Bizarre Saturn Revision Found:

[Lawrence]

I opened up what looked like a standard, normal white Saturn, and found some very bizarre stuff inside.  What struck me initially was the sub PCB between the CD Mech and the main PCB.  At first glance I thought it was a mod chip, but it's mounted on a metal stand attached to the shielding, and has a Sega part number on it.

The mech is made by Sanyo and has sanyo chips all over the base.  Every part and signal path is labelled, which is unusual.  The sub-PCB has a Sanyo chip on the bottom of it, maybe there was no room on the mech PCB for it?

Ultimately it seems for one reason or another Sega tapped Sanyo to make some CD mechs - perhaps in an attempt to get price concessions from JVC, or to meet consumer demand...  

In any event, these are the pics I took.  Anyone seen this before?  I thought I'd seen them all, but this one surprised me.

http://nfg.2y.net/temp/saturn_weird.jpg
http://nfg.2y.net/temp/saturn_weird2.jpg
http://nfg.2y.net/temp/saturn_weird3.jpg

[Agentspikey95]

is the main board the same as a model 2?
if so or not, how much you want for it?

[KuKzz]

Actually it's not rare....it's just that some of later Saturn's were made with Sanyo CD-mechs. I have a europe pal one with the same sanyo cd-rom inside...
And for example it was discussed here long time ago

PS Btw it's the most crappiest cd-rom of all saturn's that I've ever seen - it barely reads my cd-r's and it's almost impossible to do a swap-trick on it (I've got it new from the store, so it's not a weak laser or something).

[KuKzz]

Also see this:
http://www.mikeg2.freeserve.co.uk/satmod/

[Agentspikey95]

can you just shove a JVC drivew in there from a regular model 2 instead of the sanyo?

[Ryan]

IIRC, from what I've read, that there was a last ditch atempt by Sega to thwart Mod chips. The PC trap board was supposed to somehow stop one from installing a mod chip to play backed up copies of rare/pirated games. I don't know the specifics beyond that it didn't stop modchips at all. I might be wrong but I think it was found that puting a modchip after the trap worked, or removing the trap and installing the mod chip worked. Something like that. *shrug*

[AntiPasta]

IIRC, from what I've read, that there was a last ditch atempt by Sega to thwart Mod chips.

They couldve done way better if they just integrated the CD controller on the system mainboard (kinda like in the PSX)