20 Pin modchip.Any external wiring?

[Darklegion]

I just opened up a model 1 saturn I had sitting in a mailbox for several months and found, to my suprise, a 20 pin modchip inside. It also came with a "magic strong card" some form of hong-kong swap disk.

Anyway it had a wire hanging lose connected to pin 13 of the long chip on the right at a via next to the word "white" and it was very poorly soldered (big solder ball, possible dry joint).

I am not sure where this point goes to but I suspect it may be a power wire since it is not connected to any of the vias on the border which I suspect are connected to a ground plane. Anyway, I would like to confirm that is a 5v+ wire and whether I need an extra ground wire besides the one that is likely in the ribbon connector.

Here is a description of the chip:

Has 2 20 pin connectors on left with 7003 written next to it and "GARY" on the bottom. On the top is written "OUT IN SS CD RR".

There are 2 chips next to it with the model name/number scratched off, a 18 pin chip and a 24 pin chip. Next to that is 2 ports for 21 pin support.

Thanks

 

[mal]

My guess would be that it is a 5v connection. It shouldn't need a ground wire as I believe that would be taken care of by the ribbon cables.

Could you take a picture of the mod for us?

 

[Berty]

I'd be real interested in seeing this one. Would anyone be willing to reverse engineer it? I would be willing to donate towards the cause.

 

[Darklegion]

I don't have a digital cameera so I can't really take a photo of this one.However I have seen pictures of this one around before,so I doubt it is particularly rare.It came in what looks to be a JAP or US saturn (had 125 V supply,which I swapped for a PAL supply I had lying around).Also runs in NTSC.I can't get it to boot as yet and don't really have too much time for fiddling around with this,but hopefully I'll find some spare time to do this soon.

 

[Darklegion]

Well I was having a look around google images and stumbled across this

Which looks a bit like what i have but the chips are arranged differently (and there are 3),there are better markings,and the 21 pin connectors are hooked up instead of the 20 pin ones.I see there is also a c2 point along with the 5v...anyone know what it is for? I am far too tired to do anything today but may have a decent attempt at getting it going tommorrow.It could just be that the chip is crap though since it looks like a crappy clone and although I've generally had decent experiences with clones,you'll always get a crappy chip here and there on any system and I have no idea of the original source of this chip.

BTW those unsanded ics on that picture could be useful in developing a homebrew all-model modding solution....which is something that need to be done since no modchips are being produced anymore AFAIK (certainly not model 1 chips)

 

[mal]

The area marked "C2" would be for a capacitor that probably isn't necessary for the mod to work, so they left it off.

BTW, there is apparently now a method to hack a 21 pin mod to fit a 20 pin Saturn. See here.

 

[Darklegion]

Well it turns out that the 21 pin connectors were hooked up instead of the 20 pin connectors(despite the markings)But I could not get it to work in my 32 pin model 2 either,so I think I could probably write this one off.