I know nothing about the Sega Master System. Let's fix this one.
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 เม.ย. 2024
- I know basically nothing about the Sega Master System -- so let's see if I can fix this one and explore the system a bit.
Video encoder IC: Sony V7040
-- Links
Possible (untested by me) S-Video mod:
imgur.com/a/KtKla
SMS Test Suite:
github.com/sverx/SMSTestSuite...
VDP Test:
www.smspower.org/Homebrew/SMS...
ZEXALL:
www.smspower.org/Homebrew/ZEX...
Snail Maze Wikipedia:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snail_Maze
Adrian's Digital Basement Merch store:
my-store-c82bd2-2.creator-spr...
Adrian's Digital Basement ][ (Second Channel)
/ @adriansdigitalbasement2
Support the channel on Patreon:
/ adriansdigitalbasement
My GitHub repository:
github.com/misterblack1?tab=r...
-- Tools
Deoxit D5:
amzn.to/2VvOKy1
store.caig.com/s.nl/it.A/id.16...
O-Ring Pick Set: (I use these to lift chips off boards)
amzn.to/3a9x54J
Elenco Electronics LP-560 Logic Probe:
amzn.to/2VrT5lW
Hakko FR301 Desoldering Iron:
amzn.to/2ye6xC0
Rigol DS1054Z Four Channel Oscilloscope:
www.rigolna.com/products/digi...
Head Worn Magnifying Goggles / Dual Lens Flip-In Head Magnifier:
amzn.to/3adRbuy
TL866II Plus Chip Tester and EPROM programmer: (The MiniPro)
amzn.to/2wG4tlP
www.aliexpress.com/item/33000...
TS100 Soldering Iron:
amzn.to/2K36dJ5
www.ebay.com/itm/TS100-65W-MI...
EEVBlog 121GW Multimeter:
www.eevblog.com/product/121gw/
DSLogic Basic Logic Analyzer:
amzn.to/2RDSDQw
www.ebay.com/itm/USB-Logic-DS...
Magnetic Screw Holder:
amzn.to/3b8LOhG
www.harborfreight.com/4-inch-...
Universal ZIP sockets: (clones, used on my ZIF-64 test machine)
www.ebay.com/itm/14-16-18-20-...
RetroTink 2X Upconverter: (to hook up something like a C64 to HDMI)
www.retrotink.com/
Plato (Clone) Side Cutters: (order five)
www.ebay.com/itm/1-2-5-10PCS-...
Heat Sinks:
www.aliexpress.com/item/32537...
Little squeezy bottles: (available elsewhere too)
amzn.to/3b8LOOI
--- Instructional videos
My video on damage-free chip removal:
• How to remove chips wi...
--- Music
Intro music and other tracks by:
Nathan Divino
@itsnathandivino - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
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I would have left the 7805 in and added a bridge rectifier to make it universal instead of changing the polarity. The 7805 is actually very useful as it allows for a wide input voltage range and also helps a little bit with removing noise coming from the DC input that might be visible and audible later on. And the Master System doesn't have particularly beefy input filtering in terms of capacitors as there would be a big capacitor inside the original power supply. Switch mode power supplies and especially USB power supplies can be quite noisy.
There sure can be noisy but removing the heat inside from the case is a huge win. I will check for a similar solution for my speccy.
The 7805 is very inefficient, heatspreading piece of technology from the last millenium. I would have gone for an USB-C-Trigger board.
@@monarch73 The console was not designed with a noisy buck regulator in mind. So, while the 7805 might be inefficient it will still do a better job (in terms of noise) than any switching regulator like those found on USB-C trigger boards. The filtering in consoles like the Master System is just not designed to handle this and thus the analog audio and video output will suffer. Also heat is not an issue at all.
I exactly reverted the usb mod on my NES clone to before because of the hum noise.
Also keep in mind that not all switching power supplies are created equal. Very cheap USB supplies are going to be extremely noisy, but a lot of OEM supplies meant for phones have more filtering included within the supply, as noisy supplies can mess with capacitive touchscreens.
I think the 5v mod is cool, but if that console lands in someone else's hands, they could plug a standard sega power supply up to it, so I think the power connector needs to be changed so it could never happen...
⬆️ this. i really see that mishap coming! as much as i like adrian's stuff, i'm totally not a fan of this particular mod.
And that would cause the universe to end? I haven't watched the whole video yet but maybe he will apply a warning label? Not rocket science!
@@monikaw1179 I was thinking he should print a label and stick it on there.
Agreed
Those can eventually age and fall off or fade. The USB option was a good idea because a stock Master System PS could never be plugged into it inadvertently.
Fun Fact: guitar effects pedals are standardized with center negative connectors, and use that 5mm jack. So if you find yourself in need of a 9v center negative DC power supply with a 5mm barrel connector, look up guitar pedal power supplies.
I have two for commodore 16's
It never hurts to double check the power supply. I’ve seen the occasional oddball pedal that uses center positive.
also many micro amps like the ms2 and the roland sound canvas and sound brush all use the same plug, polarity and voltage as the sega
I use Dunlop and TrueTone guitar pedal PSUs for many of my retro electronics. :)
Just be careful, effect pedal PSUs are some of the worst on the market. I've seen a few that are just a transformer and diode (singular).
I had an NES and Sega Genesis as a kid but never a master system, I've still never seen one in person. (Edit: autocorrect fail)
The nice thing is you can get 90% of the way using a real Genesis. All the hardware is inside and you can get a chinese cartridge adapter that will let you use sega master system games on any Genesis 1 or 2
They dominated in UK and Brazil
I actually had all of them. First I think was the MS, then the NES, SNES after and a few years later the Genesis.
Then I skipped a bunch of gens and I think the PSP was when I got a new one.
I saw ONE in France in like 1990.
wow
You need the linear regulator as the last stage to provide clean power to the video and sound circuitry. Wall warts are not tightly regulated and are noisy. A 5V wall wart can put out around 6V typically. Which is totally normal. It's also not a good idea to run off straight USB power. You need local regulation for low noise and protection. The local regulator makes it safe to dump in a wide range of voltages without killing your ICs. Most devices that run off USB power still have local regulation to go 5V to 3.3V for example.
Yeah, i would never have removed the regulator. The 78xx series regulators were very good at what they did. The only mod i would have considered would be to put a bridge rectifier on the power jack, so that center negative or center positive would not matter. That adds safety for people that don't think to check and just plug it in.
Agreed. FWIW-- I just added a comment that a drop-in switch mode replacement for the 7805 called the 7805SR-C exists, which would provide the regulation without having the 1.2-1.6W heat disipation of dropping 4 volts at 0.4 amps.
I'm subbing to you guys. I'm working on something that will connect to the Genesis/mega drive Expansion Bay and Im going to be reaching out for some expertise and advice.
The Master System was HUGE here in Brazil back in the day. The company that licensed it from SEGA made some very impressive games, I believe the version of Street Fighter 2 for the console was made here if memory isn't betraying me. Although I have many fond memories of the console, we had it for just one year before my father bought us a Mega Drive (known in the US as Genesis because of trademark shenanigans).
The 7805 dying on the SMS is a very common occurrence, the console itself is very resilient.
If I am not mistaken its still being manufactured by TecToy here in brazil to this day (although its probably a cheap emulator at this point)
@@HassassinCat Believe it or not, the Z80 microprocessor is still made by some manufacturers, although they now use a lot of custom ICs to greatly reduce the size of the console. The bad news is that those newer systems do not have cartridge inputs, so you can only play the games that come on their ROM memories (I believe the last one I saw had over 100 games included).
@@vinnycordeiro Oh yes, they are still around, but I wonder if this cheap modern Tec Toy are using the original board and chips or just an raspberry pie and emulator. Also you made me go into a rabbit hole of their videogames and yes, I do not see any with the option for cartridges sadly. Also WTF there is a TecToy notebook???
Also r/suddenlycaralho
@@HassassinCat Just went and searched here if there was any video about the Master System Evolution, which is the version currently being sold by TecToy. Sure enough, found a video of an electronic technician opening it for testing and maintenance. You are right, it's an emulation board. :(
Also I noticed on TecToy's site that they still sells the Master System but not the Mega Drive/Genesis. Maybe due to licensing issues?
@@vinnycordeiro Damn thats sad. At least they could put a cartridge slot to be worthy the money instead of using emulators.
Poor Mega Drive. RIP my first videogame
As mentioned in another comment, the US Master System was basically the Japanese Mark III. The Japanese Master System actually included the FM Sound Module, that was sold separately for the Mark III, as on onboard chip. Many US games were programmed with this chip in mind although it was eventually left out of the US system. This means that if one makes or purchases a connecter for the expansion port of a Japanese system then US cartridges can be played through it with that lost FM sound, which is considerably better than the noise processor in the US system. I did this long ago with my Japanese Master System (which I still have and play regularly). The controllers had a couple of varieties ranging from stiff and mushy to hard and flat so it's much better to just use a Sega Genesis controller for the system. There were also a couple of different versions (although the same part number) of the Genesis three button controllers with one in particular having the more advanced raised thumbpad which, in my opinion, surpasses the NES controller. Real (or well made clones of the) Sega six button pads work very well, too. The modding and homebrew community is pretty strong for this system and I would recommend trying the new redrawn Golden Axe which has Tyris Flare instead of Ax Battler as the player and all of the games graphics have been totally redrawn making it significantly better than the original 8-bit version. Psychic World is also a very good game. Certain Game Gear games were modded to play on the Master System, the best being Sonic Triple Trouble, a game that, after having the transparency layer exclusive to the Game Gear removed, works perfectly and is one of my favorite Sonic games. Sega really dropped the ball by leaving out the FM chip. Many of these games may have been preferred over NES games had that magical FM sound been present. We must also consider the exclusivity clause that Nintendo forced software companies into which left the Sega 8-bit library barren by comparison. SEGA!!!!
On a separate and somewhat unrelated note, one can start Sonic The Hedgehog on a Sega Genesis and then unplug the Sega pad and plug in an Atari joystick and play the game!!
It's worth noting that a lot of the Sega 8-bit console games were on tape, so if you're just looking at carts then you'll be missing a lot of the library. Of course, I don't know that there were many games even then, but it is something to bear in mind.
@@absalomdraconis the mk3/sms never had tapes. It was cart based or used cards similar to the tg16 via that front slot. The card slot never made it to the sms2 tho all variants of the sms2 had a built in game: Alex Kidd in miracle world or sonic 1 in later releases.
Even with Nintendo’s North American monopoly, Sega wasn’t barren. They had their entire arcade library to fall back upon. Even Atari didn’t have that at that point since Warner had sold Atari’s arcade division to Namco [and then used the “Tengen” sub brand to sell their titles for the NES]. And yet despite that and despite the negative views of Jack Tramiel, Atari still outsold Sega in North America 2-to-1. Whether that can be chalked up to the skills of Michael Katz at Atari, Tonka’s incompetence in marketing the SMS, or all of the above is a different story. Katz sure delivered with the Genesis once he was running Sega of America a couple of years later…
@@absalomdraconis You might be thinking of the SC-3000 which did have games on cassette.
WRT the power supply polarity mod: use a bridge rectifier instead of hard wiring the barrel jack to the opposite polarity (good first approximation hack that exhibits the KISS principle). With a bridge rectifier the barrel jack becomes polarity agnostic: no matter which polarity was applied the system would always work and *never* be in danger of being exposed to reverse polarity. If you also added a 1000uf capacitor across the + and - outputs of the bridge you could even send 9V AC into the barrel and the system would work.
BTW - there is a drop-in switching-regulator replacement for the 7805 called the 7805SR-C, which might be a good mod project for a C64.
As per the ferrite beads-- when placed around a wire they make a choke (inductor), and used in-line of a power supply lead prevent high frequencies from passing (an inductor's series resistance increases with frequency). Heaven knows why those weren't put in mains power circuits instead of [explitive deleted] REFA caps!
Most mains AC filters have a common-mode choke as well as the X capacitor.
Honestly yeah I'd probably go with the rectifier myself were it my system
There were 3-D Glasses that used the card slot. 3-D Outrun, 3-D Hang-On, and others used the glasses. The glasses were just 2 LCD screens inside a pair of glasses, that would flash black, like a camera shutter, causing you to only see certain frames of the video. I'd like to see someone remake them using adult-sized glasses.
I still have my 3D glasses practically new in the box. I have one game at least that used them. I think that you would see missiles fly at you in 3D and I would use my SEGA light gun to try and shoot them down. Something like that.....
Just stumbled across your channel yesterday. Absolutely love the videos I've watched so far. Has just the right mix of nostalgia (I grew up with many of the devices you work on), personal interest (I work for a semiconductor company), and super relaxed / chill vibe.
Games to play on Master System: Sonic 1 and 2, all Mickey Mouse Illusion games (Castle of Illusion, Land of Illusion, Legend of Illusion), all Donald Duck games (Lucky Dime Caper, Deep Duck Trouble), Asterix games (Asterix, Asterix and the secret mission), Master of Darkness, Ninja Gaiden, Sagaia, Power Strike 2, Phantasy Star, Wonder Boy 2 and 3...
Alex kid too, huge classic!
I just wanted to add that if you want to try a card based game Transbot was pretty awesome.
I enjoyed back then also Putt and Putter, a quirky half sport, half puzzle
Some things of interest:
-You can use regular Genesis controllers on the Master System. In fact, 3 button controllers are perfect because of ergonomics and they are relatively cheap since the sought ones are the 6 button controllers. You can even do a mod to be able to use the start button on the controller instead of the one in the console, it's mandatory if you want to use it regularly.
-There are stereoscopic 3D glasses that connect on the card slot. There are 3D versions of classics like Space Harrier or Zaxxon. There is also a light gun.
-I still haven't watched the entire video so I don't know if you know, but the Master System supports RGB out of the box and uses the same cable as the model 1 Genesis, so you can have a single cable for both consoles. Also, it's recommended you do a region mod and install a dual frequency oscillator to output proper 50hz video signal. This is because the Master System stopped selling in the US way earlier than Europe and Japan and you were left out of the later games and some of the bangers are in the late era. You guys didn't even get Sonic 2, a total travesty.
-There is an FM module for the expansion slot, only works with some japanese versions like Phantasy Star, but they took out the FM soundtrack in the rest of the world releases. There are modded ROMs that restore that part and you can either use the module or an Everdrive that emulates the FM synth, I don't know if yours does.
-There is a recommended list of games in a site called retrododo, search it as "best master system games retrododo". My personal favorite is Castle of Illusion.
-The Genesis is backwards compatible with the Master System. You need an adapter or just use an Everdrive for the Genesis, even the cheap X3 play Master System games. If you don't want to region mod too many consoles, skip the Master System and go directly to the Genesis, it's 2 consoles in one. Just know that in case you ever get a 32X, you won't be able to play Master System games with that attachment, but you don't really want a 32X, it's a pain in the ass engineering monstrosity that has like only 4 or 5 good games.
-Get a Sega CD. Some deep cuts there, specially if you like RPGs.
A minor note: Some games don't work with the Genesis controller; Wonder Boy in Monster Land is the one I noticed it in. For some reason it makes the player sprite act like left and right on the D-pad are being pressed repeatedly/simultaneously.
The RGB out support is great, even if you're just using the composite adapter cable with it.
@@dereknylen7596 I think there is a modded version that fixes that problem. It's probably in the smspower page.
Another thing I forgot, there are modded Game Gear roms for the Master System. They reduced the color palette and increased resolution to match the Master System video output, some very good games there too.
2 button Commodore 64 joysticks(like the ones that were supplied with the C64GS) also work.
@@dereknylen7596 there's actually a trick in this game to earn more money from hidden places when quickly and repeatedly pressing left and right while jumping. So maybe it's intentional?
@@neqkkI had a cheapass 3rd party controller for my sms that had a little thumbstick nub you could insert in to the dpad. If you pressed down on the nub it basically pressed down all directions so would cause this 'glitch' in wonder boy in monster land. I used that combined with the "pause trick" to get extra money so I could ensure I would buy the most powerful gear as early as possible!
9VDC goes to the Q48, which probably is an amplifier for the video signal that goes to the TV modulator.
So his hunch that it would affect the rf modulator was correct. Well screw the rf modulation :)
I've been trying to not shout at the screen as he didn't do any checks to see if any other components. Then faffs about with the power in (breaking bits in the process and making it look jank) before even checking the unit is working.
Good luck finding a modern device that groks analog "channel 3 or 4", or a retro device that still has a working CRT.
@@billraty14: There's a decent number of working CRTs, and I'd be surprised if analog 3/4 don't work on most modern coax-input tvs. I'd be a little surprised if it gets put on the labels, but the converter chips inside the units are more likely to not remove the support until they need to do a major revision (and might leave it in even then). They _don't_ just design a new decoder chip every day, what they usually do is just revise what already exists, most of which will be far enough away from the signal input that analog support won't be in the right place to be affected.
@@absalomdraconis Can confirm, my livingroom TV is a recent Samsung with no composite in, so I use an RF modulator for composite stuff and the TV groks the NTSC signal as well as it does ATSC (the digital successor).
22:38 If you do that, make sure the diode can pass enough current to blow the fuse! If you have a 1A fuse but only a 200 mA diode, the diode might blow open before the fuse does, and there goes your protection.
Add a ideal diode ic (which is basically a mosfet) to prevent reverse polarity.
Growing up in the UK, me and some of my cousins had the Master System. I still have mine. Thanks for making this video
Me too. I had the one with Alex Kidd built in. Used to cane that and Olympic Gold.
Master System was easily the biggest selling 'console' in the UK in the 80s. Until the Mega Drive came along.
Was thrilled to see you working on another retro console!
I bought and restored three Master Systems a couple of years ago. It was my introduction to the system. Like you, I grew up playing the NES, and literally didn’t know anyone who had a Sega, as we called it, but of course I saw the ads in magazines and was curious… just not curious enough to leave the familiar land of Nintendo!
Glad your branching off the normal! You opened up a whole new market for your videos.
'This' makes my Saturday! (Yep. Not jetting to the Riviera). Love the repairs. It never gets old, unlike us :O\ Cheers from So.Calif!
Thank you Adrian - Wte are in Portand also - It's pleasing to have a favorite content creator here.
The internal regulator adds some security; you can plug 7~15Vdc without issues.
Also a lot of older power supplies/adaptors were just a transformer, a rectifier of some sort and maybe a smoothing capacitor and as such the output of the PSU was linked to the input voltage.
Naturally for anything that needed a steady voltage you'd need a regulator in the device.
I had both NES and the master system. Master system looked and sounded better but the NES always had the games we wanted to play .
@@EnlightenedSavage Yes Nintendo had exclusivity agreements with the biggest Japanese software studios who also had the biggest licensed ip's and hits from Konami and Capcom.
I went through this "wouldn't it be easier to make everything 5v?" phase for about 15 minutes, once. And then remembered that the internal regulator ensures that it's 5v _exactly,_ and that's worth something. Then I had another 15-minute "well wouldn't it be better with a switching regulator, so it doesn't get as hot?" phase. And then I watched a video where someone was using a garden-variety SMPS and the video output was garbage. Then I had a "the engineers that designed these must've kinda known what they were doing" phase.
@@nickwallette6201 All that is pretty much the cat chasing it's own tail. Old electronics are very susceptible to noise because they didn't use anything with a very high switching frequency, so they didn't guard against it by really filtering it out. It's very easy to filter out all of the (meaningful) noise from a switching power supply, but the fact that the device itself doesn't have any real filtering just means that you need to use a quality power supply. It had nothing to do with the engineers "knowing what they were doing" if you look at the size of the aluminum heatsink on the vreg you pretty much have to draw the conclusion....this is what they had. That 7805 is accurate to about 2%, while a garden variety zener is about 3-5% accurate. You can get zener's
@AdriansDigitalBasement
This was excellent! Would love to see more of these retro game system repairs! I know it's not your normal jam, but it was still very enjoyable!
The NES never really pulled ahead of the SMS in a technical sense even with the assistance of the mappers, since while they added a bunch of tricks, the Master System's hardware was powerful enough that it could do most of the same things in software (and with it's more flexible graphics chip). I usually hold up the SMS port of Road Rash as the best example of this, a later era game that manages to get close to looking like a Sega Genesis game.
Though in a practical sense this didn't matter, since the NES was where the market was and that's what most developers primarily targeted. Still, given full development resources were thrown at it, it's hard to imagine a NES game that would look worse if it was developed for the Master System, lower vertical resolution aside.
SMS had mapper ICs too when necessary. We generally see it as a failure in NA but it outsold Nintendo in alot of places. Hardware wise, the SMS was better in almost every way but games and marketing are really what drives sales
@@blazini iirc it was mainly for bank switching? I don't think it added any features other than that, though I may be wrong.
@@scheeseman486 It's a memory mapper, that's what it does either on SMS or NES. There's this idea that NES had special chips inside carts to do fancy things but besides a couple of games with audio chips there was never anything special in an NES cart. The SMS didn't need RAM in carts but if extra were necessary it could be added. The Japanese SMS had FM sound built in, they didn't include it in the export SMS but it could have been an add on module, you can buy fan made ones now.
@@blazini It wasn't just audio. The MMC3 added an interrupt for a scanline counter, which is how Mario 3 was able to split the screen while retaining 4 way smooth scrolling. Features like tile mirroring were also added in most of the more advanced mappers, something that wasn't possible with the VDP in the NES alone.
Interestingly, the SMS does support tile mirroring in hardware but only for background tiles, not sprites. Though since everything gets copied into RAM, all tiles and sprites can be modified arbitrarily (costing CPU time). Games like Golden Axe take advantage of this, generating background tiles on the fly with "sprites" (but not really) composited on top of them. This allowed for large characters on screen, at the cost of framerate and smoothness. I recall Mortal Kombat does the same thing, but with one character being background tiles and the other sprites.
I love seeing some retro consoles on this channel, would love to see a recap of a Turbo Duo, or repairs of some handhelds.
I was a bit worried when Adrian changed out the power connector, that someone might someday plugin a standard SMS power brick. I'm glad he labeled the power port and the bottom, so at least future users are aware!
So I work at a game retail store that also does repairs, and while I think what you did to the power circuit is neat; it's not something I do. Reason being is there's a ton of after market companies who make replacement power supplies, video cables, controllers, and other accessories in droves. So it's easiest for me to keep a system like this to stock specs, as when ordering replacement accessories; I can just simply order what's listed for it. Doing so also helps in regards to the less than tech savvy customers who just want it to work without having to stretch neuron connections.
If I do a mod, I try to keep in mind what part accessibility is like. A good example is AV modding the top loader NES, and wiring up the video and audio to a headphone jack that uses the same pinout of an Xbox 360 E model. It's a cable that's available by a ton of third parties, and it's easy to explain "This system is modded for this common cable type".
On the other side, if I'm modding stuff for myself; I don't really care how I do it. As long as I remember what I did then it's whatever, so the way you modded your SMS for personal use is perfectly fine for you if you're happy with it.
Hello Adrian, this is just a shoutout from the Netherlands to you. I love your videos and the intro tune is great too. My homesystems were Aquarius, ZX Spectrum 128K and Amiga 500/1200.
Great video as always, and nice to see a Master System. Here in the UK I only knew one person with a NES, but had a Master System myself and knew a fair few people who did as well. My Master System had Hang on and Safari Hunt built in, and I remember discovering the Snail game by mistake.
The portion with the games at the end flashed me back to my childhood. Thanks!
loved this video !! I'm learning electronics and have a way to go but every video helps me get there ...hopefully thank you for your excellent explanation and see you later
12:45 I would go a step further and say don't pull with any kind of force at all. I was wincing so hard when you were lifting the board up by the braid. You got away with it in this case but that is an easy way to wreck the solder pads. It's especially bad when you've been working on it for a while and the prolonged heating has weakened the bond between the copper and the board.
The best way to remove stuck solder braid is: clean the iron tip, add more solder, add flux, and then gently roll/peel it up. Pull it up with just the tiniest bit of force while slowly moving the iron back as it comes up. And yes, you need more heat, but I would switch to a larger iron tip rather than just turning the iron up.
8:00 Sega had a console called the Sega Mark III. When they released the Master System internationally, they internally called it the Mark IV, thus the "M4". The early revisions of the Genesis even say "M5" on them.
You're a diamond, Adrian. I love your videos. Gold.
Thank you Adrian! Keep up the great work!
Now we need a classic console repairathon!
That said I would love to see you revisit the NABU pc sometime. A lot of development has gone on since you first talked about it.
I’m a long-time fan of the Master System era of games but never knew how it worked on the inside, so thank you for this video! ❤
I grew up on the Intellivision and Atari 2600. The Sega and NES came out years later. I had neither system, but my friends did. I much preferred the Sega at the time, due in large part to the overall style and nature of the games. Nintendo games seemed very childish, innocuous and fanciful in contrast to Sega's more mature and aggressively styled games. Nintendo games are the same to me today, and it seems to have had a cultural impact on generations of kids; from Millennials to gen Z, the guys all seem to be drawn to more kid-like colors, fashion, entertainment and art compared to Gen Xers who were raised on more warlike games and archetypes and who were beyond their young childhood when the NES became dominant.
The music, graphics and content on Sega games just seemed better suited to us bigger kids at the time and I couldn't wrap my head around why games like Legend of Zelda, with its wimpy music and graphics ever became popular. Meanwhile, me and my friends were playing Space Harrier and Rambo on Sega.
I realize that the NES had its share of fighting games, but many of the blockbuster hits, like Mario and Zelda seemed to follow a more "cutesy" formula.
At least that's how I perceived it.
This is the system I grew up with. That was a great Christmas morning.
My favourite games were Wonder Boy 3: the Dragon's Trap, & Mad Magazine's Spy vs. Spy, which was on the card insert.
So many hours on this 2 in particular!
The SEGA Master system was the North American version of the SG-1000 Mark III.
SEGA's game consoles, to the Genesis had a rather bizarre through-line of compatibility:
spent a lot of time writing code for this guy.
The SG-1000's (of which the Master System is the Mark III) and the Mega Drive (Genesis) all have a Z80 CPU, a VDP that's compatible with the TMS 9918 (the Mark III added some additional video modes, palette expansions, and registers for hardware scrolling, among other things. The Genesis/Mega Drive added still more), and a a SN76489 square/noise sound chip.
Yes, this same core feature set is also in the Mega Drive/Genesis, and it has the effect that if you pull a certain pin on the cartridge slot to ground, a Mega Drive/Genesis will flip itself to "Master System" mode. Sega made a Power Base adapter which exploited this to allow Master System cartridges and cards to be played.
The Game Gear, is essentially a Master System, with less resolution, but with a much larger color palette.
The naming of the Master System is kinda weird too. "Master System" doesn't seem to have been the name of the console itself, but instead just the combo pack of console + a specific set of games, with two other sets each being labelled with their own names. The market settled on "Master System" apparently because they didn't have a better name anyways.
Holy shit. I thought that was wiki... Do I have to pay for the lesson.
@@EM-do9em Incorrect punctuation aside, that was very rude.
I had on of those Master System comparability add-ons for the Sega Genesis back when I was a kid and acquired a few used Mega System games use with it. Mostly played Genesis/MegaDrive games though but the Master System did have some decent games though I don't think it was ever quite on the level of the NES.
@@absalomdraconis Sega USA did everything in its power for their consoles to fail. A perfect example of executives with their heads up their arses.
5v SMPS is likely to introduce switching noise in the analog signals. I’d stick with the original regulator.
Especially as he removed (broke) one of the ferrite beads as well
The 25mV of ripple from something like a Tenpower 7805 switcher replacement would make no appreciable difference to noise levels. Bus and processor noise on old double sided PCB designs would totally hide any switcher noise 🙂
Woo, Master System! :D. In case you were curious why the genesis controller's full set of buttons can work. The controller is basically software polled. By default you only see part of a 3 button controller and have to use a select line to see the rest of the controller. The 6 button controller changes this up by pulsing the select line to get more pages. The master system has the light sensor on that pin, but you can configure it as an output to drive it with ground/5v for the genesis controller. (And I'm unsure on this bit, but I think the Japanese Master System has this pin hard wired to ground... basically limiting you to the number of buttons on the master system controller)
The Genesis/Megadrive controller port is a bit wild. You can simulate a 5-volt 9-pin RS-232 port off of it (albeit at a paltry 300 baud), with _maybe_ a wiring harness to convert pin positions, because the pins are variously _all_ reconfigurable, and some have added peripherals like the serial chips, or the light gun interfacing that you mentioned.
Heeeiii!!! So you know one just now!! The Sega Master System was my second console ever, after an atari clone. And I have to say that Master System is in my heart until this days! Actually, I named my home wifi network 'Master System'. Haha
So excited for this content!! Very tanks to you, Andrian!
Always good to see a SEGA MS getting some love. Loved the video,
My first real console, as my parents already had an atari 2600 before I was born. I remember to this day my father arriving from work with that enormous cosnole package and also with a spare cart, which was my arcade fever at that time. Double dragon !
It was such an amazing feeling, best gift ever...
About the "Start Button" on an actual SMS controller, the #1 Button also had the word START above it. Some games also choose 2 player mode by pressing "Start" on the second controller.
And several years later somebody plug standard for this system 9V center negative power supply to this console...
i really enjoyed seeing how the master system works in comparison to the NES, as I too have no experience with the system. I know you don't usually do games consoles but I really enjoyed this one!
I totally see where you're coming from on the centre negative lead mod; that weird standard everybody did in the 80s and a bit of the 90s hurts my autism, too. But, it feels like a better mod to help out the next owners of the machine would have been a Traco switching power regulator, which would have given plenty of function, reliability, and longevity without the need of that massive heat sink. I'm glad you had fun with this machine though. Cheers!
The SMS has a very impressive port of Road Rash, definitely not something the NES could do as well.
Great vids Adrian. Very interesting explanations.
Couple of inexpensive suggestions desoldering through hole components with thermal mass. 1) Large surface area tip such as C4. 2) Low melt solder to form an alloy with a MUCH lower melt point.
Also adding some liquid flux to the solder braid, that can make a big difference in addition to more heat.
@@RobertWCrouch That just helps the liquid solder flow, still have to make, and keep it liquid, but yes, it will help once you deliver sufficient heat or change the alloy to lower the melting point.
Hot air. That regulator would just fall right out. The original solder is already leaded and low temp.
@@espressomatic: There's actually lower temp than lead/tin. Usually you'll want to remove it before trying to reinstall your components, but a particular brand is ChipQuik (or something along those lines).
@@espressomatic lowER temp. The problem being the standard tip on the pinecil is not intended for larger through hole soldering with a decent sized thermal mass behind it. The Pinecil CAN do it but you would need a larger tip for better heat transfer such as a C4 tip or low melt solder to drop the alloy melt point to something the stock tip can keep up with, or yes, hot air. All are options, but low melt solder and / or a larger tip are less expensive to a hobbyist than a hot air station
I had one, it had Hang On built in and my favorite games were Golden Axe and Double Dragon. Nice little system and a big step up from my Amstrad and Spectrum
Master Systems were more common than NES ones here in the UK. I used to love the gridded look of the game boxes when I saw them in London West-end shops (our downtown).
They were? I think was a little too young to know about that as my first experiences were with 16-bit consoles. Which do you think were more common in the UK between the Mega Drive (Genesis) and the SNES?
@@croissant-king I don't really know about the 16 bits. It wasn't so clear was it? Probably Megadrive but then it was more about the home computers here anyway. People were more worried about ST versus Amiga than Megadrive versus SNES.
Yep I had a Master System 2 with built in Sonic as my first console here in the UK. It was great. Second console was the SNES which I definitely think had the edge over the megadrive
Hi Adrian, This was an interesting "rabbit hole" to see you go down. Enjoyed watching you go through the process with an unfamiliar system. Not that much exposure to the SMS myself, I think the NES was more popular in these parts - _but_ the Megadrive/Genesis did catch on here and competed well with the SNES.
- I have to say that I agree with some of the other commenters around the mod for the power jack: Leaving the (working) 7805 _in_ , or using the modern variant that doesn't dump power would have been preferable; If insisting on messing with the barrel-jack socket, fitting a bridge rectifier behind it to make the socket "polarity agnostic" would have been a better approach.
- The destructive removal of that choke ... Eeek!
Alex The KiDD, you need to press the "pause" button to get the menu up.
Action Fighter !
Sonic the Hedgehog !
Hang ON !
Bomber Raid !
Wonderboy !
Golden Axe !
Fantasy Zone !
I think which games are built in depends on the particular model and what country it was sold in.
Alex Kidd, not Alex the kidd. He's not a cowboy.
@@JMurdochNZ for some reason a LOT of british people specifically call him alex the kidd and i never got why
@@CrashFan03 same thing here in New Zealand.
@@JMurdochNZ maybe he is, maybe he isnt
Center negative was standard in Japan because most electronics did not include an adapter and battery-operated electronics could take advantage of a built-in switch in the barrel jack to disconnect battery power… but only when using center negative. The Super Famicom did not even include an adapter because they expected you to reuse the Famicom adapter you probably already had.
This probably started because of the different 50 and 60 hertz regions. Japanese electronics were more likely to be line frequency agnostic, which meant more likely to be DC, which meant being able to make cheaper and more portable by eliminating the internal power supply and going for batteries as standard/default with external AC adapters as an optional extra they could sell. That’s how Japan ultimately became the king of portable electronics.
You can just as easily use the socket's pass-through switch with cp or cn, it makes ni difference if you are disconnecting the battery's negative (with cp), or positive (with cn), as long as one pole of the battery is disconnected, then it is out of circuit.
@@JamesSleeman It does make a difference because of the common ground. With ground literally everywhere in the chassis, you can’t rely on breaking the ground for safety reasons. See EEVBlog’s video about it. There’s also Japan’s lack of a ground prong and non-polarized outlets. This is why they insist on rectifying with an external AC to DC adapter.
Disconnecting negative would have required additional components to safely handle batteries and external power in an era where microcontrollers and charge controllers just weren’t cheap enough.
Edit: EEVBlog #1015
It explains that you can also charge batteries when using center negative and switched positive but you can use center positive if you don’t care for that.
I don't understand how a switch cares about whether the positive is on the pin or the barrel. (To be clear, I do understand why you want the switch to open the positive side and not the negative side. I don't understand what that has to do with how the plug and jack are oriented.)
@@wbfaulk You can switch either but it won’t serve all purposes unless you switch positive, which demands center negative. The barrel physically opens (displaces) a normally-closed connection when inserted so the switched connection must be on the barrel.
In order to use the “free” switch to disconnect batteries, charge batteries, and power the device without microcontrollers or a bunch of extra components you had to go with center negative and switched positive. Once that was common enough, it didn’t matter if your Japanese device had batteries or not. It was routine to sell devices without adapters in Japan because they already expected you to have one and the one you had was going to be center negative back then. It wasn’t until the early ‘90s that they began to change this on most consumer electronics from Japan (EIAJ plugs).
@@emmettturner9452 The referenced EEVBlog video doesn't actually say anything about why cp "works better" than cn. Dave's explanation of the switch is.. an explanation of a switch, it works as he describes just as well, with cp or cn, I do it myself for my own battery/external power devices. "Ground is everywhere" doesn't make much sense as a reason, as you yourself say we are talking about already rectified low voltage supplies and Japan has ungrounded unpolarised connections anyway so if you somehow manage get a failure of mains to chassis it could be either live or neutral regardless of the polarity of the jack.
Ultimately the reason it **used** to be common to have cn is more likely "because that's what Mr Soandso picked in 1970 something"
Just to add to it, the SMS actually detects the carts in software, there is no shorting of any pins by the carts themselves. It enables the CS lines respectively and them does a checksum of the first 16K if i remember correctly and checks that against the header of the cart. If all is fine it places some jump code into RAM, disables the BIOS ROM and jumps to $0000 of the cart.
The master system was something I loved as a kid! Absolutely loved it, and Wonderboy 3 was my favourite game. I later co-wrote an emulator to replay WB3 on my Acorn Archimedes. And then many years later I wrote another emulator in Javascript so I could play games in my browser. Some years later LizardCube did a remake of WB3 which is an amazing gorgeous remake. Later I discovered they partly used some of the SMS documentation my co-author wrote in the 90s to help develop the game! Love it! 🎉
These were popular in the UK, I had one, it was my first console, a staple of my childhood 😀
8bit do retro controllers. they are wireless and work as if wired with its adapter. perfect to use.
And great repair video. learned quite a bit.
19:33 Adrian normally I love your work and your precision, but here it is a criminal story.
That was an amazing system. It wasn't well known but had some great games!
It actually has more arcade glory that the NES can't handle.
25:55 People have done S-Video mods for this kind of encoder but it's not trivial. The luma/chroma outputs are not exactly designed for it so you have to add your own amplifier. Also there's a delay line in there and you need to make sure you're tapping from the right point so your luma and chroma aren't offset from each other. The later Sony encoders like the CXA-1645 and 2075 do away with the external trap and delay line, and re-purpose those pins as an actual S-Video out.
I'd urge you to consider reverting the power mod. 9V centre negative wasn't just common, it' was practically the standard for a whole range of early-mid 80s consoles and computers from Japan & Europe. Nintendo used it for the Famicom, Sinclair used it for the Spectrum and SEGA used it for all their consoles.The power supplies are readily available, and my fear is that when those labels fall off, whoever ends up with it in the future is going to either end up breaking It or be confused as to why it no longer works and think it's broken.
Obviously it's your machine to do with as you please, but hopefully it's going to last long enough that it becomes someone else's machine at some point in the future!
Have got to agree with @domramsey. Center negative are not that uncommon (Brother label machines use it too.)
And that center ground is a good way to get something burned up, at least in this country it is very uncommon. This isn't Europe/Japan in the '80s. I lost a very good sounding computer speaker/subwoofer set that way. I'd leave it the way it is now, not to mention 5v chargers are everywhere, the charger it came with not so much.
Oddly enough, the distributor for the Sega Master System in North America, was Tonka.
did not see your comment and stated the same thing (basically)
Wow, I never expected this channel to have retro console repairs, super nice to see. Esp. the Sega console! The original Master System has such a unique look, reminds me of a cut gem stone.
If you've got no plans to get a Genesis/Mega Drive as well - just get an official 3 button pad from one of those, as they're much less desireable than the 6 button pad. It'll be a million times nicer to hold than the rectangular NES or Master System controllers (in fact, I find them more comfortable to use than almost anything other than an X360/Xbone pad), and still holds up pretty well. If you're going to get a Genesis/Mega Drive, then sharing a 6 button pad across the two systems makes a lot of sense.
For a few years in the 2000's there were some pads for some other consoles that had internal fans to keep your hands dry, and I vaguely recall reading that a _very specific_ Microsoft Sidewinder pad was the best-feeling that had ever been designed, but in general you're right.
The Master System was first named Sega Power Base, being Master System the of the bundle package consisting of the console, two controllers, 3D glasses, and two games.
Was existed a more basic bundle called the Sega Base System, consisting only of one controller and no "Master System" naming, only at the title screen.
The time passed by, the Base System didn't sell very well and the console ended up being named as Master System itself.
Okay, with this one, you have brought back memories. I am from Vancouver WA. And my first video gaming system was the Sega Master System. I remember getting my first credit card as a 20 year old around Christmas of 1986, going to the Monkey Ward's at Eastport Plaza and buying one of these. I acquired about 50 master system games, the laser pistol, 3d glasses, and all the accessories. unfortunately in May of 2011 while living in Hazel Dell, there was a fire that spread into our home from a neighbors and we lost everything including my beloved Master system.
I had many games including Choplifter, if you jumped every now and then while on the ground, it would prevent tanks coming out to kill you, I also had the combo pack game of Outrun and Hang on I remember playing soulblade, sonic, and qbert, I also had three or four 3d games including Zaxxon 3D, maze Hunter 3D and Outrun 3D. I kept it so long because I have cerebral palsy and no use of the right side of my body and I could play it with only one hand.
I never had a master system but I remember GI Joes had a aisle devoted to the master system, maybe it was the only console they carried. I always enjoyed checking the sega stuff out, loved the "futuristic" 80s aesthetic of the packaging and unique games. Sorry you lost your collection.
@@voidgap Ahhhh... Gi Joes at Delta Park. Bought many concert tickets and CB Radios there. But I appreciate your concern. We lost everything we owned including my TRS-80 CoCo 1 that was expanded to 64k and all the accessories to those as well. including the 3 slot expansion pack, speech synthesizer, and dual 360k disk drive. Running OS9, deskmate and Sierra software.
This channel is always my goto for nostalgia, but now Adrian you just pushed it up to 11 with the SMS. I grew up with this console! Still fondly remember the Xmas I got it, back in '86 I believe. Me and one of my friends had the SMS, everyone else the NES. ;)
I'd highly recommend "Phantasy Star", "Book of Ys", "Golden Axe" and "Golden Axe Warrior" (Zelda clone) to name a few. Unfortunately I lost all my cartridges in a break in, still hurts to this day, but they never found the actual console so I still have that atleast.
Anyways, thanks for this amazing trip down memory lane. I also love seeing the guts of the SMS with much more experienced eyes. Considering I actually owned over 40 games before they were stolen, I feel I should be allowed to try some *hrm* stuff out since I still have the console after all. :P
Super cool that the Sega Master System is getting some love! Growing up, we had the NES and the Master System. We didn't like one over the other we played both a lot. Alex Kidd in Miracle World was/is one of my favorite games of all time. We had a flood hit up in 97 and we lost our Master System and NES in it. I plan to pick up a MS and NES soon.
I believe that console supports RGB scart which is quite impressive considering when it was released.
A lot of the stuff you mention about ROM banking was done on C64, too. The only game I had that uses it is Robocop 2, which had a 640kbyte ROM and some fancy animated backgrounds, full screen animations and support for 2 button joysticks, ironically a Master System controller is what I used.
Ocean released several games in this format, off the top of my head Terminator 2 was another, although I owned that on tape, I think the cartridge version had a lot of features that the tape version didn't. According to Ocean's big 2 page adverts in Commodore Format magazine, these carts could hold up to 1mbyte.
Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap is the game that made me (bug my parents to) buy the Sega Master System. I got hooked after a sleepover. There's a great mechanic where you can turn into different animals with different abilities (like flight) that let you access different areas.
Also worth noting, the SMS had 3D goggles (LCD shutter) that connected through the card slot, and there were at least a few games with 3D editions - I had Zaxxon, Space Harrier, and some kind of 3D missile defense game was built into the console.
Haha this is awesome, I had a Master System back in the 80s. I absolutely loved Shinobi.
The remark that this is more like an 8-bit computer makes a lot of sense. The lineage of the MasterSystem includes the Sega SC3000 (Sega Computer), which was a personal computer system based on the master system with a keyboard, etc. You can see this also at 57:23 where this ID shows up. It offered a Basic variant.
This was my very first console, then they made a MK2 and it looked like a bubble.
I loved the angular design and that duck shooting game built in was the best 🤩🙌
That SEGA text you see in the ROM is actually an important part of copyright and reverse engineering.
It involves a lawsuit of Sega vs Accolade, though on the Genesis system, not the Master system. The short version is that the SEGA at that specific location was a means of trying to protect a licensing system, and Accolade violated it by reverse engineering. (Not much of a RE... but still). Literally Sega claimed copyright over having the word SEGA at that specific memory address. That's why you see it in the diagnostic ROM you downloaded.
The US courts ruled in Accolades favor, further establishing reverse engineering as fair use, and ruling against Sega, that they couldn't claim a trademark violation.
Honestly, I'm in the "restore, don't mod" crowd. This machines are getting more and more far in-between and if love to keep them in their original shape. Still, you did a great job in making a fun, entertaining and educational video and, a least, made the machine work again for everyone to enjoy it. Great vid all in all.
I was a 8bits Sega Master System kid, not that particular version thou and for a few years only, I then became a full on arcade and PC gamer and unfortunately, I only bought one or two games, my parents didn't cared at all to buy me games.
Unfortunately, I don't really recall the names of any of the extra games I bought for it, I remember not liking them anyway, one was a "first person" helicopter simulator game and a airplane fighter simulator game.
But I did remember the Alex Kid game you played, it came with my console for free and I played a bunch of it, when you showed it it was a nostalgia moment for me. My console also came with a free basic version of Sonic that I also played a ton. :)
When one of my cousins came from Germany and showed me his Nintendo 16bits console, it was really wow moment to me, compared to my sega 8bits master system, it was way better, I recall playing a ton of Street Fighter on it with him.
"The New Retro Show" is a fun channel. Lots of retro systems are covered, with new game titles featured for each! Usually links to get those games too!
I remember me and my sister rented a Master System from the video store over the weekend. Later I got one for my 7th birthday. Memories! I still have that one my [my] basement :) Both the version from the video store and the one I got later on had Alex Kidd in Miracle world build-in and i can't remember I have seen the bios menu before. I had forgotten about the hidden maze game. I remember from the console from the video store we also rented a card-based game. And to enter the hidden game we put the game card upside down and pressed all buttons on the controller at the same time and tried like 10 times before we could enter. And I have absolutely NO idea how and why we even tried that in 1989.
The trick to de-soldering a regulator like that is to add enough solder to cover all 3 pins simultaneously, wiggle the part until you see all the legs are free & then drop the part out.
Be careful of adding too much solder as it may run through to the other side, holding the PCB at 90 degrees to the bench will prevent this.
I always use hot air in the other hand to assist the soldering iron while working near ground planes. It works for me. But I wonder why Adrian didn't use his Hakko?
@@croissant-king I think he said that he was trying to do it without for people that don't have one.
@@moshly64 I missed that detail
this is the first time i saw someone fix a Master System .. this machine is really rare in europe thanks to SEGA releasing the II pretty fast after they released this one..
I'm surprised Adrian isn't familiar with the Master System. That is my childhood. There was another kid in the neighborhood who had a Master System. Everyone else had NES's of course. The Master System was a great console, and I still have one hooked up to a tube TV and play it from time to time.
Same here. My first real console, as my parenta already had an atari 2600 before I was born. I remember to this day father arriving from work with that enormous cosnole package and also with a spare cart, which was my arcade fever at that time. Double dragon !
It was such an amazing feeling, best gift ever...
I really enjoyed that repair video and didn't know there was readily available diagnostic tools for them. I got the Master System first as I am in the UK, and it was the console to have back then, plus the NES wasn't released here until 87' - '88 but when it was I got one for Christmas and have great memories of playing Mario Bros, Duck Hunt and Star Wars on a Hotel room television set after my mum pryed open the tuning control cover that had been glued shut to stop people tampering with the channels 😂 "we went away for Christmas & was given it whilst we were away". Both have their merits, but for me the Master System would be the go to console of the two due to Nostalgia. Also my mum used to steal my Master System from my room at night time to play Alex Kidd and Wonderboy and she actually dislocated her thumb playing Alex Kidd through over playing it 😂
This is by far the best 8bit/retro repair stuff channel.
Apart from them advising people to reverse the original polarity of the power input and causing any future owners a massive headache, or even the destruction of a vintage console when they use a correct specification power supply. 15:00
@@khaitomretro while I tend to agree, Adrian likely did that for educational purposes only. I would have left the regulator there and swapped the beads for a full wave rectifier instead. The only things that should be center negative are guitar pedals.
Really enjoyed this. I'm a Sega kid.. it was bigger here in australia than nes with all the kids I knew. Try the final Sonic game "Chaos" .. graphics were wonderful. Wonderful little machines.
I´m from Brazil and here the Master System was very popular! I used to rent one with games from a Video (VHS and games rent place). It really has awesome games!
I totally loved thisssss!! Would love to see what you could do and change with a Panasonic 3DO and or Philips CDi
I've made the CleanPower USB C mod for this console so fits super clean in system and gives it USB C. Happy to send you one
Sega did release an expansion device in Japan that the Master System sat on top of, using all the fittings and I/O port. I believe it enabled a keyboard and BASIC programming etc
I was about to write that I remembered the same, it also had some educational software that only worked using that expansion if I remember correctly.
This was the first system I ever purchased myself. Mine was a first generation, it said “distributed by Tonka” on the bottom. Oh, and Shinobi? Takes forever to beat because there aren’t any “save points” and (spoiler alert) when you beat it, it just says “The End”. Oh, and one of the best (if not the best) game: Wonder Boy 3 the Dragons Trap
There was an experimental modem made for the NES using the expansion port, and it was supposed to be used for a lottery system in Minnesota, but it was never mass produced. These days the most common use for the NES expansion port is to solder a wire and a resistor between two pins to enable the expanded audio channels found on the famicom disk system. There were no officially released peripherals for the Master System that used the expansion connector.
I grew up with the SMS. This is pure nostalgia for me.
I like the attitude performing mods to the console thats just the spirit of the users in the 80s. I wouldn’t have done that to the power connector though, since for me it’s a change that needs to be applied to a spare supply…
The Master System was the first console I had. Bought it off my friend at school for £2 in about 1994. In the UK it was far more popular than the nes. The Master System II with Alex Kidd in Miracle World built in is the most common version. It was a cut down model without the card slot and av socket.
Centre negative was pretty common back in the day, master system, mega drive and spectrum were all centre negative, same voltage and barell size too, I used to run my master system on a spectrum psu. My Casio keyboard too.
You still see Center-Negative a lot in certain applications, for example on guitar pedals and other music equipment. Guitar pedals have all standardized on the 9v, center negative, i think a 5525 or 5522 barrel plug.
Center negative is really popular in audio devices, like old 4 track tape recorders, which Tascam and Yamaha almost exclusively made center negative. If you plug a center positive PSU into the lower end recorders it blows some caps and causes the audio not to work. Which happens...all the time, unfortunately. Guitar pedals are center negative too.
Your thoroughness is satisfying!
in the UK, i had the PAL Master System 2 (the later, cost reduced version of the Master System) one interesting tidbit was that, if you didn't put a cartridge in and turned the console on, it loaded Alex the Kid in Miracle world, the first game you played on the evercart cartridge. Fun times and fond memories.
;Adrian that's as far as I ever got on R type :) - but that looked quite a good version on your SMS!