I've just bought a 3do

[jeimuzu_uk]

Hi guys,

I'm from the UK and recently bought a USA 3do. Now I was puzzled at first because the S-Video port has been blogged off by some black card inside the machine.....and there's no RF connector.

In it's place is this.....





Confused I opened the internals of the machine, it's already been modded with a new power supply unit (220v) so I don't need a stepdown.

Then I find this....



It's been wired to the Video chip, has 8 holes and looks very similar to you'd find in a sega saturn (apart from the layout's different.

Any ideas? The seller doesn't have a clue  :blink:  

[kendrick]

Assuming this is a Panasonic, is it the front-loading FZ-1 or the top-loading FZ-10? I ask because the first model had the option to insert an MPEG decoder as an internal add-on card, so it's possible that's what you're looking at. A picture of the whole console would be informative and interesting.

-KKC, doing fun things with a modded Xbox.

[jeimuzu_uk]

It's a USA panasonic FZ1,

I'm familiar with the machines, its definatly nothing to do with the add-in card.

The board is a PCB board, numerous stuff on there but it's obviously hand built.

The board is tapped into the S-Video traces somehow (Hence why S-Video port has been blocked even though it's still there) and the whole RF modulator has been removed from the board.

I'm almost positive this is an RGB modded FZ1, even more so as a number of cables are attached to the Video Chip on the board.

I'm gonna get hold of an 8pin RGB cable and have a look what outputs. The machine's working fine through composite so at least I know the machine works.

There are 2 wires coming from the board that are soldered elsewhere, one of them is obviously a ground and the other one looks like it's stealing voltage from the powerboard.

I'l get some more pictures if anyone's interested.

Right now i'm off to bed  :lol:  

[kendrick]

Okay then, this is ringing a very faint bell... I seem to recall that a couple of fans with skills were disappointed that there was no direct RGB tap on the 3DO motherboard and so manfactured their own solution. I think they sold as many as three hundred of the things, and may have offered installation services as well. I'll do the usual archive search to see if I'm not hallucinating.

-KKC

[atom]

Are their any good games for that system? Ive only heard about the 3do ive never seen one in stores or elsewhere. That pic is the most ive ever seen of one. Lol kendrick, looks like you were drawing a blank for your signature on that last one.

[mr. newbie]

i got mine for $5. i still haven;t found a use for it

[kendrick]

I spent about three or four years scouring the east coast of the US for copies of the good 3DO games. A lot of the 3D shooters and action games have been ported to Playstation and Saturn, but there are a few notable titles that haven't been repeated elsewhere.

Guardian War is a commonly found but little understood tactical RPG. It's like FF Tactics or Shining Force lite, with some grid-based exploration in between very short and challenging battles. All the characters are drawn in super-deformed style and there's no personality to them, but if you're more interested in strategy than in story then Guardian War delivers that kind of gameplay in short, intense bursts.

I have some affection for Lucienne's Quest, a standard FF-style party RPG. It makes use of every cliche (rebellious young protagonist, mysterious hostile love interest, hulking beast man allies, dungeons under cities, dungeons in abandoned mines) but it stands as an good example of the kind of 3D graphics that you could get out of the hardware. If you have any Japanese language skills at all, it's worth hunting down the Japanese version since it has voice acting for most of the written dialogue. That version is generically titled 'Sword and Sorcery' and was also available for the Saturn in Japan only.

Dragon Lore is a charming first-person action RPG a la the Elder Scrolls series, although it lacks the depth of those games. What it has is broad expanses of areas to explore and some moderately challenging puzzles. It also spans four discs and has some frustrating loading times, but if you can stand the wait there are some satisfying graphics for the gamer that likes to explore every corner of a virtual world.

Stepping away from RPG titles for a bit, it's worth mentioning Return Fire. Although there was a Playstation version of this game in all markets, there's something clean and appealing in the 3DO version that the newer ports lack. This is a head-to-head two player shooter where the objective is only to find your opponent's base and blow it up using your fleet of military vehicles. It's also one of the 3DO titles that sported expansion discs, which were sold separately and couldn't be used unless you owned the original game. As far as I know, the levels in the expansion discs aren't represented in the ports.

Given that the 3DO is one of the consoles that isn't faithfully emulated yet, it's worth having one (or more) around for the unique titles.

-KKC, who feels sad finding so many dead links when searching for 3DO stuff.

[kendrick]

Here we go. Courtesy of our competitors/friends at Assembler games, there were two sources for RGB mods on the 3DO. One was a homebrew kit built out of some simple D/A components, the other was a professional mod. Oddly enough, both have their origins in Germany of all places.

Check out this link:

http://home.adelphia.net/~acem77/rgb_3do.zip

This zip file contains images and Adobe documents describing the mod and how to build it. You may be interested in the filenames beginning with 'Leiterplatte' as they have a PCB etching layout that might match up with the board you found. Unfortunately, most of the documents are in German, but we at GamesX are nothing if not cosmopolitan. :)

The other source of the mod was a company called Wolfsoft, and not surprisingly they don't seem to offer the service any more. It's strongly suggested to me that they had a small operation capable of producing that same homebrew mod in large enough numbers to be profitable.

Anyway, compare the board you found with the PCB layout and I'll bet they match up. Let us know what you see.

-KKC, whose only useful skill appears to be the ability to perform web searches in languages he doesn't speak...

[Aidan]

If there's a suitable number of wires between the daughterboard and the motherboard, then I'd say it's almost certainly a RGB mod. It looks to be about in the right place on the board to pick up the digital video bus.

[jeimuzu_uk]

Yep you're right    The picture matches up with the daughterboard, not 100% but very similar

Now I just need a cable to be built up  :unsure:  

[Imperator]

Well, this mods are for the Panasonic 3DO systems only...

is (or was) there any way to mod a Goldstar 3DO?
It has just the RF and the composite connector... :angry:  

[Aidan]

Any idea what the video encoder chip is? (I don't know if it's possible or not, as I haven't seen one)

[acem77]

added an english translation  file to the 3do rgb info.
http://home.adelphia.net/~acem77/rgb_3do.zip