Sega Saturn CD protection finally cracked after 20 years.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOyfZex7B3E&sns=em

This is a really interesting video that just shows the work some go into to reverse engineer a system.

This guy has finally managed to reverse engineer the CD copy protection on the Saturn drive so that original discs can be ripped and loaded via USB stick.

His eventual solution is to use the VCD video encoder slot on the back on the console. So just like an Everdrive you can slot it in, connect a USB drive with some cue and bin files for ripped discs and run the games.

This was purely started for the reason that a lot of original drives are now failing.

It's definitely interested me in owning a Saturn.

This also opens up homebred much more for the system.

In addition he worked closely with the emulation scene,using what they had already discovered to speed up his own work, but he has also passed back his work to aid the emulation creators. Very nice.

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Always wanted to own a Saturn again but now definitely.

It has become unrealistic in recent years due to the price of many games shooting up. This will remove that problem, along with all cd reading issues.

Another unique feature of this new hardware will be the ability for the Saturn to write to usb, not just read. Great for homebred developers, but also could open up some interesting ideas in the future whereby a game could write user created content. Level editors for classic Saturn games? Minecraft, Doom etc.

Another cool idea he has is to allow mounting of a hd in place of the CD unit, so much like a PS2 or xbox you can have all your games ready to go in one place.

There is also a similar project for the original Playstation. I reported on it some time ago but haven't looked at that in some time.

And also another similar one that replaces a Dreamcast drive with a USB drive. That's one I want to investigate more too.

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Brilliant video.
I would love to have that skill.

Saturn was not that good as a console in my opinion, as exciting as this might sound, it's not really interesting (for me).

I agree. It was killed early on due to the Playstation. It did however have a few unique exclusives, and I think enjoyed more releases in the US and Japan. One area it might be interesting for are the first party Sega arcade ports.

If this USB device does become available and I see a Saturn for not much money I might still be tempted just to explore the system. Although I keep reading emulation is getting quite good now. Probably also due to this guy's work.

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