Built in Action Replay

I bought a broken Saturn and the former owner tried to recap it and melted the cart connector so bad the pins were melted together. Since their are no replacements available I designed a board to be able to solder it to the card slot. I have posted the files to GitHub GitHub - bart1ebee/Sega-Saturn-Built-in-Action-Replay Currently it only works with VA 0 and 0.5. I think it will work with VA1 but do not have one to check against. The 2 switches 1 will allow you to disable it the other will swap between action replay and pseudo Saturn kai. Thanks to tzmwx, NoAffinity and RazorX for the info that help me make the modifications.
PXL_20230217_054837017.jpg


PXL_20230217_054822496.jpg
 
I'll post more pictures in a week or so waiting for a new boards to be made. Had an error on the first and was missing an address line and a ground I'm also repurposing the case from the action replay to house the switches for the enable/disable and the swap between action replay and PSK.
 
I'll post more pictures in a week or so waiting for a new boards to be made. Had an error on the first and was missing an address line and a ground I'm also repurposing the case from the action replay to house the switches for the enable/disable and the swap between action replay and PSK.
Very neat. Do you suppose in the future, this can be incorporated with tzmwx's direct save internal memory modification? I'm hoping for an all in one internal solution.
 
Action replays have memory for saves along with ram expansion
I may be mistaken, but I don't recall the memory for saves in the Action Replay allowing for direct saves like the oem Sega back up memory. Is there some sort of software built in to Pseudo that allows direct saves from the Action Replay cart now? All I remember is needing to transfer saves back and forth between the Saturn and the Action Replay a long time ago.

Ex: Dragon Force, new game. Saves automatically to Action Replay memory?

Or is it still a situation where I would need to save on the Saturn internal memory, and then transfer over to Action replay later?
 
^ Yes, use the Memory Card Plus firmware. You can even copy saves using the built in save file manager. This is the way I use mine with Fenrir.
 
^ Yes, use the Memory Card Plus firmware. You can even copy saves using the built in save file manager. This is the way I use mine with Fenrir.
Thank you for the clarification! Just so I'm following correctly, as I'm not familiar with all of Pseudo Saturn's features. An Action Replay Plus flashed with Pseudo can enable all of the following?

* Region free play
* Enables play of back ups
* Direct game save access
* 4mb ram expansion

These are the four main features that I'm curious about.

@cww80 You mentioned the Memory Card Plus firmware, maybe I'm just confusing people now, lol. Trying to sort this all out. Are you saying that the Action Replay Plus can be flashed with the Memory Card Plus firmware, but still maintain the ability to enable 4mb ram play as well? Sorry if I'm just rambling at this point.
 
Yes. You lose the ability to play backups and the Pro Action Replay codes, but with Fenrir it doesn't matter (Obviously) because you can get that with the Pseudo Saturn for Fenrir. (Pro Action Replay Codes) I think the Action Replay Plus is far less annoying when flashed to a Memory Card Plus. I only wish there was a way to get rid of the Save file compression, (Custom firmware anyone?) but I haven't had any issues with it.

p.s. You never get direct save ability when flashing the Action Replay Plus to Pseudo Saturn.
 
I bought a broken Saturn and the former owner tried to recap it and melted the cart connector so bad the pins were melted together. Since their are no replacements available I designed a board to be able to solder it to the card slot. I have posted the files to GitHub GitHub - bart1ebee/Sega-Saturn-Built-in-Action-Replay Currently it only works with VA 0 and 0.5. I think it will work with VA1 but do not have one to check against. The 2 switches 1 will allow you to disable it the other will swap between action replay and pseudo Saturn kai. Thanks to tzmwx, NoAffinity and RazorX for the info that help me make the modifications.
View attachment 8333

View attachment 8334

Recommend:
1.PAL16Vxx chip's stitches would poke into the motherboard, cutting off part of it. or use PLCC
2.U5 & U6:74157 DIP TO SOIC
 

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Recommend:
1.PAL16Vxx chip's stitches would poke into the motherboard, cutting off part of it. or use PLCC
2.U5 & U6:74157 DIP TO SOIC
I plan to cut down the pins on the current through-hole components to get the flush with the board. Currently during testing I have them in sockets to make it easier to move around. I don't know how to get the current setup of the pals I have been looking for information on how to do it. I'd love to make them all surface mount to free up some room and possibly shrink the whole board down.
 
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