How long til our Saturns are all dead?

[farren]

Anyone had consoles die from age? My NES died on the shelf so to say, and I'm afraid to pull out my Gen+SegaCD to see if they still work.

How long til all our Saturns are dead? We probably need to back up all our original Saturn games by 2010, since even pressed CDs don't last very long. A lot of the original wide-spread audio CDs from the late 80s have 'wormholes' in them. I suppose the games aren't our primary concern though, but rather the hardware. I can only hope Saturn emulation will one day be perfected.

 

[RitualOfTheTrout]

Id imagine CD/DVD based systems will fail long before say a SNES of Genesis (Aside from the cart slot) simply due to the fact that those older systems have little or no moving parts. Id imagine all Saturns will fail either with the CD lens, track or motor long before anything else happens. (assuming they are cared for properly)

 

[it290]

The Saturn is probably the hardiest cd-based system of all time, though.

 

[Malakai]

The SNES systems actually go out more than any other systems I've ever messed with. For a long time, I bought and sold all types of video games both locally and on ebay, and early on, SNES systems seemed to be almost undestructable. However, I guess time has taken its toll on them. Almost every system I have bought in the last two years has been dead, while pretty much every genesis system worked, atleast after some major cleaning. About 90-95% of NES systems eventually worked, most after major cleaning, some with replacing the cartridge connectors, and probably around 85% of atari 2600 worked, atleast after major cleaning.

Almost 100% of Playstation systems worked, while a lot of them did have laser problems (jumpy scenes in games and such,) and around 50% of dreamcast systems worked perfectly, while the other 50% had laser problems (loading some games, while not loading others that would work on other dreamcast systems.) Pretty much 100% of 3DO systems worked fine as well.

PS2, from my own experiences, are probably worst than any other newer system. I bought one new and had to keep taking them back like three times, and have had friends that had to take them back and/or buy new ones two times or more per person.

Originally posted by RitualOfTheTrout@Thu, 2005-07-21 @ 04:07 PM

Id imagine CD/DVD based systems will fail long before say a SNES of Genesis (Aside from the cart slot) simply due to the fact that those older systems have little or no moving parts. Id imagine all Saturns will fail either with the CD lens, track or motor long before anything else happens. (assuming they are cared for properly)

[post=137037]Quoted post[/post]​

 

[Berty]

They will go on indefinatly if you can still get the parts for them. The most common problem for these consoles now is the electrolitic capacitors failing. But they are easily replaced if you can find the right ones.

Im more worried about my collection of Jap saturn games. 🙁

 

[RitualOfTheTrout]

Originally posted by it290@Fri, 2005-07-22 @ 12:16 AM

The Saturn is probably the hardiest cd-based system of all time, though.

[post=137042]Quoted post[/post]​

This is true, iv only ever come across one Saturn with laser/Cd motor problems. Iv had more trouble with PSX's (stand them on the side to get them to read disks etc..) and P2s, cannot read disc errors and the like. My NES, Genesis, and SNES still work great for the most part, aside form the occasional problem with dust on connectors.

Berty brings up another point however though, I wonder do game carts have a potentially longer life span than CDs? Id think so.

 

[CrazyGoon]

CD's are very durible media. I think they are supposed to last 100+ years, if stored properly. GD's and DVD's, I suspect have a layer of coating on them, which would deteriorate over time, even if properly stored. DVD's are more sensitive to scratches than CD's, and GD's are a lot more sensitive to scratches than DVD's.

And Berty - back up your games .

 

[Berty]

Originally posted by CrazyGoon@Sun, 2005-07-24 @ 12:19 AM



And Berty - back up your games .

[post=137170]Quoted post[/post]​

Dont worry, I have got a 200gig hard drive with nearly all of my staurn games on it now, now all i have to do is buy a few dual layer DVD-R's

 

[lordofduct]

well... DVD-Rs only have a life time of like 7-20 years depending on how you store... most likely toward the lower side of the pool.

Mastered DVDs and CDs have very long lifespans because of how its written... DVD-Rs and CD-Rs are written in a chemical that changes from transparent to ... ermm... not transparent. So the chemical kinda degrades rather fast in comparison.

So I'd say that a DVD-R probably would have roughly the same lifespan as your HDD. (10-15 years with non intensive use and good care... i.e. as a storage drive as opposed to a OS drive.)

[EDIT] What is the life span of a ROM inside a cartridge? I know PROMS and (e)EPROMS have rather moderate life spans. But I can not find any info on a regular mastered ROM chips lifespan.

 

[farren]

Originally posted by CrazyGoon@Sun, 2005-07-24 @ 12:19 AM

CD's are very durible media. I think they are supposed to last 100+ years, if stored properly. GD's and DVD's, I suspect have a layer of coating on them, which would deteriorate over time, even if properly stored. DVD's are more sensitive to scratches than CD's, and GD's are a lot more sensitive to scratches than DVD's.

And Berty - back up your games .

[post=137170]Quoted post[/post]​

100 years is very unrealistic. Like I said, some of the first original batches of pressed cds have gone bad already. Modern pressed CDs will last quite a bit longer though. The dyes in CD-Rs tend to degrade. DVD-Rs are thought to have even shorter lifespans. No CD ever produced will last 100 years.

 

[lordofduct]

Seriousily the cheaper (not as cheap as DVD-Rs...) route I trust most is HDD for backing up. A 200gig drive is rather affordable. Don't need anything really fast if its gonna be for just storage. And keep the use of the drive to a minimum. It will last you a long time, a lot longer then DVD-Rs, shit I have CD-Rs that just sit in cases (just for backup) from only 5 years ago and already they show the wear of time and I have problems reading them on my computer.

Like stated twice above DC-Rs and DVD-Rs don't have much of a lifetime on them unless you store them really well. (Climate control in seperate cases so moisture and extreme heat don't get to them along with lack of scratchin')

 

[mal]

I don't bother backing up to CD or DVD anymore, I just keep multiple copies of important files on different machines.

One of these days I'll get a real monster of a server case and go nuts with a bunch of mirrored RAID drives...

 

[Zaksund]

I suppose the games aren't our primary concern though, but rather the hardware.

Yeah, I used to be worried about that aswell.

In fact at one time I had 5 of these things!! :lol: (1 for play the rest for storage for the future, yeah...talk about paranoid hording)

But then one day my main Saturn stops reading CD's. So I do the RW tweak again, alcohol the lens, new laser cable....nothing works. But before I accept that my Saturn is dead, I roll into the Salvation Army, get a junk Saturn for about $8, and put its CD block in my Saturn. Lo & behold, it worked like a charm. It seems that the laser on the junk Saturn was hardly ever used as I had to tweak the power like less than 15 degrees to get it to read RW's. Hell, it works better now than it did back in 97!! So I'm not too worried anymore and gave 3 away to deserving fellow gamers 😉 (kept a jap. model 1 cause they just look cool!). Now I can't stand when people collect gaming stuff they never use...how ironic.

But as a system the Saturn is pretty easy to troubleshoot. I've never had one just up & die on me, ever. Just remember that if your Saturn is having issues, before you do anything else...check the laser. And give it some compressed air once in a while along with a cleaning CD. I find that most folks really don't care for their gaming systems (play it on the carpet, never clean it...etc.) and yet still expect them to work problem-free, but if you maintain the thing it should last you quite a while.

Already my PS2 has given me more crap than my Saturn has in almost a decade of CONSTANT use. Now that's sad. Though honestly, I don't maintain it as often...or kiss it goodnight...Ugh, perhaps I've said too much 😀

But the moral is: Be good to your Saturn, and it'll be good to you. Don't worry about it dying any time soon...These things are incredibly tough.

See ya!!

 

[Quakester2000]

Lasers are the loose connection with CD consoles as they usually wear out over time, at least on a cartridge console you there are no moving parts and connectors can be cleaned or bent back into place. As for pressed CD's the shelf life is about 25 years before oxidization will accour of the metal layer though it can be longer depending on how it was pressed but then again most tests were done with artificial aging and not real life scenarios on how they are used. As for CD-R's supposidly the high quality ones have shelf lives of about 100 years but really there is no real way to know. As for DVD+R's there is a company already producing discs that supposidly have a shelf life of 100 years as they use a gold for the recording layer check the story here = http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/12158

 

[racketboy]

I have tons of DVD-Rs of data -- my ISO collection, Xvid rips, misc data backup.

I have about 450GB of hard drive space, but DVDs are cheaper for the GB for now, so if it's stuff that I don't access on a normal basis, it goes on a DVD.

By the time the DVDs start aging significantly, the will mostly likely be transfered to my 4 terrabyte hard drive or burned to Blu Ray 😀

 

[APE992]

I can't recall the number of times I used to hear about how our cassettes and tapes would be dead in X years. Most of them still work pretty well. The best we can hope for is someone to come up with laser replacements for our consoles, or prefected emulation. With the PS2 and XBox you can run your games off a hdd which elimates laser death, at least an early death or a death from continous use. Now if only we could do the same thing with a dreamcast or saturn.