The SEGA 315-5237 is the problem. It takes the master clock and distributes the clock to the RGB Encoder, however it does not have a NTSC mode/clock divider. It is hard set to the PAL clock divider. So an NTSC crystal will result in the wrong clock being sent to the RGB Encoder. Luckily the Z80 clock is close enough to the NTSC subcarrier frequency. I am trying to design some mods that will allow full PAL and full NTSC but there are lots of little problems to try overcome. I would put your switchless region mod and FM mod into the same console. This way you can use the FM mod switchlessly since the region mod also controls the FM module.
Hi will you have more kits to sell soon when you start shipping internationl again next week ? I need to try this out on my 171-5922A PAL model. I think I will do the the RGB bypass and also an NTSC mod. :)
Thanks for the explanation my man. Of course you know exactly what is going on! Was the color pattern a giveaway? It's all beginning to make a bit more sense now. I'm assuming the resistor is just to get the peak-to-peak voltage within the spec defined in the CXA1145 datasheet? Would there have been a way to determine this without an oscilloscope?
Thats what I kinda figured was the issue here, that the video chips werent getting the proper clock signal to run the NTSC video properly. If I recall correctly a handful of old computers and consoles would have their CPU's run at a specific frequency in PAL and NTSC regions to provide the correct RF/Composite/Whatever video so sometimes computers or consoles in PAL regions not only had video that ran slower but the system as a whole ran slower since everything had to work at the same speed as PAL's signalling.
I though ntsc/pal would only be a thing on the RF since rgb is a different colour system alltogether and that the dual freuency oscillator generetaded the separate clocks for the z80 which runs a little faster with an oscillator designed for 60hz and also the 60hz rf requires a slightly higher subcarrier and that you were better of isolating the subcarrier these days alltogether sine rf isnt reall a thing aymore. Does ths MS deliberatly use any composite artefacts as a part of its graphics lke on the megadrive or is rgb unequivocally better on the MS?
I've been a subscriber of @lukemorse1 for years. I don't know exactly how long, but I probably watched that video when it first came out. I never get tired of "back again Luke here." He's really good at figuring out these weird little details.
Only been watching repair videos on YT for like 5 years. Never once been recommended his channel. That tells you all you need to know about the algorithm.
@@BorderlineOCD The algorithm is broken, I have no doubt. As a viewer, about 50% of TH-cam's recommendations to me are things that I have no interest in seeing.
Your videos are fantastic. My electronic knowledge isn't great, but your explanation really helps me understand. Plus, you keep showing Alex Kidd in Miracle World and that's a nostalgia overload. Digging the clear case OG XBox in the background too. I had modded my XBox with a similar case.
I'm not a modder, but I greatly enjoy watching other modders do their work and hack things into systems that wouldn't normally be there in order to fully exploit all of the hardware capabilities. It's great that you take care to make it all look like it was supposed to be there all along.
It's really cool to see your troubleshooting process for when things take an unexpected turn. I do hope you put in the replacement crystal into the model 2 that you took an original crystal out of!
Thanks for adding the comparison of the video modes - a lot of other people making similar videos neglect to do this, but seeing them side-by-side immediately demonstrates the differences and sells the value of doing the work - it's really a night and day difference in image quality. Nice work on the console, and thank you for the upload.
What I love most in your videos is not only the amazing explanations, but how clean and beautiful is the final work. In this video for example, the way that you place the wires is simply amazing and, for me, the most satisfying kind of video to watch. Keep going with the amazing work mate
@@IIGrayfoxII yeah, they were. You just tolerated it because you didn’t know better, and I presume you’re from U.S and didn’t have RGB SCART on your TV?
Nice, I love vids like this. So helpful for people modding these consoles. Luke is the man. He inspired me to consoleize a game gear but he built a new case out of an old n64 case for his. I just stuck with the oem case for mine.
I enjoy watching your clean and thorough work. Presentation of your work is superb. Plus I get to reminisce about my days as a young man, playing video games with my buddies after work. And I just love seeing old things become useful. Very nice.
Watching you work on stuff is like watching a watchmaker working on a fine Swiss watch. I love your attention to detail, neatness and cleanliness. Your repairs and mods look better than some professionals.
Very exciting, I wondered what mods you could even do to a Master System. Fantastic presentation too, the overall project, the console video, the soldering shots, and your workmanship is 👌 Having grown up with the PAL version, the difference in the 60Hz audio is really strange to hear!
I subbed to your channel a month ago and I say I am loving your breakdowns and the mods. Thanks for the content and helping giving me the courage to be more adventurous with my consoles.
@@BorderlineOCD Heh, yep I agree. Back in the 90's I had a chance to get a used NTSC SMS2, but I passed and ended up going with the SMS1 for the same price because of the card slot. Glad I did at the time, but had no idea the US SMS2 was considered rare.
@@BasementBrothers I live in the UK and own a SMS2. Always wanted the SMS1 because it looks that much better, can output RGB and was more compatible with the SMS library. One day I'll get one!
The SMS was a huge success here in Spain. In fact, it was my first console and still got it with the composite mod and a chinese flashcart. It makes me happy to see people that still love this beauty :)
Lukemorse1 wow now there's a name i hadn't heard In a minute he has helped numerous folk on here over the years been a while since I heard his name but I am not surprised he had the answer to this, great job as always the Master system is one of my favourite systems. 👍
@lukemorse1 is the OG modder I followed at the start as well. He has a wealth of knowledge and amazing content. PAL consoles are hard coded to divide the crystal frequency, so you need to bypass it the way you did it. NTSC consoles use a different dividing ratio which sets a different subcarrier frequency.
So there's one more change you're technically supposed to make here, and it seems like you can get away without it but it's worth mentioning as if you make the change it could make the composite video a little better. If you look at the "application circuit" page of the 1145 datasheet (towards the end) you can see one more difference between the PAL and NTSC circuits: the external bandpass filter is a different frequency. Comparing a few NTSC and PAL schematics from Sega, I think the following will do it: Bypass (remove and replace with jumper) C35 and L3, then change R22 from 1k to 330 ohm. If you look at the genesis model 2 VA1 schematic it shows the two different circuits in labeled boxes (the VA0 schematic has the labels reversed, haha). There are probably even better bandpass circuits you could put there, but changing it to the original one Sega used will at least have it at the right frequency for NTSC. This isn't super necessary for composite to simply *work* but it makes sense to do if you're permanently changing the region of a console.
@@BorderlineOCD Oof I just realized I made a mistake. R24 should be changed to 330 ohm, not R22. R22 is fine as it is. Also you don't need to actually remove C35 and L3. You can just short them out. They're in series, so you can accomplish this by just connecting the two outer legs (the two that aren't connected together), but shorting all four legs of both components also works and is harder to mess up. Bear in mind that inductors are short at DC so you can't trust your continuity measurement to see you got it right.
Great video but a huge boost to your production value would be something like a lavalier microphone, you can record the camera audio too as a backup if something goes wrong, but it'll cut down on the roomtone and reverb.
I'm struggling a bit with audio to be honest. I don't want a lav mic, I prefer a free standing one. The setup is pretty legit with a boom arm that's insulated from the desk. I've gone through a few mics now and still working on getting it dialed in. The problem with the Blue Yeti is that it's too sensitive even with the gain dialed all the way down.
@@BorderlineOCD I'm not sure about the price but those Røde "box" wireless mics that someone like Adrian Black uses seem pretty cool and doesn't require you to be in a sweet spot.
Awesome video, I subbed to your channel last Monday and have been binge watching all week. I'm so glad I found your channel. You do amazing work man. :)
Funny how you could not have it all back then. Here in Europe we had the RGB Scart option on many consoles which is great and all but stuck with 50hz for the most part. Over the pond you guys had composite but with sweet sweet 60hz. Now with the power of modding we can all enjoy best of both worlds. Great!
Luke is a fantastic individual though. I'm sure he'd be happy to answer any questions. He has an enormous amount of experience repairing arcade hardware and consoles.
@@BorderlineOCD absolutely love your about page too buddy. So refreshing for someone to be purely doing this out of pure love and not to sell out. Also, I need tp for my bunghole hehe
Nice video! I wish I still had my old Master System III to check how those chips are configured in brazilian systems, as I suspect it is setup like an NTSC system, but then on the chip that codifies color it is set as PAL.
Brazilian systems transcodify the signal to PAL-M. Note that PAL-M isn't the same as normal PAL. The system itself should be outputting NTSC as is from the chips and converted in some way.
I am subscribed to this channel. I really like this! My only minor remark is I wish that it got the LED treatment in the pause button (the glow from the lamination surrounding the perimeter of the button in question)...
@@BorderlineOCD I’d recommend the LED mod done in the style of this video: th-cam.com/video/ZG5-14mFHzA/w-d-xo.html of course with the 2-color LED (I’m not sure if a blue/green dual LED exists, but that’s just a suggestion from me).
Hey just found your channel… really enjoying the content.. if I was looking to getting into this hobby which work station would you recommend? I see a lot on Amazon!
I generally like none destructive mods as much as possible. For me, it makes me feel like I’m preserving these systems better. So, I would have desoldered those pins bent the ones I needed to and resoldered them back. Solder is less destructive than scratching away pcb masking or cutting the chip’s legs. To be clear, I’m not shaming those who want to do it that way. I’m saying for me, I want to keep mine as original as possible but yes, still have my mods and play them too. Btw Luke is awesome and still is. Great guy.
@@BorderlineOCD When I said that I meant, I would desolder the entire chip remove it and bend it and then resolder the chip without cutting it. That's me. That's what I would do. Extra work sure but, it's how I would do it. Sorry for the confusion.
Just starting to enjoy some of his backlog. He's got a couple of quirky mods as well which I thought were cool (like the Neo Geo with the built in screen lol).
@@BorderlineOCD oh yeah I love his works ever since, including the old arcade PCB's, he made some restoration in arcade boards like PS2, PS3 based arcade motherboards, sometimes Xbox based arcade board he did
i'm from brazil and i would love a Master System in black like this one, they're so good looking, our TecToy variants are grey with a white pause button
There aren't a ton of great pictures of the TecToy variants. Is there a version with this exact mold (just the different color plastic) or is the shape/size slightly different?
@@BorderlineOCD is slightly different, the power cable is attached to the console and there is a switch to choose between channel 3 or 4 here is a TecToy SMS th-cam.com/video/J5PbJNvURPg/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=Tecnologia%26Nostalgia
So in pal regions we have the same issue with USA nintendo SNES but we reverse the resistor capacitor to make it show on the tv properly, it’s done on the video cable
So the crystal primarily impacts the colour burst - the frequency that NTSC uses to transmit its colour data is different to PALs, and the oscillator fine-tunes the output from the console to match with the appropriate display signal. This is why composite and RF on older PAL TVs display NTSC signals in black & white and vice versa - the multiplication offered from the oscillator doesn't allow the colour frequency to match up with what the TV expects, so it can't display accurate colours. If you're using RGB, it's an ~entirely~ different colour signal than NTSC or PAL, so you rarely (I've never seen it) get the colour issue with RGB output. If I recall correctly, the actual console speed also becomes slightly different if using a PAL-origin oscillator with an NTSC signal and vice-versa - but it's the difference of maybe a single frame every minute, so it's almost entire um-noticeable. This is a really rough explanation via mobile typing without any sources at hand so I'm sure some of these points aren't 100% precise but the gist of it should be on point
@@BorderlineOCD I don't know if its relevant but I live in a PAL region and my Mastersystem II has no other mods. So PAL RF but with full screen/full speed 60hz mod and color only works on my newer TV's.
13:08 I'm not familiar with master system, but this is what I'm thinking: On the Mega Drive, the VDP has a dedicated clock divider for the chroma subcarrier, and changing it from NTSC to PAL mode or vice-versa will change that divider to produce the proper subcarrier frequency from the main clock (although just like the Master System, it does need a slightly different master clock frequency to get the exact correct subcarrier frequency). On the Master System, however, they cheated and the NTSC systems use the NTSC subcarrier clock as the CPU clock as well. PAL systems have the subcarrier wired differently, coming from a pin on the PAL-specific IO chip that provides the ~4.43 MHz needed. The VDP is still generating roughly 3.58 MHz but it's only used as the CPU clock rather than also for the subcarrier. So for this mod you actually have to change where that clock is coming from on the video encoder, while on a Mega Drive it would be coming from the same place and the frequency changes when you change the mode of the VDP.
Hello my friend, I absolutely love your work, but I must point out that when you say "over here" you sound like kermit the frog, sorry I just had mention it, because I think it is brilliant. Thank you and keep up the good work
I really appreciate someone that is expert enough to know exactly where their limits are. True intelligence is not being satisfied with knowing something, it is trying to learn new things
Very nice work! A few years back, I thought I could get around having to do any mods by simply getting a Japanese master system with a cartridge adapter, but sadly Wonder Boy 3 will just not boot with the adapter, despite several attempts to track down the issue and a few educated-guess modifications to the adapter pcb. Now I've caved and ordered an NTSC Master System so I can at least play my copy of Wonder Boy 3 even if it won't have the FM sound activated (unless it turns out I have a bad cartridge, lol). I think I'd do okay installing the mods (though no where near as neatly as the work I've seen here!), but naturally that FM mod board seems to be out of stock everywhere now. Oh well! Such is the life of an original hardware enthusiast. Anyway, definitely interested to see more!
Did you ever figure out what about the JP system makes it incompatible? I know there are some minor differences between NTSC-J and NTSC-U but it's odd that a single game would be problematic.
@@BorderlineOCD I did not. Wonder Boy 3 is an oddity because it will support FM sound if it detects that it's plugged into a Japanese Sega Master System/Mark III, but it was never officially released in Japan for that system. Probably a planned release that never happened. My other two NTSC-NA games work fine with the adapter. I've only found that WB3 has two rom chips on it, and probably does the "bank switch" approach to have a larger game rom. Likely as a result, it appears to use an extra pin on the cartridge compared to my other two games which don't appear to tie anything to that pin, but that's as far as I got. I've found very little discussion online about this, only that a couple others have had trouble getting the game to boot with at least some adapters as well. I guess there's so many other, easier ways to play this game with the FM sound, there probably isn't much interest in figuring out the why or solving it (if possible).
I would have been curious to see if the original (or console5) crystal would have given the same result. Also, it might be a good idea to invest in a cheap USB oscilloscope.
I put it in the Genesis, didn't see the need to swap them again. I really should get an oscilloscope. Been watching Adrian Black's videos on all those scopes, really don't like the ones that need a computer. Would prefer something embedded but even the clones are a couple hundred bucks. It will be a worthwhile investment maybe it's the next big toy I get.
Were you able to determine if the "new"/custom oscillator you picked up to avoid cannibalizing a Genesis was able to be put onto the MS2 board with no ill effects?
If you mod any PAL console into NTSC, you're sacrificing resolution + better colors for 10 more fps, as seen @16:22 . I wonder if a PAL/NTSC switch could be done on a console as old as the SMS.
I am confused. I tried to hook up a Pal Master System via RGB and a SCART-HDMI adaptor. All I get is a super dark screen with letters and some sound. My Neo Geo that I bought in France in 1996 has zero issues running on a US TV.
SMS1 or SMS2? The French SMS2 had the smoothing caps for the RGB lines in the official SCART cable, rather than the system board. Unless you're using the official cable some modifications will be necessary to get the right RGB output levels from the system.
I’m not familiar with the French SMS1 in particular but there’s a good chance it’s the same as the SMS2 in RGB implementation. That’s probably your issue if you’re not using the official cable.
The SEGA 315-5237 is the problem. It takes the master clock and distributes the clock to the RGB Encoder, however it does not have a NTSC mode/clock divider. It is hard set to the PAL clock divider. So an NTSC crystal will result in the wrong clock being sent to the RGB Encoder. Luckily the Z80 clock is close enough to the NTSC subcarrier frequency. I am trying to design some mods that will allow full PAL and full NTSC but there are lots of little problems to try overcome.
I would put your switchless region mod and FM mod into the same console. This way you can use the FM mod switchlessly since the region mod also controls the FM module.
Hi will you have more kits to sell soon when you start shipping internationl again next week ? I need to try this out on my 171-5922A PAL model. I think I will do the the RGB bypass and also an NTSC mod. :)
@@josteinkallevik Will have RGB mods in stock. I can try get some of these crystals.
Thanks for the explanation my man. Of course you know exactly what is going on! Was the color pattern a giveaway? It's all beginning to make a bit more sense now. I'm assuming the resistor is just to get the peak-to-peak voltage within the spec defined in the CXA1145 datasheet? Would there have been a way to determine this without an oscilloscope?
Thats what I kinda figured was the issue here, that the video chips werent getting the proper clock signal to run the NTSC video properly.
If I recall correctly a handful of old computers and consoles would have their CPU's run at a specific frequency in PAL and NTSC regions to provide the correct RF/Composite/Whatever video so sometimes computers or consoles in PAL regions not only had video that ran slower but the system as a whole ran slower since everything had to work at the same speed as PAL's signalling.
I though ntsc/pal would only be a thing on the RF since rgb is a different colour system alltogether and that the dual freuency oscillator generetaded the separate clocks for the z80 which runs a little faster with an oscillator designed for 60hz and also the 60hz rf requires a slightly higher subcarrier and that you were better of isolating the subcarrier these days alltogether sine rf isnt reall a thing aymore. Does ths MS deliberatly use any composite artefacts as a part of its graphics lke on the megadrive or is rgb unequivocally better on the MS?
I've been a subscriber of @lukemorse1 for years. I don't know exactly how long, but I probably watched that video when it first came out. I never get tired of "back again Luke here."
He's really good at figuring out these weird little details.
The explanation of the technical document and how you made the change based on that was very helpful.
Glad it was helpful!
Oh man, I love @lukemorse1 repair videos. Nice to see his videos are useful to you as well.
Only been watching repair videos on YT for like 5 years. Never once been recommended his channel. That tells you all you need to know about the algorithm.
@@BorderlineOCD If you like electronics repair videos, check out The 8-Bit Guy, 12voltvids, and shango066
Unfamiliar with the second two. I’ll be sure to check them out. Thanks for the recommendations.
@@BorderlineOCD The algorithm is broken, I have no doubt. As a viewer, about 50% of TH-cam's recommendations to me are things that I have no interest in seeing.
lukemorse1 is pretty good, he does arcade board repairs and lives in Japan, pretty chill dude, highly recommend his videos
Definitely enjoying his content.
I liked the black and white foreshadowing. Great video and mods!
I wanted to thank you for demonstrating the PCB rotator in your videos, it inspired me to buy the same and I am really happy with it!
Your videos are fantastic. My electronic knowledge isn't great, but your explanation really helps me understand. Plus, you keep showing Alex Kidd in Miracle World and that's a nostalgia overload.
Digging the clear case OG XBox in the background too. I had modded my XBox with a similar case.
Glad you find them helpful.
I'm not a modder, but I greatly enjoy watching other modders do their work and hack things into systems that wouldn't normally be there in order to fully exploit all of the hardware capabilities. It's great that you take care to make it all look like it was supposed to be there all along.
It's really cool to see your troubleshooting process for when things take an unexpected turn. I do hope you put in the replacement crystal into the model 2 that you took an original crystal out of!
So lucky having 1 video still online from 10 years ago fixing this exact issue 😊👌
AND it was recorded in full HD :P
@@BorderlineOCD damn that's rare
Excellent video! Thanks for the breakdown of the data sheet. Your attention to detail is impressive.
It helps me understand it better if I try explaining it to someone else. Glad it was helpful!
Oh man....your work with the "solding" (don't know if this is the right word to your chip/metal work) is so good to watch...it's like art to me.
Thanks for adding the comparison of the video modes - a lot of other people making similar videos neglect to do this, but seeing them side-by-side immediately demonstrates the differences and sells the value of doing the work - it's really a night and day difference in image quality.
Nice work on the console, and thank you for the upload.
It's always an amazing feeling when you come across someone else who had the exact same problem and were nice enough to share how they fixed it.
What I love most in your videos is not only the amazing explanations, but how clean and beautiful is the final work. In this video for example, the way that you place the wires is simply amazing and, for me, the most satisfying kind of video to watch.
Keep going with the amazing work mate
This has been a blast to follow along with! Great work and that final picture looks so crisp and clear, it's incredible!
"Time for what I hope is our final test". 😛But regardless, this was fun and informative to watch and learn!
Great work! LukeMorse is a gangster! So nice to see these blurry/slow PAL via Composite signals getting suped up to RGB 60hz. Doing the lord's work.
Amen brother.
They were not blurry back in the day.
@@IIGrayfoxII yeah, they were. You just tolerated it because you didn’t know better, and I presume you’re from U.S and didn’t have RGB SCART on your TV?
@@MetzGaming I am from Australia.
I used the stock RF connector.
Dont forget Analog TVs native resolution was not that high.
Nice, I love vids like this. So helpful for people modding these consoles. Luke is the man. He inspired me to consoleize a game gear but he built a new case out of an old n64 case for his. I just stuck with the oem case for mine.
That's awesome!
Looking forward to the FM sound mod.
I enjoy watching your clean and thorough work. Presentation of your work is superb. Plus I get to reminisce about my days as a young man, playing video games with my buddies after work. And I just love seeing old things become useful. Very nice.
Thank you very much!
just found your channel this morning. love how clean, clear, and concise your videos are! looking forward to more content!
We could see on your face how genuinely happy you were when you bypass the clock signal and how flawlessly it worked afterwards. Awesome job
Watching you work on stuff is like watching a watchmaker working on a fine Swiss watch. I love your attention to detail, neatness and cleanliness. Your repairs and mods look better than some professionals.
Loving your videos, especially the modifications
Glad to hear it. I'm having lots of fun with them.
I am absolutely hooked on these videos man, this is awesome and inspiring, keep up the great work!
Very exciting, I wondered what mods you could even do to a Master System. Fantastic presentation too, the overall project, the console video, the soldering shots, and your workmanship is 👌 Having grown up with the PAL version, the difference in the 60Hz audio is really strange to hear!
Awesome video. i also have a model 2 just sitting around so time to mod it just like this. Thank you
Happy modding.
Lukemorse1, now that takes me back a long time. Loved watching his Japan thrift shopping videos for retro stuff.
He seems to have pretty unique content with all those arcade PCBs. Must be fun living in Japan where this kinda stuff is plentiful.
I subbed to your channel a month ago and I say I am loving your breakdowns and the mods. Thanks for the content and helping giving me the courage to be more adventurous with my consoles.
lukemorse1 was one of the OG modders back in the day!
Great mod, and while I do prefer the Master System 1, it's nice to see RGB out of one of these!
There's something clumsy but oddly charming about the SMS2.
@@BorderlineOCD Heh, yep I agree. Back in the 90's I had a chance to get a used NTSC SMS2, but I passed and ended up going with the SMS1 for the same price because of the card slot. Glad I did at the time, but had no idea the US SMS2 was considered rare.
@@BasementBrothers I live in the UK and own a SMS2. Always wanted the SMS1 because it looks that much better, can output RGB and was more compatible with the SMS library. One day I'll get one!
The SMS was a huge success here in Spain. In fact, it was my first console and still got it with the composite mod and a chinese flashcart. It makes me happy to see people that still love this beauty :)
Seems to hit a really nostalgic spot with folks outside North America where it was more popular and successful.
Lukemorse1 wow now there's a name i hadn't heard In a minute he has helped numerous folk on here over the years been a while since I heard his name but I am not surprised he had the answer to this, great job as always the Master system is one of my favourite systems. 👍
Thanks buddy. Glad to see he's still posting.
Nice job and awesome that Luke's old video was able to help. Been watching his repair and other vids for a long time.
Thanks 👍
@lukemorse1 is the OG modder I followed at the start as well. He has a wealth of knowledge and amazing content. PAL consoles are hard coded to divide the crystal frequency, so you need to bypass it the way you did it. NTSC consoles use a different dividing ratio which sets a different subcarrier frequency.
I've been enjoying his backlog over the last few days. He's got some quirky mods on there too which I haven't seen before.
i love how calm and fluid he is, amazing channel. If you start a patreon i will definitely support 👍
I remember Lukemorse for his Neo Geo audio repair video series. Great to see his work come in handy here as well.
Slowing checking out his backlog. Lots of oldies but goodies.
So there's one more change you're technically supposed to make here, and it seems like you can get away without it but it's worth mentioning as if you make the change it could make the composite video a little better.
If you look at the "application circuit" page of the 1145 datasheet (towards the end) you can see one more difference between the PAL and NTSC circuits: the external bandpass filter is a different frequency.
Comparing a few NTSC and PAL schematics from Sega, I think the following will do it: Bypass (remove and replace with jumper) C35 and L3, then change R22 from 1k to 330 ohm. If you look at the genesis model 2 VA1 schematic it shows the two different circuits in labeled boxes (the VA0 schematic has the labels reversed, haha).
There are probably even better bandpass circuits you could put there, but changing it to the original one Sega used will at least have it at the right frequency for NTSC. This isn't super necessary for composite to simply *work* but it makes sense to do if you're permanently changing the region of a console.
Thanks for sharing this! I will definitely look into it.
@@BorderlineOCD Oof I just realized I made a mistake. R24 should be changed to 330 ohm, not R22. R22 is fine as it is.
Also you don't need to actually remove C35 and L3. You can just short them out. They're in series, so you can accomplish this by just connecting the two outer legs (the two that aren't connected together), but shorting all four legs of both components also works and is harder to mess up. Bear in mind that inductors are short at DC so you can't trust your continuity measurement to see you got it right.
12:13 "Back again Luke here."
Haha I'm noticing that's a running theme with how he starts his videos.
Great video but a huge boost to your production value would be something like a lavalier microphone, you can record the camera audio too as a backup if something goes wrong, but it'll cut down on the roomtone and reverb.
I'm struggling a bit with audio to be honest. I don't want a lav mic, I prefer a free standing one. The setup is pretty legit with a boom arm that's insulated from the desk. I've gone through a few mics now and still working on getting it dialed in. The problem with the Blue Yeti is that it's too sensitive even with the gain dialed all the way down.
@@BorderlineOCD I'm not sure about the price but those Røde "box" wireless mics that someone like Adrian Black uses seem pretty cool and doesn't require you to be in a sweet spot.
Thanks again, can't wait to see the dual ossilator model you'll build. Could it become the Ultimate Master System ?
Modding seems like a never ending journey as I'm beginning to learn. But we'll see maybe at some point it will be "complete".
'Shout out to Luke Morse'
If you know who Luke is, of course it worked.
So it seems. He has a lot of love in the comments. I'm a little late to the party.
Awesome video, I subbed to your channel last Monday and have been binge watching all week. I'm so glad I found your channel. You do amazing work man. :)
YESSS! It continues! I was super stoked to see the next part of this!
That's for checking back. Great to see all the love for the SMS.
Excellent work, as always! It's wonderful to see the SMS get some love here in the States.
Thank you, fellow SMS fan. We are a rare breed, apparently.
I enjoy your videos so much!! Great job! Keep up the amazing work!
nice work , i really enjoyed this video , answered many of my questions already
Glad to see you were able to mod the console to NTSC. Enjoy playing with the unit and adding it to your collection
Nice to see you smiling towards the end of the video :)
Edit: also, the side-by-side comparisons are a welcome addition!
Loved the composite v RGB at the end blew my mind. places like MLIG zoom in too much
Funny how you could not have it all back then. Here in Europe we had the RGB Scart option on many consoles which is great and all but stuck with 50hz for the most part. Over the pond you guys had composite but with sweet sweet 60hz. Now with the power of modding we can all enjoy best of both worlds. Great!
The history on this stuff is pretty interesting.
Luke is a fantastic individual though. I'm sure he'd be happy to answer any questions. He has an enormous amount of experience repairing arcade hardware and consoles.
I love how clean and tidy your work is. Subscribed! :D
Thank you for great content!
Man I love this friggen channel
Thank you kind sir.
Absolutely love your videos keep it up!
Glad you like them!
Really nice job! Thanks for documenting this mod!
Thanks, it was a fun one.
Great stuff my friend, love your videos
Thank you very much.
I was actually going to ask if Model 2 could support the FM expansion, groovy to hear you’re gonna attempt it!
Great video! Luke is a TH-cam legend!
Great video & great perseverance troubleshooting this one.
Thank you!
Totally obsessed with your videos buddy. Epic
Glad you like them!
@@BorderlineOCD absolutely love your about page too buddy. So refreshing for someone to be purely doing this out of pure love and not to sell out. Also, I need tp for my bunghole hehe
Hahaha glad you got a chuckle out of it. Wasn't taking myself too seriously when I wrote it.
Nice video! I wish I still had my old Master System III to check how those chips are configured in brazilian systems, as I suspect it is setup like an NTSC system, but then on the chip that codifies color it is set as PAL.
Brazilian systems transcodify the signal to PAL-M. Note that PAL-M isn't the same as normal PAL. The system itself should be outputting NTSC as is from the chips and converted in some way.
That was a rush!. Great video
Every time your upload makes me happy :) Great work and thank you for content. Respect from Ukraine.
I am subscribed to this channel. I really like this! My only minor remark is I wish that it got the LED treatment in the pause button (the glow from the lamination surrounding the perimeter of the button in question)...
The switchless region mod will have an indicator LED that will accomplish this.
@@BorderlineOCD I’d recommend the LED mod done in the style of this video: th-cam.com/video/ZG5-14mFHzA/w-d-xo.html of course with the 2-color LED (I’m not sure if a blue/green dual LED exists, but that’s just a suggestion from me).
Hey just found your channel… really enjoying the content.. if I was looking to getting into this hobby which work station would you recommend? I see a lot on Amazon!
Love the fact you conquered this. I live in PAL land but always prefer NTSC consoles where possible.
I generally like none destructive mods as much as possible. For me, it makes me feel like I’m preserving these systems better. So, I would have desoldered those pins bent the ones I needed to and resoldered them back. Solder is less destructive than scratching away pcb masking or cutting the chip’s legs. To be clear, I’m not shaming those who want to do it that way. I’m saying for me, I want to keep mine as original as possible but yes, still have my mods and play them too. Btw Luke is awesome and still is. Great guy.
You can't solder the pins back. You have to sever the connection they're making with the board in order to feed your own signal into the pins.
@@BorderlineOCD When I said that I meant, I would desolder the entire chip remove it and bend it and then resolder the chip without cutting it. That's me. That's what I would do. Extra work sure but, it's how I would do it. Sorry for the confusion.
Got it, that makes more sense. That's a lot of work though. Maybe for a rare system for sure especially if the chip is uncommon.
lukemorse1 is one of my fave modders including the arcade PCB's
Just starting to enjoy some of his backlog. He's got a couple of quirky mods as well which I thought were cool (like the Neo Geo with the built in screen lol).
@@BorderlineOCD oh yeah I love his works ever since, including the old arcade PCB's, he made some restoration in arcade boards like PS2, PS3 based arcade motherboards, sometimes Xbox based arcade board he did
Very impressive! Well done.
"No, please, mate, don't do it! I don't want to eat beefburgers and play around wiv rooty tooty point and shooties, noooooo!" -The Master System
So cool, glad you got It figured out.
We had the same model in south America, since Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay are SECAM/PAL region :) great little console
i'm from brazil and i would love a Master System in black like this one, they're so good looking, our TecToy variants are grey with a white pause button
There aren't a ton of great pictures of the TecToy variants. Is there a version with this exact mold (just the different color plastic) or is the shape/size slightly different?
@@BorderlineOCD is slightly different, the power cable is attached to the console and there is a switch to choose between channel 3 or 4
here is a TecToy SMS
th-cam.com/video/J5PbJNvURPg/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=Tecnologia%26Nostalgia
So in pal regions we have the same issue with USA nintendo SNES but we reverse the resistor capacitor to make it show on the tv properly, it’s done on the video cable
Lukemorse is a legend. I fix arcade boards because of that guy
I did the 60hz conversion and I didnt change the crystal and it still went full 60hz with the faster speed
So the crystal primarily impacts the colour burst - the frequency that NTSC uses to transmit its colour data is different to PALs, and the oscillator fine-tunes the output from the console to match with the appropriate display signal. This is why composite and RF on older PAL TVs display NTSC signals in black & white and vice versa - the multiplication offered from the oscillator doesn't allow the colour frequency to match up with what the TV expects, so it can't display accurate colours.
If you're using RGB, it's an ~entirely~ different colour signal than NTSC or PAL, so you rarely (I've never seen it) get the colour issue with RGB output.
If I recall correctly, the actual console speed also becomes slightly different if using a PAL-origin oscillator with an NTSC signal and vice-versa - but it's the difference of maybe a single frame every minute, so it's almost entire um-noticeable.
This is a really rough explanation via mobile typing without any sources at hand so I'm sure some of these points aren't 100% precise but the gist of it should be on point
Thanks for sharing your knowledge on the subject. Lots of little subtleties that's for sure.
@@BorderlineOCD I don't know if its relevant but I live in a PAL region and my Mastersystem II has no other mods. So PAL RF but with full screen/full speed 60hz mod and color only works on my newer TV's.
yes, I put a 50/60hz switch in my SMS, which makes it output PAL 60 rather than NTSC. 90s TVs can cope fine with this.
Even though I have Alex Kidd on every device... That title screen and music hits me in the nostalgia everytime
also a good mod is to have a pause function on the controller, great video!
I'm still deciding on that one, but I have the kit for it. I have just one OEM controller right now and I'm not burning to mod it.
@@BorderlineOCD if you have spare genesis controllers you can mod it. Modding a sms pad is not worth it. Keep the great work
@@segajcharrua - aye, SMS pads are pretty awful to use, anyway.
13:08 I'm not familiar with master system, but this is what I'm thinking: On the Mega Drive, the VDP has a dedicated clock divider for the chroma subcarrier, and changing it from NTSC to PAL mode or vice-versa will change that divider to produce the proper subcarrier frequency from the main clock (although just like the Master System, it does need a slightly different master clock frequency to get the exact correct subcarrier frequency).
On the Master System, however, they cheated and the NTSC systems use the NTSC subcarrier clock as the CPU clock as well. PAL systems have the subcarrier wired differently, coming from a pin on the PAL-specific IO chip that provides the ~4.43 MHz needed. The VDP is still generating roughly 3.58 MHz but it's only used as the CPU clock rather than also for the subcarrier.
So for this mod you actually have to change where that clock is coming from on the video encoder, while on a Mega Drive it would be coming from the same place and the frequency changes when you change the mode of the VDP.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge on the subject. Lots of little subtleties that's for sure.
Hello my friend, I absolutely love your work, but I must point out that when you say "over here" you sound like kermit the frog, sorry I just had mention it, because I think it is brilliant. Thank you and keep up the good work
That mod looks so good even Voultar would approve it :)
Voultar is a creep
I'm pretty proud of the result! Expecting more wires and stuff with the upcoming mods so trying to keep it as tidy as possible.
I really appreciate someone that is expert enough to know exactly where their limits are.
True intelligence is not being satisfied with knowing something, it is trying to learn new things
Alex the kid just plays better on pal for me but then again I grew up with that version 😅 something about the slight slower pace and music.
Very nice work! A few years back, I thought I could get around having to do any mods by simply getting a Japanese master system with a cartridge adapter, but sadly Wonder Boy 3 will just not boot with the adapter, despite several attempts to track down the issue and a few educated-guess modifications to the adapter pcb. Now I've caved and ordered an NTSC Master System so I can at least play my copy of Wonder Boy 3 even if it won't have the FM sound activated (unless it turns out I have a bad cartridge, lol). I think I'd do okay installing the mods (though no where near as neatly as the work I've seen here!), but naturally that FM mod board seems to be out of stock everywhere now. Oh well! Such is the life of an original hardware enthusiast. Anyway, definitely interested to see more!
Did you ever figure out what about the JP system makes it incompatible? I know there are some minor differences between NTSC-J and NTSC-U but it's odd that a single game would be problematic.
@@BorderlineOCD I did not. Wonder Boy 3 is an oddity because it will support FM sound if it detects that it's plugged into a Japanese Sega Master System/Mark III, but it was never officially released in Japan for that system. Probably a planned release that never happened. My other two NTSC-NA games work fine with the adapter. I've only found that WB3 has two rom chips on it, and probably does the "bank switch" approach to have a larger game rom. Likely as a result, it appears to use an extra pin on the cartridge compared to my other two games which don't appear to tie anything to that pin, but that's as far as I got.
I've found very little discussion online about this, only that a couple others have had trouble getting the game to boot with at least some adapters as well. I guess there's so many other, easier ways to play this game with the FM sound, there probably isn't much interest in figuring out the why or solving it (if possible).
I missed your videos man. I hope you know that it's definitely noticed when you don't upload!
Hey thanks buddy, that's high praise. Much appreciated.
I would have been curious to see if the original (or console5) crystal would have given the same result. Also, it might be a good idea to invest in a cheap USB oscilloscope.
Same here. For the sake of replacements, I was banking on the Console5 crystal doing the trick.
I put it in the Genesis, didn't see the need to swap them again. I really should get an oscilloscope. Been watching Adrian Black's videos on all those scopes, really don't like the ones that need a computer. Would prefer something embedded but even the clones are a couple hundred bucks. It will be a worthwhile investment maybe it's the next big toy I get.
you should put a link to your desoldering iron
Love the content! Keep it up.
Thanks!
Wonder if it’s possible to do the same 9 pin av mod to a genesis model 1. Obviously not using the same connection on the motherboard but hmmmm🤔🤔
Were you able to determine if the "new"/custom oscillator you picked up to avoid cannibalizing a Genesis was able to be put onto the MS2 board with no ill effects?
It's in the Genesis and it's working fine. No sense in swapping them again.
If you mod any PAL console into NTSC, you're sacrificing resolution + better colors for 10 more fps, as seen @16:22 . I wonder if a PAL/NTSC switch could be done on a console as old as the SMS.
Question: Wouldn't it have been easier to just cut the trace and run the jumper wire underneath?
connect all the video and audio output to a wifi microcontroller and make a receiver that does all the post processing
Marvelous work!
Thank you!
From the title I thought it would've quadrupled in size
Haha yeah you woulda thunk 🤪
Bought a Sega Master system II few days ago, in mint condition, it costed me about 40 dollars :) im happy hehe
I wonder if the clock had anything to do with being 60 htz versus 50 htz
I am confused. I tried to hook up a Pal Master System via RGB and a SCART-HDMI adaptor. All I get is a super dark screen with letters and some sound. My Neo Geo that I bought in France in 1996 has zero issues running on a US TV.
SMS1 or SMS2? The French SMS2 had the smoothing caps for the RGB lines in the official SCART cable, rather than the system board. Unless you're using the official cable some modifications will be necessary to get the right RGB output levels from the system.
@@BorderlineOCD It's a French SMS1. Thank you for answering btw.
I’m not familiar with the French SMS1 in particular but there’s a good chance it’s the same as the SMS2 in RGB implementation. That’s probably your issue if you’re not using the official cable.