Official Sega Neptune?

[Yakumo]

Do you guys remember when I posted about seeing a Famicom clone that looked like the Neptune? Well, I found the photo I took in an old thread today. You can't say this doesn't look like the Neptune. This Famicom clone would be fantasic for making a Neptune mod from a Mega Drive and 32X.



Yakumo

[APE]

Suspiciously so.

[MSX]

You can't say this doesn't look like the Neptune. This Famicom clone would be fantasic for making a Neptune mod from a Mega Drive and 32X.



Yakumo

At first you said it was a squashed Saturn. :P
With this and someone working on custom Neptune molds, I want to see those Neptune mods look like a Neptune now. Hope the Famiclone is at least the size of a Genesis model 2.

[Yakumo]

hehehe, yeah, I did.

I took a look on Yahoo Auctions and there are two of these Neptune looking clones for sale at about 2500 yen after shipping and so on. One is blue and white while the other is red and white. They seem to be slightly larger than a Mega Drive 2 but they have the outputs for video and power on the side of the unit. A real pain in the arse for the modder who doesn't like to cut up mother boards.



Yakumo

[MSX]

You could attempt to cut holes in the back of the case, but then again, you will have nice holes on the side. The case won't look symmetrical either, but that is just a pet peeve.

[Yakumo]

I'm really thinking of buying one to try and mod. If I do mod the system I'll just leave the Famicom outputs on the side and make some new holes around the back. What pisses me off is that I threw away a Mega Drive 2 with a damaged case two weeks ago because I have too many Mega Drives. I must have 5 Mega Drive 1 units and 3 Mega Drive 2s. They just keep coming with Mega Drive game packs I buy from Yahoo Auctions. Anyway, that damaged MD2 case unit would have been an ideal candidate for a case mod job.

[HEX1GON]

Hope it goes well for you Mark.

[jamespoo]

never seen or heard about this thanks for those photos

[MottZilla]

You should remove one of the RCA jacks and see about mounting a Mini-Din for an AV connector. If you can actually fit the MD2 and 32X into it I think it isn't that hard to wire from the 32X video output jack. That would be pretty funny to see a homemade Neptune in the actual style/shape that was shown off. Extra points if you figured out a way to make an expansion cover so you could use the Mega CD with it too.

[Yakumo]

Bummer, I lost the auction for the clone. Not to worry, I'm sure another will turn up.

[l_oliveira]

Why did the hardware designers provide so much memory internally in the MegaCD? I have no idea. It would have been far better to make the word RAM 512KB, and the program RAM 256KB.

Word RAM is built on a pair of 16-bit dual ported Video DRAM (the kind of memory Texas Instruments developed in 1985 and allowed IBM to make the 8514 graphics accelerator) chips which were very expensive back then. It being "Video DRAM" does not mean it's obligatorily a Video RAM. It's strong point is that it can be read at the same time from both sides. So while a raster is reading it through the serial side, the computer can read or write to it on the parallel side.

It's the very same kind of chip the MD1 VDP use as VRAM to be able of draw the screen while it's also doing DMA transfers.

Putting 512KB of it on the system would be prohibitively high cost in 1991 I suppose...


Finally sorry for such a long stretch reply ... lol

[Yakumo]

I picked up one of those Neptune looking Famicom clones today but I've come across a problem, they're tinny!



There's no way anyone will get a Mega Drive and a 32X in to that case. It's just too small. Hmm, so I have another idea. I think a Mega Drive 2 will still be too big so I may pick up a Genesis 3 to squeeze in to the case or failing that one of those Mega Drive on a chip systems with a cartridge port. I don't really want to go down that rout though since those system on a chip things are pretty poor when it comes to sound emulation.

Yakumo

[HEX1GON]

Holyshit, that's tiny... Well if people can squeeze a 2600 into a gamegear then it COULD be possible. Would you be able to fit a Genesis 3 inside that?

[Yakumo]

A Genesis 3 may make it if you cut up t he board but since my soldering skills are really poor I don't fancy doing that to be honest. Hmm..... I'll have a think.

[dutchconsolefreak]

It is indeed way too small to fit the MD and 32x hardware. I think the only solution to recreate the Neptune case is using some kind of 3D printing/rapid prototyping system, but for that you'll need to model the case detailed in some kind of CAD/CAM software. It would probably be best to 3D-scan the original prototype Neptune case for measurements and go from there.

[sayin999]

Ben heck to the rescue! Honestly though I think the best setup would be a sega neptune combo in a mega drive/genesis model 1 case have the best of both worlds including headphone output.

[The Perfect K]

You could attempt to cut holes in the back of the case, but then again, you will have nice holes on the side. The case won't look symmetrical either, but that is just a pet peeve.

Ideally, you'd make a mold of the system then touch it up. A bit of bonding putty can cover the holes on the side in the mold. Also, I'd try to turn the power and reset button into actual pieces of the case, because that's not where they're located on the actual neptune mold.

Speaking of the neptune, I absolutely loved that case. The shiney black plastic on the power and reset buttons represents the age when I feel sega put out their best looking hardware. From late '93 to early '95, Sega hardware and games had this unique look about them. You could look at a game or piece of hardware and instantly know it was sega.

[MottZilla]

There's no way anyone will get a Mega Drive and a 32X in to that case. It's just too small. Hmm, so I have another idea. I think a Mega Drive 2 will still be too big so I may pick up a Genesis 3 to squeeze in to the case or failing that one of those Mega Drive on a chip systems with a cartridge port. I don't really want to go down that rout though since those system on a chip things are pretty poor when it comes to sound emulation.

Yakumo

The single chip/glop top Megadrives that have actual 68000 and vdp circuitry do not emulate sound. It's just implemented poorly, like some Sega produced models. It's still better than the I think "FireCore" Megadrive clones which are just like an ARM cpu running an emulator. In the end you can't beat a good Model 1 Megadrive using RGB video.

[Druid II]

The single chip/glop top Megadrives that have actual 68000 and vdp circuitry do not emulate sound. It's just implemented poorly, like some Sega produced models. It's still better than the I think "FireCore" Megadrive clones which are just like an ARM cpu running an emulator. In the end you can't beat a good Model 1 Megadrive using RGB video.

I'm pretty sure that the Genesis 3 was not emulated, it was a single ASIC implementation of nearly the complete Megadrive hardware, it only needed some memory and I/O to function.

[rtv190]

i was thinking about making a stand alone mega cd that worked without the megadrive on top of it but the idea was scrapped because i would need to order some special parts for it to work it would play mega cd games from any region,music CDs,DVDs,and karaoke CDs almost like the JVC X'eye did