Sega Saturn Development! The Sophia Systems Programming Box - H4G

[@ReigningSemtex]

The number 1 show on youtube in terms of having a regrettable name choice 😂

[@hard4games]

Its true haha!

[@Esth.1]

Immediately liked the video after this joke though lol

[@ZachAttackIsBack]

Regrettable, but unforgettable.

[@mr-meek]

I don't know what's regrettable about being hard. I'm hard right now. 11/10 would hard again

[@rizma5432]

ReigningSemtex 😂😂

[@coreytrevor1920]

The guy who created his own Saturn cpus is insanely skilled

[@awesomechad7716]

From what I found, this development unit was created in early June 1994

[@btarg1]

Modern day devkits: $299 Devkits then: $99999999999999

[@mogo2433]

Not sure if you can answer this for me or not, but I am trying to find out if you absolutely need to have a DevKit to make games for Saturn or just a PC and the proper software such as joEngine?

[@Mr.Bluemask]

@@mogo2433 I think nowadays most people try programming for an emulator first and then if it works there they just burn a disc and use PseudoSaturn to try it out on actual hardware

[@theannoyedmrfloyd3998]

Dump that Street Fighter The Movie ISO on the web and somebody will get it working!

[@zuppoblitz6627]

LOL as if. It’s likely he’ll only show gameplay, he’s a collector. If he dumps it then it would be worth less money.

[@theannoyedmrfloyd3998]

Yorick He dumps it and the value isn't diminished one bit. Anyone who thinks that way is ignorant and selfish.

[@JaredConnell]

@@zuppoblitz6627 tony dumps everything he can whether he owns it or not as long as the owner is ok with it. The only way he wont dump it is if the owner doesnt want it out there. He is a preservationist not a greedy collector only in it for the money

[@DessertArbiter]

@@JaredConnell andrew, the guy who lends h4g a lot of his rare debug and prototype stuff, dumps his carts and game discs usually, in fact its probably already on archive.org, im sure if you search on google youll find it

[@frizzykid100]

I've been watching this channel probably since your Ocarina of time beta quest series and after you made that joke about your channels name I finally understood the meaning of your channel name. I feel really dumb now.

[@hard4games]

(Pats on the back)

[@retroscooter2119]

My Sega Saturn died this year. RIP Saturn "I was the only one who actually liked sonic r"

[@testarossa7993]

Hope you can fix it. Or at least sell it for parts

[@retroscooter2119]

@@testarossa7993 I'm probably not gonna sell it to many memories but I think it's far from fixable

[@edwin8808]

Was not the Saturn dead even before it was born?! :P

[@testarossa7993]

@@retroscooter2119 Damn. :(

[@retroscooter2119]

@@edwin8808 the Saturn is awesome dude

[@ArcadeFreak-gw5rp]

Saturn one of my favorite and underrated systems, great video this thing is awesome.

[@nice8D]

This looks amazing, the fact that it can support retail games is the real cherry on top! :)

[@aortaplatinum]

Imagine dropping $31,000 on a devkit only to discover the Saturn used two chips sharing the same memory bus Fr these things were like the fuckin Holy Grail, I remember Pandamonium talking about one studio who only had one devkit and they had to like ferry it across the office and jerry rig it into working every time they needed to hook it up somewhere

[@commonsensei8719]

Damnn Tony on point with his jokes today!! xD

[@reyellis3172]

Excellent use of the Magic Knight Rayearth Saturn game OST

[@sega-re-trop-vieux]

Fun fact : the Sophia was introduced in early 94 and some revisions came trough the year. The last revision was in 96. Something also interesting is that some games use only 1 cpu and therefore you can just use 1 cpu on the Sophia instead of 2 ( I still have to check that information to be sure ).There are around 50 units in the world ( according to internet). My Sophia is August 94 and has a 1.003 firmware.

[@electronash]

"It was just.. incredibly, stupidly expensive..." That sounds a lot like SGI stuff from back then. lol I only recently confirmed that you can actually use the off-the-shelf SH2 chips to replace the CPUs in the Saturn, 32x, and Sophia box. I sent the link to Shane, and he also designed those new PCBs to replace the CPU adapters in the Sophia dev kit. I believe he said he tried some of the replacement CPUs on Sophia, and they worked fine in it. ;) I haven't personally tried the chips in an original 32x yet, but they seem to work OK on my (unfinished) 32x FPGA core.

[@electronash]

There was a mild rumour that the SH-2 chips used on the Saturn and 32x are slightly modified versions, compared to the off-the-shelf chips. And the same for the SH-4 used in the Dreamcast, although I only ever found one article online that stated that. I'm not sure about the SH-4 yet, but I'm fairly certain there is no difference at all between the SH2 / SH-2, from everything I've seen so far.

[@electronash]

twitter.com/AshEvans81/status/1019571478096990213?s=20

[@electronash]

There was also a long-running rumour that the SH-2 chips that Sega used for 32x and Saturn actually had some code burned into internal ROM. This was also disproven very recently... The code on the Saturn gets loaded into the SH-2 RAM by the 68000 (or possibly via DMA). The "BIOS" code on the 32x is stored in one of the other custom Sega ASICs, too.

[@dqwno4900]

i want to program for the Saturn. I want to make a homebrew game. the Saturn is one of my favorite game consoles and it’s an interesting piece of hardware. I would like to take more advantage of the hardware than most games did, and eventually take full advantage of the hardware. I respect Shane greatly, he did all us Saturn fans a solid. he actually made an SH-2 that looks genuine to the original. i’m sure it works exactly like the original too. Major kudos to Shane!!

[@matthewshafer9545]

Sony actually released a $750 Playstation 1 dev kit to the general public in 1997 . You had to order it directly from Sony and it came via mail . Windows based SDK . You wrote games in C . And the unit was the exact same size as a regular ps 1, except it was this sweet dark dark grey . On top of that, Sony was even cool enough to publish some of the better games on there playstation underground demo disks they released via gaming mags all over the world .

[@thaddeusmcgrath]

I love the show and my wife really enjoys when I sing along with the intro music. Really heightens the mood for the entertainment!

[@NeonTheon]

Thanks to this channel, 'THEY BECOME HAAAAARRRRRRRRRDDDDDDD' will forever be seared into my mind. Never leave.

[@yt_user1772]

I am one person who didn't liked Sega Saturn startup after seeing corruption's of the BIOS. Great video! Love that video's with some prototype's

[@skykid4000]

SEGA Saturn, it was always meant to have 2 processors. The story of an extra processor being a last minute add-on is just a myth. One processor was always intended to deal with backgrounds independently and the other for the sprites or polygons in the main event. Which yes, made it hard to develop for. Not a mistake , an intention long agreed before the PlayStation came out.

[@pabloxd1239]

i keed hearing that, you have any link to know the real story

[@Christopher-N]

(4:56) That neon lamp switch. Reminds me of the power managers that one would set their monitors on top of, and would have individual lit switches for PC, Monitor, Printer, Aux1, Aux2, and a Master switch.

[@DeathCult696]

4:56 fun fact - the SCSI port was originally going to be pronounced "Sexy" but after a short HR meeting with its developer, he changed it. I like to call it by its true name

[@DeathCult696]

@Brad Viviviyal It might have been less official then the internet lets on but according to the wiki and the comptech class I took.... "Until at least February 1982, ANSI developed the specification as "SASI" and "Shugart Associates System Interface;"[6] however, the committee documenting the standard would not allow it to be named after a company. Almost a full day was devoted to agreeing to name the standard "Small Computer System Interface", which Boucher intended to be pronounced "sexy", but ENDL's[7] Dal Allan pronounced the new acronym as "scuzzy" and that stuck.[4]" edit: Heres a link the SCSI wiki page that jumps straight to the "History" section. The third paragraph is the one I referenced. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCSI#History

[@JaredConnell]

@Brad Viviviyal what you were there at that one specific meeting? Somehow i doubt that lol

[@Mr.Frog21]

The Intro Song is the best.

[@legendsflashback]

Great video never saw this before

[@adankseasonads935]

Sega Rally Championship is an awesome game. Had tons of fun playing with a friend back in the day.

[@hellman9655]

I love the obscure tech you bring to light on your channel

[@kbhasi]

4:59 On your PC back in the day, those big switches directly switched the AC side of the power supply, and this was before PCs gained ACPI with soft power.

[@420HBKHHHDX8]

You are hard 4 games? I'm hard for your name! STILL! After so many years! Much love :*

[@Luix]

Multi cpu programming is dificult in any actual programming language, imagine on assembler.

[@Liquidouz]

Noo thank you..

[@johneygd]

Nowadays multi core processors are pretty common, along with double the ram for it, so am really curious to see what can be pushed out of the sega saturn anno 2019.

[@ViewbobTrue]

I dig the name, but I remember back when I first found this show at around 12 or 13, I was always petrified my parents would walk in during the intro. Also, does a computer read the Street Fighter Movie Game disc? If so, I bet you could rip the iso and burn it to another disc to pop in the machine!

[@crf80fdarkdays]

Haha that's funny af

[@Delirious365]

0:59 is that a Panasonic VCR DVD recorder digital tuner in the back ?

[@DerfJagged]

Awesome vid as usual. Just as a suggestion, filter out the super high frequencies so that the parts with CRTs on don't bug headphone wearers :)

[@doodoobrn]

I'm a Bernie fan, made my S10 forum name Hard4Bernard, as well as some Hard4Bernard t-shirts. It's very progressive sentiment

[@wizzenberry]

Lol it’s almost as if they didn’t want people to develop games on the Saturn 🤦‍♂️😂😂😂

[@eyevou]

Subtitles added. Wonderful!

[@Cinicraft00]

Obscure hardware used for development... man I love this shit!

[@wojiaobill]

Thanks to Shane Battye for his MASSIVE... amount of information

[@PKGangsta18]

Those units are known to experience serious hardware failure. The capacitors tend to go out on a lot of used ones :( ...and yes, they can play backups lol

[@GameInterest]

Regretable name choice? I'll think we're tied. I choose "Game Interest". That's just embarrassing. I picked the first thing that popped into my head after I wanted to post my first video and had to make an account to do so. The no name IPA I was drinking probably helped too...

[@AdamSmithNES]

Great stuff Tony! Hope y'all are doin' dandy n'such, what am I typing right now good god

[@thecompletedluigitwat4827]

You guys should get a Statistician or something to work out roughly how many blue carts n64 are out there. And do a video on it.

[@robursu4u]

You might regret the name, but I sure don't.

[@chane2k1]

Those custom processor boards are amazing. Did you try region switching the unit when booting the Street Fighter the movie game?

[@KingKongFresh00]

Michael Pama I was thinking the same thing.

[@BushidoBrownSama]

pretty sure Saturn RF adapters just take composite, mono & power from the saturn to create an RF signal

[@jaydavis6834]

So damn cool! I enjoy hearing about the history of the saturn. It still surprises me that as one of the first cd based consoles, it did so damn poorly :[

[@subtledemisefox]

I think the Playstation was the first CD based console that was actually successful.

[@lepidotos]

cds sucked back then and they still suck now.

[@Thevaporwaveraver]

another great video... thank you again !

[@polygonplus9999]

Man, I would kill to get a Sega Saturn devkit.

[@triggahappyyt5420]

Sf probably needed the dip switches adjusted to work.

[@ねこさく50]

英語わからんけど、なんかゲーム愛あるなあ。

[@doctor_sega]

Coooooooolllllllll!!!!!!!!!! THx for that.

[@MaxStrike1988]

Thank you very much for showing us the historical part of video games. Greetings.

[@scoobyrex247]

Thanks roy batty.

[@KetwunsGamingPad]

Omg what a privilege to see an Australian reproduction of circuit boards. It's not very common to see hardware components ike this made from Australia.

[@ply159]

Always great Tony, where do you get all this items?? Incredible!!

[@Vienna3080]

Sega Lord X would love this

[@overwatch761]

He's probably lording himself all over this right now. 😂😂

[@hard4games]

Been enjoying his content quite a bit lately!

[@doodoobrn]

I want it! I want those Sega cd-rs too *drools*

[@Quest4GloryGamer]

You should incorporate a CRT tv into your set up. Playing games like these just begs for a CRT tv.

[@sagebondcast8115]

Best name Choice

[@OscarTorresWork]

Thanks for the info son intriguing.

[@hard4games]

No problem, Dad.

[@sagiriizumi8079]

Way to promote yourself and show little of the Saturn

[@GrayFoxGamingHD]

Neat Stuff , i would love to take a crack at programming this thing.

[@Tornado1994]

SH-2 or "SH-2 Aurora" isn't Two Processors. Its a Dual Core 32-bit CPU Split on Two Wafers. The Reason why its on Two Wafers is because Sega was forced to rush Saturn's Beta Design into production 4 months TOO early, before a Single Chipped, Dual Core SH-2 32-bit CPU Processor could be achieved in pipeline.

[@JeffisWinning]

Wait, it boots CD-R discs which have no data ring (the copy protection) straight up without a mod chip? This dev machine could be useful to the home brewery scene.

[@valentine_puppy]

For the record, Saturn NEVER failed or was a failure. While it didn't out sell the competition, it did make more than enough units sold to be considered a success, Just not like the other systems which, were former Sega Technology in certain ways anyway. Saturn is also still one of the hardest systems to emulate. Yes, that's a good thing as there is work to be done and more to keep coming over the years. Sony you can play that POC on your refrigerator and toaster.

[@NickHazletonMusic]

I’m curious if people still make games with this kits. Probably not because everything can be done with modern equipment

[@crteaser9726]

6:58 if you press the disc again at the top of the disc menu alot of the time it will force it to launch sometimes needing to pull it out and let it reset the drive to it's original position probably just a bug but I have a v saturn modded with a dev bios and I have to do this to get some stuff to launch

[@noiselessfox7618]

now i remember why was so fond of youtube once - it was videos like that ಠ◡ಠ

[@OriginalMegamanX]

Very cool. $30k plus for the complete dev kit back in the mid 90's, wow! That is truly MAD money right there. I just got my first Saturn this year and only now have been able to experience the library for myself. The Saturn library really is good but with the difficulties surrounding development for the system it's really sad in the sense that we will probably never know the actual limits of what the Saturn was/is capable of. If I'm not mistaking the Atari jaguar suffered a similar fate from pretty much the same problem. 32 bit processors x2 =64 bit. Developers had massive difficulties figuring out how to utilize both processors effectively and as a result the console and it's library suffered.

[@infesticon]

Don't forget though nintendo insisted you had a silicon graphics engine in america and europe and those where super exspensive computers. In japan they let them make simpler and cheeper games.

[@stefanegger]

try to copy the non working CD. Newser CD drives usually read better and with a bit of luck it may can read or boot the 1:1 copy if, say, the laser is not reading the old CD well enough. Sure new CD-Rs are also a problem, but maybe worth a try.

[@Banzeken]

I highly recommend that you check out Project Z-Treme for the Sega Saturn. It's a tech demo game made by XL2 with his own game engine capable of very impressive texture mapped 3D graphics for the Saturn, but it also does lighting and particle effects. Runs at a very good frame-rate too. Check out XL2's channel, ask him for a download link and subscribe to him. He has done an incredible job. /watch?v=SLu5X2B8utg

[@dansaikyo6664]

Sega thicc

[@BushidoBrownSama]

wish we could have seen it boot from scsi

[@RetroAli]

Oooh I'm here early. Yay new video!

[@hard4games]

Hi!

[@tonymcnamee2741]

Wow! Retail compatibility!

[@hard4games]

Surprisingly rare for dev consoles of the time lol

[@deucemcallister13]

The project name on that disc is RaRi--

[@lancepelissier5510]

Fur that to have normal CD-R the dev system must done something that the retail systems did not do. The Playstation for expull had wobulla in the data steam. CD-R disks didn't have the same wobulla that's how i knew that an burned game was being used. CD-Rs with the wobulla were only made by Sony fur dev kits. SEGA GD-R disks were just like CD-R disks but didn't work without an boot disk since the boot disk had the information needed to run them. Their fur the Mil-CD loophole fur Dreamcast home brews.

[@OnlineWithRyanB]

So some games are programmed only using one SH-2? If you take out the slave SH-2 will retail games programmed without the slave SH-2 boot?

[@ratona4411]

@shanebatty thanku very much

[@subtledemisefox]

Did you switch the region with the dip switches before trying Street Fighter?

[@RandomizationShow]

*sees thumbnail* “oh no”

[@mattpowell8369]

Serious mafia vibes when you start talking about huge amounts of money. Glad I don't owe you it.

[@garrettnewell]

I'm always hard 4 games. 😤

[@mogo2433]

Anyone can answer this for me, Do you absolutely need a DevKit to develop games for Saturn?

[@anrb107]

un prezzo assurdo ...la sega ha fatto delle scelte pessime...ma ha creato saturn e dreamcast...due capolavori

[@Alianger]

Does anyone have the sega sound library/cybersound gm library of instruments for saturn? It was used in a lot of games apparently

[@HmmClassicMistake]

I was hoping for something new and informative but it was just a custom Sophia running a couple of games

[@ix8750]

Yeah well I was hoping for something intelligent and purposeful in the comments but instead I found you. Life's full of dissapointments homie.

[@HmmClassicMistake]

@@ix8750 fair enough lol

[@ErroneousClique]

Street Fighter the Movie the Game wont boot? What a shame. :P Really though, disc rot is a bummer. =/

[@nickwallette6201]

Have you tried Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game: The Backup Copy?

[@auto1lija]

Did you try the region switch with Street Fighter The Movie Game?

[@hard4games]

Yep

[@jeffl6515]

How do you pull audio from AV s-video looking output?

[@averagearchuser]

Next one should be the Wii U dev kit

[@Z64sports]

What if my TV only supports RF?

[@adidas1984x]

We want to see the street fighter the movie info

[@therealfox]

Try Street Fighter The Movie Game on an emulator on PC. Maybe you can get it running?

[@MegaManNeo]

I wonder if you could also program 32X games on that thing. Pretty impressive beast albeit a questionable marketing move from SEGA alltogether.

[@hard4games]

I'm pretty sure a 32X dev unit is just 2x SH-2's wired directly into a potato with composite out.

[@MegaManNeo]

@@hard4games Glorious reply 🤓

[@Tornado1994]

@@hard4games Nope. 32X Mars Dev Unit is SH-1 with an Added Thread, Hench "SH2" minus the Dash.

[@CardboardSliver]

It's just two Casio calculators from 1987 wired to a car battery, plugged into a toaster from Sears.

[@AtariBorn]

@@CardboardSliver ...that stomped the shit out of the SuperFX chip...

[@flamesburnred]

I thought Saturn needed to have that wobble shit on the disk? This could be good news for the emulation scene.

[@nickwallette6201]

Uh.. why? You can read a Saturn disc in any old CD-ROM drive. You just can't boot a copy on a retail Saturn.

[@flamesburnred]

@@nickwallette6201 Cause emulation suffered from the wobble...that box don't use the wobble, so I'd assume it runs a different fw

[@AtariBorn]

The copy protection was just to get past the boot. After that, it's just a CD-ROM, which is what the Dev kits read.

[@AltimaNEO]

THEY BECOME HARD! THEY'RE HARD FOR GAMES

[@admonius9668]

Regrettable name but great taste in beer!

[@TheNews1990]

Switch it to VCD for the Street Fighter: The Movie The Game.

[@scribblargh]

VCD is Virtual CD, which would be a drive (or PC) connected to the presumably SCSI connector right under the switch. It bypasses the real CD drive completely.

[@TheNews1990]

@@scribblargh I believe it is video CD not virtual CD, and it doesn't bypass the disc drive... It just makes the drive read VCDs like the one that game uses. That game doesn't use a standard CD.

[@crf80fdarkdays]

@@scribblargh no

[@TheNews1990]

First Dual-Core / Multi-Core system.