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An SSD can resurrect your old Sega Saturn and Dreamcast consoles:
Classic disc-based consoles are getting long in the tooth. As their optical drives burn out, they're rendered unplayable, which is a shame -- these systems were the peak of gaming in the eyes of many. Hardcore gamers who miss titles like Panzer Dragoon Saga and Power Stone may want to perform life-saving surgery on their Sega Saturn or Dreamcast consoles this summer, as a new solution will be able to replace dead disc drives, with no soldering skills needed. The Terraonion MODE -- Multi-Optical Disc Emulator -- simply drops into your console of choice, reads ROMs from a storage medium, and passes the data onto the console for processing. The dream of the '90s is alive.
[...] Some may wonder what the big deal is. Most of these games can be played on an emulator. But emulators simply don't have that magic that original hardware does. Is that worth the nearly $200 price of something like the MODE? For a lot of hardcore gamers -- especially those who are privy to the Saturn and Dreamcast's vast Japanese libraries -- the answer could be yes. It may be time to dust off some old consoles and relive one of gaming's greatest eras.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by looorg on Thursday April 23 2020, @07:31PM (3 children)
This has been all the rage for 10+ years now. Take old obsolete hardware (computer, console etc) and get some modern hardware kit (ssd, sdcards, usbsticks etc) to load stuff instead of having to use cd, tape, floppies or cartridges. It really cuts down on loading times and you can usually store every single thing ever released on a single device. This or sending TAP files from your phone to your machine via the audio cable if you can't find an old actually working tape recorder anymore. So it's not really new, not even for Dreamcast or Saturns -- there have been SD-card solutions for them for quite a few years now. So is the news here that there is a new overpriced slick looking solution? OK ...
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 23 2020, @07:38PM
Sorry we can't all be as smart and miserable as you.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 24 2020, @12:53AM (1 child)
Using modern hardware to replace the storage of older game consoles is not new.
Optical drive emulators are not new.
I believe allowing the use of an SSD for an optical drive emulator is new. Previous alternatives tended to use SD cards, having notoriously variable latency and bandwidth. Perhaps less important for optical drives since those could potentially have variable access times too, but any time you can't guarantee things to go as fast as the hardware you're replacing you risk incompatibilities.
A single device able to be an optical drive emulator for two different otherwise incompatible consoles is new.
It remains to be seen, but if Terraonion can consistently supply enough stock to meet demand, that may also be new. Previous Dreamcast and Saturn options tended to sell out quickly.
Unfortunately, Terraonion has a history of locking device firmware updates to individual serial numbers via some sort of DRM. Among other things this means if Terraonion happens to stop offering firmware downloads, and you didn't get their last update, you'll never get it. Apparently they do this to make it difficult for others to sell clone hardware, which has apparently resulted in support issues for other vendors of similar products which don't lock their firmware.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 24 2020, @04:38AM
I wonder how it interacts with SSDs in the first place. Some games were programmed to expect data at a certain speed. If you get the stuff to them too fast they don't behave correctly. For example, there are databases as to what PS1 games don't like fast loading on PS2s.