from Hacker News

Sega Saturn CD – Cracked after 20 years (2016) [video]

by swills on 6/14/22, 12:13 PM with 39 comments

  • by daneel_w on 6/16/22, 11:03 AM

    As complementary info, the copy protection of the Sega Saturn was cracked already in the second half of the 90s. I had a "modchip" in my Saturn already in the late 90s, and more or less every game title was readily available as a PAL/NTSC region-unlocked ISO dump to be burnt on a blank CD-R.

    The effort in this video is about deconstructing the CD drive's protocol and link-layer, to allow for disc emulation with flash memory storage.

  • by mewse-hn on 6/16/22, 2:41 PM

    Saturn has several options for playing backups:

    Pseudo Saturn Kai: a firmware for the pro action replay cartridge that will boot non-official discs. Affordable and no modding required.

    Phantom mod chip: like a classic playstation mod chip, but it plugs into the ribbon cable between the optical drive and the main system board. It needs one wire other than the ribbon cable, to provide 5V power.

    Satiator: As shown in this youtube video, plugs into the VCD port on the back of the system and runs backups with no modding required.

    Optical drive emulators: TerraOnion MODE, Fenrir, Rhea & Phoebe, these all replace the CD drive in the stock console.

  • by AndrianV on 6/16/22, 1:54 PM

    I've always been interested in electronics and programming, and I've always struggled to write excellent code. This guy, on the other hand, makes it look easy.

  • by alt227 on 6/16/22, 11:39 AM

    Ive seen this video pop up again and again over the last 5 years. I have 1 question: when/where can I buy one!

  • by Melatonic on 6/16/22, 6:51 PM

    This has got to have been one of the weirdest game systems ever. Even the games were weird. Innovative and the graphics were mind blowing for its day but.....Knights? What an odd but unique game.

  • by unsignednoop on 6/16/22, 10:52 AM

    Disappointing that he didn’t elaborate on how the rom was dumped.

    Also please check out the discussion on mil-cds here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18655524

    Edit: found the scrambler algo for milcd if anybody is curious https://mc.pp.se/dc/files/scramble.c (google was useless thank heavens for kagi)

  • by sentirist on 6/16/22, 3:18 PM

    I brought Saturn CD to a 1995 New Years party as a teenager and was so cool that day. I only ever had Virtua Fighter though and that was the last gaming console or game I ever bought. I just remember it being a massive waste of money for me. $399 in 1995 dollars, about $690 adjusted for inflation with a CPI calculator.