ROM replacement. The circuit board contains two CPUs. The best way to make your system easy to program is to have two CPUs, a master and a slave. On the back of the board is the ROM th