I want a Saturn, and have some questions

[ryu]

Randy is right, and AFAIK, no SEGA-made SCART cable exists for the Saturn that isn't RGB-capable. Beware of third-party ones, though.

Any idea where I could get my hands on an official one? there's currently only 3rd party stuff on ebay

[Kilmaattikahn]

Try one of these stores. I don't know if they're official, but there should be no problem with the lead being third-party as long as it does output RGB and not merely composite. You'll have to trust the seller's word, as there's no way to tell from the outside.

One very important thing to keep in mind: DO NOT purchase a Japanese SCART lead, as it is wired differently and will fry your TV (or something like that, I've never tried it nor do I intend to). You must use a PAL SCART cable with your Japanese console if you're plugging it to an European TV.

[ryu]

DO NOT purchase a Japanese SCART lead, as it is wired differently and will fry your TV

Woah, never knew of that. thanks for the warning.

So the way it turned out I own a Saturn now. Got a couple of "just-in-case" questions:

- what does "access" mean? Doesn't seem to be about loading. And is there anything I shouldn't be doing while the red light is blinking (reseting, opening the cd-drive)?

- is it okay to just open the drive while the console is turned on to switch games?

btw, thanks for all the input I've gotten from you guys. You helped me a lot.

[Drum]

Play: Battle Monsters, Virtual Hydlide, Shinobi Legions, Astal, Princess Crown, Nights.

Will post more when I think of more.

[ryu]

^NiGHTS aside, these games seem pretty odd on first glance. Might take a closer look at them at a later time though.

Just figured I need to replace the console's battery. According to wikipedia a 3v lithium battery is needed. Can I put a battery bought from any region in there, or do I need to take care I'm getting a special type of this battery?

[Dragoforce]

Just figured I need to replace the console's battery. According to wikipedia a 3v lithium battery is needed. Can I put a battery bought from any region in there, or do I need to take care I'm getting a special type of this battery?

Any battery will do fine, no region protection there

Did anyone mention three dirty dwarves btw?

[ryu]

Thanks for the fast answer! That's good to hear, since I can buy them right tomorrow in that case.

But I feel stupid having asked that in the first place. Found it out on my own before having read your post in like 2 minutes. : /

TDD looks pretty ... much even more odd than some off the stuff drum has recommended. Eh.

[Drum]

^NiGHTS aside, these games seem pretty odd on first glance. Might take a closer look at them at a later time though.

They're mostly just oddities/curiosities/so-bad-it's-good games. If you aren't interested in that sort of stuff and you've had your fill of shmups ... you may not get much value out of a Saturn.

[ryu]

That sure is what they looked like. Might not bother any further in that case, because this stuff's really not my thing.

you've had your fill of shmups

I meant to say I had enough saturn-shmups on my to-buy list. I'm still looking forward to all of these games.

[BulletMagnet]

- is it okay to just open the drive while the console is turned on to switch games?

That's probably the best way to do it, honestly - opening the cover while the console is on will automatically stop the disc from spinning and return to the "home" screen, while just shutting off the power leaves the disc whirling until it slows down on its own, which can complicate things a bit.

I actually have no idea what the "access" light means either, I'd be interested to know myself, heh.

[Ex-Cyber]

Just figured I need to replace the console's battery. According to wikipedia a 3v lithium battery is needed. Can I put a battery bought from any region in there, or do I need to take care I'm getting a special type of this battery?

It's a CR2032, which is probably the most common type of lithium button cell battery. It was commonly used in things like cheap personal organizers and electronic dictionaries/bibles that are too thin for the usual AAA/AA cells but need more current/voltage/energy than a watch battery has. It's also pretty common on PC motherboards as the CMOS backup battery. Pretty much the only way you could screw it up would be buying a version with solder tabs, and you generally need to go looking for those in order to find them.

[Elixir]

Virtual Hydlide

Virtual Hydlide isn't fun despite being bad, it's literally like playing Demon's Souls at 3 fps.

[ryu]

Time to get a memory cartridge.

So I'm sorta confused that sega had apparently released multiple models of these. Are there any compatibility issues with certain types of saturn models, or am I free to choose just any backup cart?

[E. Randy Dupre]

Fairly sure that Sega only released one save-game memory cart. You're probably getting mixed up with the RAM and ROM carts that came with certain games, or the third-party ones that did both jobs.

[ryu]

No, I'm pretty sure these are both memory storage cards, they even have the same description on their boxes. just one box is sort of pink (HSS-0138) while the other is sorta yellow (HSS-0111).
I'm talking about the official japanese cards btw.