Thinking About Creating A Sega Pc.


Twimfy

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I have a dream....

Somehow I want to eliminate the need to have 5 black boxes and 1 white one sitting in front of my TV with god knows how many wires around without resorting to emulation.

What I want to do is mod a PC case (gonna have to be a large one) so that I can somehow fit in a 32X, Mega CD, Megadrive, Saturn, Dreamcast and maybe MS/GG all in side and run on one power supply with a switch to switch the power between them if nessacary, then have a universal Video out, again if possible, also working on a switch if need be. The CD drives of course would be the real problem but surely there will be a way to get them working on a slide draw mechanism If i just import the laser (or whole CD unit)into a slide bay and extend the wiring to the console mainboards.

The innards of the consoles them selves will just sit bracketed next to each other with cooling fans here and there to let them breathe. As for cart port, a simple universal convertor cart attached to a hole in the case then linked to the original cart by a ribbon cable to suit should work fine.

My only problem with this is that I ain't to great when it comes to Voltages and wiring etc. I want this to be a project just to screw around with over about a year so there is no hurry, but if anyone could suggest some cool ideas/problems/ or advice then that would be great...aesthetically I have it pretty much worked out.
 
Well, seeing as I open every console I ever get just out of interest it won't be too much of a problem. The DC and saturn aren't that component heavy, things are just well spaced out inside. As for the earlier machines, the plastic just makes them look big, with possible exception of the Mega CD.
 
i think, but am not sure, that sumwhere u would be able to get a 5 way switch for the power, where u lead in the live, neutral and earth, into a box, and then a switch negates whch lead the power is going into, a similar thing could be made for the aerial by adapting those sitched that came with every console ever, that let u switch between TV and the console

EDIT: and how u gonna work the controllers?
 
i think, but am not sure, that sumwhere u would be able to get a 5 way switch for the power, where u lead in the live, neutral and earth, into a box, and then a switch negates whch lead the power is going into, a similar thing could be made for the aerial by adapting those sitched that came with every console ever, that let u switch between TV and the console

EDIT: and how u gonna work the controllers?
Again just extending the port from the mainboards with wiring and having a load of ports at the front, I'm not looking for extreme efficiency, just something different. Might make a mock up picture some time soon to give an idea.
 
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This is a very very quick mock up in paint of what I basically want the front of the system to be like.
Twimfy-segapc.JPG
 
do u know how u r gonna hook up the drives to the consoles?

and what about the megadrive volume control?????

Will u be incorperating DC intenet or just forgetting about it

and MS would require more space fo controllers so it would b very easy
 
would there be any way to use the same cd drive for all the cd consoles? also how about chuckin a MS in there for good measure
No not likely seeing as the DC uses GD-ROM and the Saturn's copy protection is built into the CD hardware. As for the MS, I might incoporate it, but to be honest I'm not that big a fan.

And as for hooking up the CD drives, probably just look at the cables that they currently use and replace them with longer if possible, if not I may go for a slightly different desing and make a more "cube" style case with a drive on each side or something, or on the top.

This is something I have just really sort of thought about and have yet to do some serious thinking or planning, I thought I'd put it up here to see if anyone had any major points which may prevent me from wasting my time.
 
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Sigh...all this work. Personally I'd forget about the dreamcast for the time being and wire up a 6-button Megadrive controller with USB adapter to a cheap ( ~500 MHz) PC running linux or Win98 with a custom frontend, allowing me to pick a ROM and auto-start the correct emulator. It would be a lot cheaper, a lot simpler, and a lot more convenient.

EDIT: I know you were expecting this but I had to say it anyway.
 
Sigh...all this work. Personally I'd forget about the dreamcast for the time being and wire up a 6-button Megadrive controller with USB adapter to a cheap ( ~500 MHz) PC running linux or Win98 with a custom frontend, allowing me to pick a ROM and auto-start the correct emulator. It would be a lot cheaper, a lot simpler, and a lot more convenient.
Too easy, I just want to see if it can be done, really I could always just stick em all in a box with a lid and drill some holes in it.
 
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it had been done before... can't remember who/where it was though... :) anyway great idea ;)

to me it just wouldn't be convenient as I take my consoles with me when going somewhere
 
How would I go about making Windows/Linux boot into a Rom selector screen, which then chose the correct emulator for the rom chosen, without seeing any Windows GUI.
 
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