Sega Saturn Floppy Drive and Printer

xDerekRx · Post by **xDerekRx** » Wed Apr 15, 2009 2:09 am

Anyone hear about this? It was released only in Japan but allowed you to save games to it and then upload them to your PC for sharing on the internet

http://www.sega-saturn.us/beta/viewpage.php?page_id=10

Apparently its quite expensive to find but interesting. The sega-saturn.us page in general is very informative detailing all the saturn games/accessories for all 3 major regions.

There was even a Sega Saturn Printer ha.

And if you always wondered what goes in the expansion bay in the back... there was a VCD card that helped make cutscenes higher quality and let you play VCD movies.

Mexicool87 · Post by **Mexicool87** » Wed Apr 15, 2009 7:15 am

I heard about that before but never seen one. look like it would cost a lot of money.

where did you find out about this?

Warp2063 · Post by **Warp2063** » Wed Apr 15, 2009 8:50 am

I heard about all of those a while ago, back when I started researching the NetLink.

I've thought about getting a VCD card, but there's really not much point. VCD's are so rare in the US that it doesn't really make sense.

The Floppy drive and Printer are so rare that it's not worth my time to hunt them down, especially when so few games support them.

Trip Mercy · Post by **Trip Mercy** » Wed Apr 15, 2009 2:22 pm

The VCD card is only about 30 dollars and there are sites such as vcdgallery.com that let you download all sorts of movies and tv shows in a vcd format you can burn onto a vcd and then you can use the Saturn for all your movie watching needs.

Warp2063 · Post by **Warp2063** » Wed Apr 15, 2009 5:07 pm

Trip Mercy wrote:The VCD card is only about 30 dollars and there are sites such as vcdgallery.com that let you download all sorts of movies and tv shows in a vcd format you can burn onto a vcd and then you can use the Saturn for all your movie watching needs.

Which is cool, but I can watch videos in higher resolution on my computer, and I don't have to find a CD-R or -RW and then wait for it to burn. =P

xDerekRx · Post by **xDerekRx** » Wed Apr 15, 2009 5:08 pm

There are so many crazy accessorries only released in Japan

Like this thing. Its a replica arcade controller. Its also on that website. They also made a train controller that is only used by one game.

As I keep collecting saturn I kinda want to have all the accessories but Japan ones might be tricky.

Warp2063 · Post by **Warp2063** » Wed Apr 15, 2009 5:10 pm

xDerekRx wrote:They also made a train controller that is only used by one game.

Densha de go. XD The day I finally realized that I knew how translate the title, I found it so amusing. I finally knew what the controller was for, and what the game was about. XDDDD

Rogue · Post by **Rogue** » Fri Apr 17, 2009 5:02 pm

One year ago, or less, the owner of that site was selling mostly of this stuff on ebay.

He only bought to make the videos for the site.

I almost bought the printer, but it wasn't factory sealed, so I didn't wanted... =P
He said he opened just to capture the video and was selling...

I think the things ended in cents... they were just taking room on his house.

Too bad he isn't really a collector and does that kind of stuff just to show... ? =/

xDerekRx · Post by **xDerekRx** » Fri Apr 17, 2009 8:22 pm

Rogue I wish I was around when he was selling the stuff, I would have bought it.

Yart · Post by **Yart** » Sun Nov 22, 2009 12:48 am

I have a Saturn Floppy Drive. You CANNOT store save games onto your PC.

Unfortunately it uses another file system than FAT and the PC cannot read it. Disks have to be formatted specifically for the Saturn through the floppy disk managing software that comes with the drive.

-Yart

Warp2063 · Post by **Warp2063** » Sun Nov 22, 2009 3:39 pm

Welcome to the site, Yart!

Unless the Saturn physically stored the data on the disk differently (somewhat unlikely if it used standard 3 1/2" floppies), it would theoretically be possible to write a program that could read that file system.

However, as I don't own a Saturn floppy drive and such a project would have a very limited use, it's not something I'm interested in reverse-engineering, even if I had the technical documents for it.

Yart · Post by **Yart** » Sun Nov 22, 2009 6:19 pm

Thanks for the welcome!

Yea it stores it differently. If I insert the disc formatted by the Saturn into my PC it can't find some header file or something and prevents me from opening it. When I get home I'll give you the exact error. I can format the disk with the PC though, but when I insert it back into the Saturn it gives the same effect as if you pulled a memory cartridge out of the slot while the machine is on. It won't let you write or copy files to it, but it will let you format it from the memory manager.

It's a shame nobody's up for the job. I even offered up my drive as a donation on another forum to someone who would be interested in making a program to read the disks on PC. Nobody on that forum was interested either.

It most certainly would make sharing Dezaemon 2 games with people over the net that much easier and cooler, and even the Saturn BASIC games.

Warp2063 · Post by **Warp2063** » Sun Nov 22, 2009 6:35 pm

Well, if there's interest, that's a different story. I figured that maybe a total of five people out there would be interested in it, and I didn't want to undertake a project like that. If there's people that want it, it couldn't hurt for me to at least take a look. It would be awesome if I could find some technical documentation on the drive and the filesystem.

It would be really useful to have a floppy with some game saves on it. Preferably games that I also have so that I could reproduce results.

Yart · Post by **Yart** » Sun Nov 22, 2009 11:58 pm

Aye. It's unfortunate that these things cost so much, which is probably the main reason the interest would be so low. I know I had to slap down about $125 for my complete and boxed drive (and that's considered a good deal! I got REALLY lucky!)

It was only when it came in did I find out that I couldn't store my saves onto my PC. What a disappointment. It's pretty well an overpriced paperweight for me now (until I get a copy of Dezaemon 2 that is). Oh well. At least I was able to warn others.

If interest does rise and you ever decide to take on this task, let me know please.

It would be really useful to have a floppy with some game saves on it. Preferably games that I also have so that I could reproduce results.

Would you want me to send a floppy or two with some save games on it just to take a look?

JerryTerrifying · Post by **JerryTerrifying** » Mon Nov 23, 2009 12:45 am

I'd love to have a Saturn floppy drive just because I'm secretly questing for all the Saturn crap I can get my hands on. But I always thought you could transfer the saves to a PC. Are you sure there wasn't some PC software that allowed you to save it to a PC?

But as long as you can save any game to the floppy that'd be a cool way to archive saves.

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