DUMP THE HARD DRIVE!!! Whatever is on it, its better to mount a backup than access the physical disk. it also would give you a better opportunity to analyze what format it is in and what it was used for, or if there is even anything on it. EDIT: I have put a summary of the updates from his twitter in a reply.
Looking at it from the video, it seems that they have the modem and HDD connected to the cartridge slot. That is, the connector for those expansions have traces going all the way back to the cart slot. That would make sense given that the final modem was cart only, and the cart slot had pins connecting to every damn part of the system. Chances are that the extra hardware maps to the same memory locations as the cartridges would. Would have been nice to see hi-res photos taken of the board, so we can tell what's going on easier. Someone made a screenshot once of a Sega Saturn CDR labelled as Pluto. So the software to control this exists in the hand of some collector but it is undumped. One interesting thing is that the board number is 171-7211B. For Sega hardware, the letter on the end means revisions increasing alphabetically, meaning that this is the second revision, or the third version of this PCB already. This puts those bodge wires into perspective. Also note that model 2 Saturn boards went from 171-7207 to 7209 (for board versions VA6 to VA8). Clearly this board was their lost brother, and the hardware inside is identical to stock Saturn units of that era.Aside from the extra carts with the modem and hdd, and their connector pcb, the only custom parts I see is the GAL, some extra bus drivers near the cart, and that small qfp that has the bodge wires near it. What was the label on the QFP labelled IC50? I can't seem to make it out on the video.Also the boot rom chip has 4 extra pins on the PCB so it could potentially hold larger firmware. But the chip in the console is the exact same as in stock USA units (MPR-17941).My guess is that they planned this to be an internet machine from which you can download your email, or do karaoke songs and so on. The Saturn had a Japanese cousin called SKC-1000, which was a Saturn hooked up with a modem and hard drive, a Denon amplifier, a Roland synthesizer chip, a SCSI driver board, and so on - it was ludicrously complex but at heart it was a Saturn expanded through the cartridge slot, exactly how the Pluto is expanded. Making a cost-reduced home version of that could have been the goal of this machine. Of course then it would have mic inputs, but those can be easily added later.
As for the end of the comment, much like what Sega did with the Dreamcast in Japan, with the karaoke add-on, zip cart expansion prototype, and internet kiosk console versions.
I feel totally blessed to have been able to hold the nintendo playstation prototype in my hands and take apart its rom cart at MGC. its by far the most valuable thing i've ever seen in person lol. Thanks for keeping all of us forum members in the loop for all these years Ben. looking forward to hanging out again at MGC 2021.
It'll be interesting to see how life moving forward goes. Certainly if mass gatherings ever become a thing again, it'll be very likely that most people will be wearing masks.
@@zigmeisterful It's not going to be like this forever. Just until the virus burns itself out or we develop and distribute a vaccine. Hopefully after it's all said and done, both individuals and governments are more prepared for inevitable catastrophes going forward.
To access the modem, you needed a "netlink" disc. They had a specific browser designed for the Sega with a keyboard and mouse accessory, every time they updated the browser you could order a new disc (only 2 were released). The alternative was to download the latest browser into the system memory (not the save space) which took 45 to over an hour on a 28.8 modem and telephone line. After powering off the Sega, it would clear the memory and you would have to download it again if needed. The hard drive accessory allowed you to keep that web browser (and other software/games) after power down. To access those options, again, you needed a netlink boot disc. that space on the back of the unit you thought was a port, was just for the Sega label.
That's kind of amusing, the Japanese on that printed label on the circuit board is "Nanjya Korya N3", which is roughly translated as "What's This?/What the hell is this?", perhaps either some bit of engineer humor, or perhaps could be a previous owner not knowing what the hell it is, maybe "Unknown Number 3" or something.
My money is on engineer humor; can't imagine a previous owner opening the case to label the circuit board to remind themselves that they don't know what it is.
Now that your have solidify your reputation as the guy that fixes ultra rare console prototypes, I hope you get to open and analyze many many more! And thanks for taking us for the ride, is awesome to see this unknown and forgotten pieces of our gaming past.
12:07 "I bet that's some sort of programable chip of some kind" It has a Latice logo on it, they made PAL(Programable Array Logic (made by AMD)) replacement chips. And the first 2 letters are GA, so, probably one of the GAL series, so it's likely an array of logic gates, maybe some flipflops.
@@deepblue8143 I'm sure your voice sounds ridiculous too. But really who fucking cares? It's nothing of substance in relation to the video and doesn't matter.
OK I have a prototype show hack story for you. I worked with a guy who used to work for one of the companies that made pinball machines (I think Bally). They had a prototype for an early microprocessor controlled game (using a Z80). The eproms they used had an access time that was just a bit on the slow side, but during development the game worked fine while testing until they put the processor board into the machine and closed it up. Then when they lifted the lid, it worked again! They finally figured out that the eproms got a bit faster when they were exposed to light! So they put a 100 watt bulb inside of the machine, and it worked all buttoned up. Then during the show, the bulb burnt out, and the machine stopped working. So they opened it up and put in a new bulb. Someone asked what the purpose of the bulb was, and they said the machine was afraid of the dark! As far as Indiana Jones goes, look on FanFiction.net for a crossover story with Indiana Jones and Clive Cusler (www.fanfiction.net/s/3468903/1/Passing-the-Torch). You might be thinking CD-I, the 8 bit guy just did a video about that.
@@BenHeckHacks From the color, it looks like it was cast from the same stuff as that little plastic bit that held the lid shut. Rapid prototyping! I wonder how they made the molds?
22:36 "You guys are probably too young to remember Tang" They still make it... -_- Also, a v-spring would have been a better way to go. It wouldn't have required modifying the prototype in any way, and it would be in line with how it was made.
If you dump the ISO of the hard drive, I'd send it to CyberWarriorX and see if he can make it run on actual Saturn Hardware. He'd be the best person for the job imo. He's a Yabause dev, and has been heads deep into the Sega Saturn for nearly 20 years (if not more) at this point. He probably has the most experience reverse engineering Saturn executables out of anyone else I could think of (which is no one, but I'm biased, what can I say).
Roger, you are delightful! Thank You for bringing this rare device to Ben. It couldn't have been in more capable hands. Its price just went up 10X. :-)
I remember whispers of the Sega pluto. it has been over 20 years since I heard that systems name. What a find. Awesome Video. That thing needs to be in a vault \ museum.
You should try and reach out to Professor Abrasive who ended up cracking the copyright protection for the Saturn. He might be able to tell you more about what kind of stuff the board and system hides. Also would love to see this thing at Austin's Classic Game Fest...if it still ends up happening.
This was so entertaining! All these pop-culture references... it almost makes up for all those custom BenHeck videogame creations not being available by mass production!
When I saw the power board I noticed it's almost exactly the same as the dreamcast. I imagine that this is a link between Saturn and Dreamcast. In fact lots of the internals remind me of dreamcast.
"Setup Time" looks like a Lattice brand GAL (the *very* little brother of FPGAs, usually used for glue logic in those old systems). You can even see the "GA" peeking out from under the label.
Yeah it's a Gal the same kind used to replace the C64 PLA. The Replacement is called GAL-PLA. It uses 2 GAL chips to replace the Commodore 64's PLA chip and it works perfectly every time. Just search GAL-PLA Website by Daniël Mantione. That is going to lead you to parts and what not. So if they need to replace the Setup time chip use one if them. Of course you don't need 2 as 1 will do but go ahead order 2 and you will have a backup.
@@ncc74656m That was 2 GAL20V8s. Those were 24 pins, and this one is 20 pins. It's a GAL16V8. And actually, being a prototype, there's a chance it wasn't even read-protected(!) He should try to dump the contents of that chip and put it onto an FTP site or something.
33:15 I love how not only the game screen bounces up and down with each hit but also the outside world does. That's the power of Pluto (formerly an actual planet).
Hey Ben! Please just make a `dd if=/dev/hd…` bit-for-bit ISO of the internal drive. It almost certainly is using some custom/unstandard filesystem and won't mount directly in Linux (or any other OS). Update: As others have noted, Ben!s having trouble getting the drive to show up on the system bus (and thus, under /dev). He's ordered an identical drive in order to swap the electronics, and might pursue professional data recovery.
@Ken Mason Not true, you can easily make a raw disk copy by using dd on the drive itself. Linux puts the disk itself in the /dev folder, together with entries for it's partitions if it's able to read the partition table. The disk itself would show up as something like "/dev/hda" while it's partitions would be labeled "/dev/hda1" and such. Command would become something like: sudo dd if=/dev/hda of=copy.bin status=progress (sudo for running as root, "if=" for input-file, "of=" for output-file and "status=progress" for letting it report it's progress to you)
That might be debatable, but one thing that is not debatable is that nobody cares that you keep mistakenly going to the bull out back to obtain your fresh milk for cereal each morning.
@@BenHeckHacks Did you possibly get any high-res photos of both sides of the PCBs? I mean, it's clear it's similar to the Ninty Playstation, where they tacked on the add-on to a standard system, but would be good to get some decent photos preserved anyway. ;)
@@BenHeckHacks 30:10 - Was NOT expecting that. lol Very interesting. Erm, I don't suppose the owner would allow the BIOS to be dumped, even if it's not necessarily for public release?
31:07 - If the drive shows up in the BIOS, and is recognized in the /dev folder in Linux, then it might be possible to just do a raw image dump of it rather than trying to mount it as a filesystem. It's unlikely to be in Linux NFS format anyway, and might not even be FAT/FAT32. That is unless the drive is passworded (at the hardware level, which is possible on many IDE drives, like on the OG Xbox).
"37 minutes? I'll skip through the video." I ended up watching the whole thing. The conversation is absolutely awesome. It's nice to hear Ben talking about Indiana Jones like back in the old days!
I find his banter annoying. Not to mention relative lack of knowledge about the Saturn as a platform. Not to mention the “yeah, this things works.” “Ok, I’ll ‘fix’ the solder joints.”
Very interesting video! I was just about to end my RUclips binge but with Ben Heck there is room for more! Am I early enough to get a reply? If so I'd like to say that I owe a decent amount my electronics hobby and career to Ben! Been watching you for years!
I only knew about the glass between Indy and the snake, I was too young to recognize (or care) about the boat and the torch scene, but now whenever I see the torch scene, that's all I'm going to see, all the flames dropping in the "oil"... Thanks Ben 😠
You seriously need a million subscribers.. idk how you haven’t hit that yet. You’re far more impressive to watch than these other huge RUclips channels. Keep it up!
You can't diminish the value of something when it's only one of two left in the world, theoretically they could carve it like a turkey and it be worth just as much.
It was a broken post that had to be glued back on and isn't even visible unless it is opened and a board is taken out. I don't think he's hurting anything.
Wow I was not expecting the top expansion card to be there, I thought it was just the metal blanking bracket at the back like on a PC. And even then I was amazed , it had a hard drive in it!! That's really cool! Shame there wasn't the software to use it on the Saturn , or able to view its contents on the pc
And the normal Expansion Port is still empty, so even with the modem and HDD you could still fit a VCD card it it. lol The fact that it has such a big capacity (for time) HDD, it was probably meant to hold games in it. If that's the case, this unit could be the key to develop a flashcard, or even an internal HDD adapter for the saturn!
Well... Modifying a unique item seems a little... Dubious. But at least it's well-documented, what you've done to this machine, so it would be well understood which part of it is your modification...
I remember when questions about his prototype started happening back in the late 90s on some of the boards I belonged to. It's great to have been able to see this, and makes me wonder if this incarnation would not have been better in some ways than the initial one that was released, had it instead been the first one. The hard drive is a surprise, but I secretly hoped it would have been one. Great job on the opening and work on the prototype.
Regarding the bit at the back where you thought there would be another expansion slot, regular Saturns have a sticker with the model number and other info in that spot.
Thanks for setting my memory straight in Raiders! Last Sunday I watched it with my parents and I said: “you can see a reflection, so he’s behind glass”. And we didn’t see it, I figured I had a false memory or saw some BTS snaps in Cinefix or something. It’s ironic that I’m a parttime VFX/SFX guy and didn’t for a moment think it was a cleanup job for Netflix/BluRay :)
Fun facts about Saturn Net Link: 1) It doesn't actually use the Internet, though it can connect to it. It, effectively, makes a phone call between systems to play games. As such, it's typically lag free, and still works today provided you have true analog phone lines. There has been headway in making it work over modern connections with VoIP. 2) While there is a boot disc to get access to a web browser, playing games via Net Link only requires a modem and a compatible game, of which there are only 5, though all are available in the US. Net Link games are usually marked as such, but are easily distinguishable by the Sega licensing screen appearing, flashing to black, and then appearing again as the system attempts to find the Net Link modem. They're a neat setup. This was probably a prototype with those swappable modems and hard drives for easier development, so that builds could be more easily tested, and that modem revisions could be worked on. Final production would've likely moved the modem into a more permanent setup and nixed the hard drive all together.
Is there my way to mute that guy with the soul patch? That’s the most annoying voice I’ve ever heard. Like nails on a chalkboard. And he won’t stop talking over Ben.
@@IlJokerTheStranj its funny how sony later went the overcomplicated hardware route, but they already had the market share (it did bite them in the ass with the ps3 tho). They also might even made their console intentionally complex but that couldnt work with sega and saturn.
That's partly because Sega made the incredibly bad decision to run it at the same time as the competing Sega CD, neither of which could run games made for the other. In economics, this is known as "Cannibalization," and it's one of the worst things you can do with product lines.
I loved how you restored this classic prototype. You did nothing to destroy the authenticity of the console. So I don't get the haters. It's like having a broken Egyptian artifact (like a now hallow mummified cat), gorilla gluing the thing together does not hurt the value or authenticity of the object, its the object's own significance and it survives that is the value and not the original condition. Or in this case one of 2 surviving Pluto prototypes.
I'm not sure who'se luckier. Ben for reparing all those prototype systems that never saw the light of day or Adam for meeting the guy who is the lucky owner of one of the Pluto systems.
Going to add to the other comments suggesting dumping the hard disk, except use ddrescue instead of dd. This will skip bad sectors on the first duff read, continue getting good sectors, then go back to try the bad ones again after it has secured as much of the good data as possible.
great video and great repair job, when opening it it look very similar to the Saturn the psu and cd drive especially, the mother board also resembles a Saturn but clearly has some extra bits, cool find on the hard drive, it would be nice to see a video on investigating if its its functioning and whats possibly on it. the white prototype you mention it seems it was actually an earlier development which was a Saturn 2, the project merged/became the Pluto at some point. I made a post about this on our Facebook page Sega Saturn collectors and gamers, id really like to do a follow up post on the new find and repair, i would use some screen's and info from your video if that's OK? also Roger Vega if you'd like to share your story on the Pluto find in more depth, it would be grate to do a right up on that. wish i was in the US and could get to see this thing at a game show.
MPEG-1 was pretty much the defacto standard at the time, we didn't have DVD decoding as mainstream until a couple of years later. I'm guessing the other module is for added game storage and possibly RAM expansion (they might have also incorporated SRAM storage in those new modules, that is a common mod used on Saturns today).
btw youtube's recommended algorithm actually funneled this video to me somehow even though it was literally just uploaded. prepare for a deluge (hopefully).
15:28 They didn't fix those things because unlike Lucas Mr. Spielberg learned his lesson about restoration in that you don't change things. You just preserve what was originally there.
The hard drive will probably only work in an old 90s PC, where you can set the following data in the BIOS manually: Heads: 63 Cylinders: 16 Sectors: 1047 My 1996 PC can accept both old and new IDE drives, so you can probably find a PC like that, put a lightweight version of Linux on a modern hard drive, connect it up, then also connect up this Pluto hard drive and dump it that way. Or use network dumping.
FruitCake CHS vs LBA wasn’t the issue. The problem he mentioned wasn’t copying from the drive, but rather mounting the file system. It was probably custom /purpose-built - not FAT16 (something Linux would have loaded in a heartbeat) - the only other file system that would make any sense for ‘93-‘95, when that was being developed. Plus, I’m sure he was already working from a block copy, as Ben is plenty savvy enough not to muck with the drive itself. All the commenters yelling “dd if=/dev/hd? ...” can seriously take a deep breath and chill out.
The blue sticker on the main board says "なんじゃこりゃ" "Nan Ja Korya" Which literally means "What's This!"
Was about to comment on that! Pretty funny seeing that in there.
It seemed like a pretty funny way to say "Prototype #3"
It's more like "what the hell is this!?"
Haha. Seeing that was pretty funny.
I read that in my best Ringo Starr voice
These rare prototypes always seem to find you Ben
DUMP THE HARD DRIVE!!!
Whatever is on it, its better to mount a backup than access the physical disk.
it also would give you a better opportunity to analyze what format it is in and what it was used for, or if there is even anything on it.
EDIT: I have put a summary of the updates from his twitter in a reply.
And the custom chips.
@@user-yv2cz8oj1k that's a good point, but I'm not sure how many are custom... it is internally just a Saturn...
They should also dump the bios.
Who knows what goodies await in there.
@@ClintTheriault I think that falls under "custom chips," but if it is unique, yes, they should.
This is so lackluster of them. :-(
HUGE Sega Saturn fan here and seeing one of these working brings a smile to my face. Also it's a damn shame that only two of six of these exist now.
Looking at it from the video, it seems that they have the modem and HDD connected to the cartridge slot. That is, the connector for those expansions have traces going all the way back to the cart slot. That would make sense given that the final modem was cart only, and the cart slot had pins connecting to every damn part of the system. Chances are that the extra hardware maps to the same memory locations as the cartridges would.
Would have been nice to see hi-res photos taken of the board, so we can tell what's going on easier.
Someone made a screenshot once of a Sega Saturn CDR labelled as Pluto. So the software to control this exists in the hand of some collector but it is undumped.
One interesting thing is that the board number is 171-7211B. For Sega hardware, the letter on the end means revisions increasing alphabetically, meaning that this is the second revision, or the third version of this PCB already. This puts those bodge wires into perspective. Also note that model 2 Saturn boards went from 171-7207 to 7209 (for board versions VA6 to VA8). Clearly this board was their lost brother, and the hardware inside is identical to stock Saturn units of that era.Aside from the extra carts with the modem and hdd, and their connector pcb, the only custom parts I see is the GAL, some extra bus drivers near the cart, and that small qfp that has the bodge wires near it. What was the label on the QFP labelled IC50? I can't seem to make it out on the video.Also the boot rom chip has 4 extra pins on the PCB so it could potentially hold larger firmware. But the chip in the console is the exact same as in stock USA units (MPR-17941).My guess is that they planned this to be an internet machine from which you can download your email, or do karaoke songs and so on. The Saturn had a Japanese cousin called SKC-1000, which was a Saturn hooked up with a modem and hard drive, a Denon amplifier, a Roland synthesizer chip, a SCSI driver board, and so on - it was ludicrously complex but at heart it was a Saturn expanded through the cartridge slot, exactly how the Pluto is expanded. Making a cost-reduced home version of that could have been the goal of this machine. Of course then it would have mic inputs, but those can be easily added later.
Your comment definitely deserves to go up!
Don't mind me, I'm just replying to signal-boost this comment
@@somebonehead Let's do it!
As for the end of the comment, much like what Sega did with the Dreamcast in Japan, with the karaoke add-on, zip cart expansion prototype, and internet kiosk console versions.
bump! that was a really interesting read.
I feel totally blessed to have been able to hold the nintendo playstation prototype in my hands and take apart its rom cart at MGC. its by far the most valuable thing i've ever seen in person lol. Thanks for keeping all of us forum members in the loop for all these years Ben. looking forward to hanging out again at MGC 2021.
Ahh, the distant past of February, when video game conventions were still things that happened
:-)
It'll be interesting to see how life moving forward goes. Certainly if mass gatherings ever become a thing again, it'll be very likely that most people will be wearing masks.
I was thinking the same thing...
Too bad the rest of 2020 is canceled
@@zigmeisterful It's not going to be like this forever. Just until the virus burns itself out or we develop and distribute a vaccine. Hopefully after it's all said and done, both individuals and governments are more prepared for inevitable catastrophes going forward.
Fuck You Google apparently the virus will be a seasonal thing every year.
To access the modem, you needed a "netlink" disc. They had a specific browser designed for the Sega with a keyboard and mouse accessory, every time they updated the browser you could order a new disc (only 2 were released). The alternative was to download the latest browser into the system memory (not the save space) which took 45 to over an hour on a 28.8 modem and telephone line. After powering off the Sega, it would clear the memory and you would have to download it again if needed. The hard drive accessory allowed you to keep that web browser (and other software/games) after power down. To access those options, again, you needed a netlink boot disc.
that space on the back of the unit you thought was a port, was just for the Sega label.
That's kind of amusing, the Japanese on that printed label on the circuit board is "Nanjya Korya N3", which is roughly translated as "What's This?/What the hell is this?", perhaps either some bit of engineer humor, or perhaps could be a previous owner not knowing what the hell it is, maybe "Unknown Number 3" or something.
Pretty sure it's also Kansai-ben
My money is on engineer humor; can't imagine a previous owner opening the case to label the circuit board to remind themselves that they don't know what it is.
Maybe Sega of America sent it to Japan for review, and they were like, WTF guys?
Jack Skellington!!! I have told that guy to quit tagging shit up and get back to Halloweening. If you see him, tell him I am mad!
they was prophete ,they knew
I approve of Ben Heck's airplane seating arrangements
"THERE'S ONLY TWO OF THESE IN THE WORLD!!"
**eats it**
Only guy in the world to taste rare prototype of which only two exist.
"LOOK IT'S PAINTED PLASTIC"
**scrapes off all the paint**
Like a rare truffle.
So Gendo Akari
@@ICanDoThatToo2 🤣
Now that your have solidify your reputation as the guy that fixes ultra rare console prototypes, I hope you get to open and analyze many many more!
And thanks for taking us for the ride, is awesome to see this unknown and forgotten pieces of our gaming past.
12:07 "I bet that's some sort of programable chip of some kind"
It has a Latice logo on it, they made PAL(Programable Array Logic (made by AMD)) replacement chips.
And the first 2 letters are GA, so, probably one of the GAL series, so it's likely an array of logic gates, maybe some flipflops.
This is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen! If you really "look" at it, it looks like a NEO GEO! Is just like it, it is simply beautiful.
You always make me smile Ben, and sometimes even laugh! Thanks to you and all the guys who made this great content possible.
that person sounds like they're talking at like 2.5x speed all the time
Ohmygoshiboughtitatafleamarketandiloveboys.
Enough with the PC hey dude, homophobia isn’t cool anymore.
@@deletedhobo7405 doesn't sound gay just living life 2.5x speed
@@deletedhobo7405 that doesn't make his voice any less ridiculous.
@@deepblue8143 I'm sure your voice sounds ridiculous too. But really who fucking cares? It's nothing of substance in relation to the video and doesn't matter.
OK I have a prototype show hack story for you. I worked with a guy who used to work for one of the companies that made pinball machines (I think Bally). They had a prototype for an early microprocessor controlled game (using a Z80). The eproms they used had an access time that was just a bit on the slow side, but during development the game worked fine while testing until they put the processor board into the machine and closed it up. Then when they lifted the lid, it worked again! They finally figured out that the eproms got a bit faster when they were exposed to light! So they put a 100 watt bulb inside of the machine, and it worked all buttoned up. Then during the show, the bulb burnt out, and the machine stopped working. So they opened it up and put in a new bulb. Someone asked what the purpose of the bulb was, and they said the machine was afraid of the dark!
As far as Indiana Jones goes, look on FanFiction.net for a crossover story with Indiana Jones and Clive Cusler (www.fanfiction.net/s/3468903/1/Passing-the-Torch).
You might be thinking CD-I, the 8 bit guy just did a video about that.
afraid of dark. lol
Never thought id see the day of a figure it out productions crossover! Great vid
Woo!
As a Sega kid for life this was really cool and its awesome having these two on with the pluto : D
I think my favorite part is the "Nanja korya N3" sticker. Someone having a bit of fun at Sega.
I'm betting this is a casting resin instead of an thermal plastic.
Very likely.
It's made from 6 cans of Flex Seal
@@mrburns366 if you spray it on a Shamwow, it turns into a Sega prototype
@@BenHeckHacks From the color, it looks like it was cast from the same stuff as that little plastic bit that held the lid shut. Rapid prototyping! I wonder how they made the molds?
@@AltimaNEO
He said the only one he had seen pictures of was white. Maybe that was the same case, pre-black-paint.
22:36 "You guys are probably too young to remember Tang"
They still make it... -_-
Also, a v-spring would have been a better way to go. It wouldn't have required modifying the prototype in any way, and it would be in line with how it was made.
I think his way is more skookum though
The unit was a hack job, what Ben did to it is inside the realm of what the original developers would have done when they were prototyping the thing.
If you dump the ISO of the hard drive, I'd send it to CyberWarriorX and see if he can make it run on actual Saturn Hardware. He'd be the best person for the job imo. He's a Yabause dev, and has been heads deep into the Sega Saturn for nearly 20 years (if not more) at this point. He probably has the most experience reverse engineering Saturn executables out of anyone else I could think of (which is no one, but I'm biased, what can I say).
Roger, you are delightful! Thank You for bringing this rare device to Ben. It couldn't have been in more capable hands. Its price just went up 10X. :-)
the seeming "cutout" area in the back looks like a nice place for a label to me...
I remember whispers of the Sega pluto. it has been over 20 years since I heard that systems name. What a find. Awesome Video. That thing needs to be in a vault \ museum.
You should try and reach out to Professor Abrasive who ended up cracking the copyright protection for the Saturn. He might be able to tell you more about what kind of stuff the board and system hides. Also would love to see this thing at Austin's Classic Game Fest...if it still ends up happening.
Kajico and they might even hear back from professor abrasive 5 years from now
@@nostalgiaflipnfix hes still alive on his patreon he just hasnt made a video
Ya maybe not. He is dead in the water on that project. It never happened.
@@specialformula14 He recently shipped out the beta units how is he dead in the water on the project?
@@f1ggyc yaa alive on patreon.. his source of free money lol fools....
Ben's there's only 2 of these in existence...proceeds to scratch the hell of a plastic post.
Maybe take a sector-perfect image of the drive and upload it, someone might be able to figure it out
Nice to see that it's in the hands of someone who appreciates that a prototype is more than just its monetary value!
"I'm going to drill a hole in your precious prototype."
"If I had a quarter for every time I've heard that..."
This was so entertaining! All these pop-culture references... it almost makes up for all those custom BenHeck videogame creations not being available by mass production!
When I saw the power board I noticed it's almost exactly the same as the dreamcast. I imagine that this is a link between Saturn and Dreamcast. In fact lots of the internals remind me of dreamcast.
Actually the boards are similar, but not identical. Looks to be a Saturn Ver2 power pcb. I used to install modchips on saturns years ago...
Dat Cat in those hats that’s why he said almost.
"Setup Time" looks like a Lattice brand GAL (the *very* little brother of FPGAs, usually used for glue logic in those old systems). You can even see the "GA" peeking out from under the label.
Just like the one they created the new $3 PLA for the C64.
Yeah it's a Gal the same kind used to replace the C64 PLA. The Replacement is called GAL-PLA. It uses 2 GAL chips to replace the Commodore 64's PLA chip and it works perfectly every time. Just search GAL-PLA Website by Daniël Mantione. That is going to lead you to parts and what not. So if they need to replace the Setup time chip use one if them. Of course you don't need 2 as 1 will do but go ahead order 2 and you will have a backup.
@@ncc74656m That was 2 GAL20V8s. Those were 24 pins, and this one is 20 pins. It's a GAL16V8. And actually, being a prototype, there's a chance it wasn't even read-protected(!) He should try to dump the contents of that chip and put it onto an FTP site or something.
33:15 I love how not only the game screen bounces up and down with each hit but also the outside world does. That's the power of Pluto (formerly an actual planet).
Hey Ben! Please just make a `dd if=/dev/hd…` bit-for-bit ISO of the internal drive. It almost certainly is using some custom/unstandard filesystem and won't mount directly in Linux (or any other OS).
Update: As others have noted, Ben!s having trouble getting the drive to show up on the system bus (and thus, under /dev). He's ordered an identical drive in order to swap the electronics, and might pursue professional data recovery.
@Ken Mason Not true, you can easily make a raw disk copy by using dd on the drive itself. Linux puts the disk itself in the /dev folder, together with entries for it's partitions if it's able to read the partition table. The disk itself would show up as something like "/dev/hda" while it's partitions would be labeled "/dev/hda1" and such.
Command would become something like:
sudo dd if=/dev/hda of=copy.bin status=progress
(sudo for running as root, "if=" for input-file, "of=" for output-file and "status=progress" for letting it report it's progress to you)
@Ken Mason You've exhausted Windows and Mac, maybe it's a Linux filesystem (please note, there are lots of those, you can't just assume it's ext4).
@Ken Mason dude no one gives a shit what you USE daily or ANYTHING related to that
That might be debatable, but one thing that is not debatable is that nobody cares that you keep mistakenly going to the bull out back to obtain your fresh milk for cereal each morning.
I’ve been marathoning Ben Heck Hacks and I just have *one* question. Did you ever get back your alligator leads that Felix stole?
Not sure. But he DID HAVE my speed square, so I wasn't crazy in wondering why it disappeared!
Ben Heck Hacks that scoundrel!
@@BenHeckHacks Did you possibly get any high-res photos of both sides of the PCBs?
I mean, it's clear it's similar to the Ninty Playstation, where they tacked on the add-on to a standard system, but would be good to get some decent photos preserved anyway. ;)
@@BenHeckHacks
30:10 - Was NOT expecting that. lol
Very interesting.
Erm, I don't suppose the owner would allow the BIOS to be dumped, even if it's not necessarily for public release?
31:07 - If the drive shows up in the BIOS, and is recognized in the /dev folder in Linux, then it might be possible to just do a raw image dump of it rather than trying to mount it as a filesystem.
It's unlikely to be in Linux NFS format anyway, and might not even be FAT/FAT32.
That is unless the drive is passworded (at the hardware level, which is possible on many IDE drives, like on the OG Xbox).
The owner is like some Chris Kattan character.
"You can do it kippy!"
He is annoying!
Ben heck you are awesome to do this thankyou I really enjoyed watching this I had a feeling Adam koralik would contact you I would have
23:08
Probably for a label, that's where the label is on retail Saturns.
"37 minutes? I'll skip through the video."
I ended up watching the whole thing. The conversation is absolutely awesome. It's nice to hear Ben talking about Indiana Jones like back in the old days!
I find his banter annoying. Not to mention relative lack of knowledge about the Saturn as a platform.
Not to mention the “yeah, this things works.”
“Ok, I’ll ‘fix’ the solder joints.”
Wiggy exactly. The convo was bunk. Disapoint
Very interesting video! I was just about to end my RUclips binge but with Ben Heck there is room for more! Am I early enough to get a reply? If so I'd like to say that I owe a decent amount my electronics hobby and career to Ben! Been watching you for years!
I only knew about the glass between Indy and the snake, I was too young to recognize (or care) about the boat and the torch scene, but now whenever I see the torch scene, that's all I'm going to see, all the flames dropping in the "oil"...
Thanks Ben 😠
You seriously need a million subscribers.. idk how you haven’t hit that yet. You’re far more impressive to watch than these other huge RUclips channels. Keep it up!
Having ultra rare prototype: Yeah let me scratch it for demonstration
Yeah I kinda died inside and I don't know this existed lol
You can't diminish the value of something when it's only one of two left in the world, theoretically they could carve it like a turkey and it be worth just as much.
It was a broken post that had to be glued back on and isn't even visible unless it is opened and a board is taken out. I don't think he's hurting anything.
@@NB-1 you probably couldnt put the owner of this console in the hospital.
@@NB-1 - He insinuated that you're a wimp. I say you're ocd & a moron, too. Ben fixed this shitty prototype.
If you purchased the DLC for Scott Pilgrim, go into your purchase history and download the DLC again and includes a full copy of the game.
You've heard of "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles", right?
but seriously... IT BELONGS IN A MUSEUM... it really does..
Problem is, like, 90% of that show isn't worth anyone's time.
I was going to say the same thing, did no one watch that? I did, hell i think I bought a subway sandwich one time and got one with the meal.
I have the series on VHS. I don’t know if they ever made it on DVD.
Ben, you are one HECK of a nice guy! Giving out free repairs and batteries! Kudos!
Wow I was not expecting the top expansion card to be there, I thought it was just the metal blanking bracket at the back like on a PC.
And even then I was amazed , it had a hard drive in it!! That's really cool! Shame there wasn't the software to use it on the Saturn , or able to view its contents on the pc
And the normal Expansion Port is still empty, so even with the modem and HDD you could still fit a VCD card it it. lol
The fact that it has such a big capacity (for time) HDD, it was probably meant to hold games in it.
If that's the case, this unit could be the key to develop a flashcard, or even an internal HDD adapter for the saturn!
"Where are my dragons?!"
36:05 "Imhotep's priests!"
Miss when Ben was on there...
Well... Modifying a unique item seems a little... Dubious.
But at least it's well-documented, what you've done to this machine, so it would be well understood which part of it is your modification...
I remember when questions about his prototype started happening back in the late 90s on some of the boards I belonged to. It's great to have been able to see this, and makes me wonder if this incarnation would not have been better in some ways than the initial one that was released, had it instead been the first one. The hard drive is a surprise, but I secretly hoped it would have been one. Great job on the opening and work on the prototype.
Uhhhh Ben they already showed some of the stuff Indy did when he was in his 20s. Look up "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles"
I totally forgot about that show, thanks
oof
The "expansion" part in the back was most likely for the SEGA model sticker.
In my head I heard "Korben, my man, Korben Dallas is in trouble!" over and over
just watched that the other night
Lmaooooo
I didn't know hearing Ben Heck & Adam Koralik do Harrison Ford impressions is what I needed today.
Good to see you taking things apart Ben, by the way we are really close to 100k subscribers my friend!!!
Watching Ben disassemble stuff is helping me get trough quarantine!
Regarding the bit at the back where you thought there would be another expansion slot, regular Saturns have a sticker with the model number and other info in that spot.
Thanks for setting my memory straight in Raiders! Last Sunday I watched it with my parents and I said: “you can see a reflection, so he’s behind glass”.
And we didn’t see it, I figured I had a false memory or saw some BTS snaps in Cinefix or something. It’s ironic that I’m a parttime VFX/SFX guy and didn’t for a moment think it was a cleanup job for Netflix/BluRay :)
You can still re-download Scott Pilgram. As long as you have the account you can re-download the game, just cant buy it new.
You dont understand how hilarious I find it Ben making Tang Screwdrivers. Loved this video.
Shoulda just got Adam to rub it down aggressively with a bone dry magic eraser, and make it look like absolute trash, like he normally does.
Ha, that was good.
@@AdamKoralik haha, cheers :D
@@Meerlu Yo.
Then polish with Pledge for that final shiny look!
Fun facts about Saturn Net Link:
1) It doesn't actually use the Internet, though it can connect to it. It, effectively, makes a phone call between systems to play games. As such, it's typically lag free, and still works today provided you have true analog phone lines. There has been headway in making it work over modern connections with VoIP.
2) While there is a boot disc to get access to a web browser, playing games via Net Link only requires a modem and a compatible game, of which there are only 5, though all are available in the US. Net Link games are usually marked as such, but are easily distinguishable by the Sega licensing screen appearing, flashing to black, and then appearing again as the system attempts to find the Net Link modem.
They're a neat setup. This was probably a prototype with those swappable modems and hard drives for easier development, so that builds could be more easily tested, and that modem revisions could be worked on. Final production would've likely moved the modem into a more permanent setup and nixed the hard drive all together.
Yes do a sector level dump of the HD... the you can explore it with hex tools etc
I had just watched the video when Adam introduced the Sega Pluto at an arcade. And then this video popped up! How cool is that?!
"do you guys remember tang?"
tang still exists, eh?
You guys are awesome, absolute respect!
Is there my way to mute that guy with the soul patch? That’s the most annoying voice I’ve ever heard. Like nails on a chalkboard. And he won’t stop talking over Ben.
Hey Ben, do you have an image of the hdd we can analyze?
Yes, definitely dd it to a raw image and upload it somewhere.
The time locus and the beautiful modem were making me want to play Marathon, and then the hard drive label read "Marathon."
Bro this dude really just chewed on plastic samples to test the material.
Legendary-tier master
The indentation on the back is where the label would go.
I love your Indiana Jones idea that is a solid script!
Man, the Saturn is such a criminally underrated console.
Yeah. But it was also criminally designed.
@@waltercomunello121 yeah, it was overly complicated mess. But it had a ton of great arcade perfect ports.
@@IlJokerTheStranj its funny how sony later went the overcomplicated hardware route, but they already had the market share (it did bite them in the ass with the ps3 tho). They also might even made their console intentionally complex but that couldnt work with sega and saturn.
That's partly because Sega made the incredibly bad decision to run it at the same time as the competing Sega CD, neither of which could run games made for the other.
In economics, this is known as "Cannibalization," and it's one of the worst things you can do with product lines.
@João Maverick I can't really blame the PlayStation. It just kicked mediocre competitors out of the market I guess.
Thank you guys so much for posting this ! To the Saturn community! Thank you
dd if=/dev/hda of=plutohd.img
then open with a hex editor :)
I loved how you restored this classic prototype.
You did nothing to destroy the authenticity of the console. So I don't get the haters.
It's like having a broken Egyptian artifact (like a now hallow mummified cat), gorilla gluing the thing together does not hurt the value or authenticity of the object, its the object's own significance and it survives that is the value and not the original condition. Or in this case one of 2 surviving Pluto prototypes.
Nailed it!
Is it possible to do a platter swap with a similar HDD. Despite being an old drive, I'm sure one could source a similar drive online somewhere.
I enjoyed every minute of this :)
I'm not sure who'se luckier.
Ben for reparing all those prototype systems that never saw the light of day or Adam for meeting the guy who is the lucky owner of one of the Pluto systems.
Fun either way.
@@AdamKoralik Totally. And you are in luck to know these awesome people.
Nice video, but I can't imagine having a conversation with 2 other people (1 chipmunk...) while concentrating on fixing a mostly "unknown" product.
Marvel: infinity war is the biggest cross-
adam koralik and ben heck: hold my retro game console
Haaaa
Going to add to the other comments suggesting dumping the hard disk, except use ddrescue instead of dd. This will skip bad sectors on the first duff read, continue getting good sectors, then go back to try the bad ones again after it has secured as much of the good data as possible.
Make a disk image of that hard drive so we can have a look
This is them testing their design before they mass produce, that's beautiful.
great video and great repair job, when opening it it look very similar to the Saturn the psu and cd drive especially, the mother board also resembles a Saturn but clearly has some extra bits, cool find on the hard drive, it would be nice to see a video on investigating if its its functioning and whats possibly on it. the white prototype you mention it seems it was actually an earlier development which was a Saturn 2, the project merged/became the Pluto at some point. I made a post about this on our Facebook page Sega Saturn collectors and gamers, id really like to do a follow up post on the new find and repair, i would use some screen's and info from your video if that's OK? also Roger Vega if you'd like to share your story on the Pluto find in more depth, it would be grate to do a right up on that. wish i was in the US and could get to see this thing at a game show.
God that Scott Pilgrim reference cut deep. Exact same thing happened to me. It's been like over half a decade and I still think about that game.
23:09 place to stick the label for the console model number and other details like voltage and stuff.....
I was gonna say, there's a similar depression in the plastic on a standard Saturn
MPEG-1 was pretty much the defacto standard at the time, we didn't have DVD decoding as mainstream until a couple of years later. I'm guessing the other module is for added game storage and possibly RAM expansion (they might have also incorporated SRAM storage in those new modules, that is a common mod used on Saturns today).
*Catches up seconds later and scoops up his jaw* Holee crap.
That Lattice chip looks like a GAL.
How did he not know that??? O_o Also, the PS1 has Motion JPEG, the Saturn Addon was MPEG1...
You can see "GA" hanging off behind the label. More specifically, it's a 16V8.
I can't wait to see Netlink on this unit eventually.
Next video potentially?
btw youtube's recommended algorithm actually funneled this video to me somehow even though it was literally just uploaded. prepare for a deluge (hopefully).
Hi Ben, did you make an image (dd) of the hard drive? If so, is it available?
15:28 They didn't fix those things because unlike Lucas Mr. Spielberg learned his lesson about restoration in that you don't change things. You just preserve what was originally there.
Amazing find i heard stories about the pluto this guy is lucky to have one!
Legit thought that was a girl while I was listing till I looked up and saw it was a guy with five o'clock shadow.
Same.
Same I thought there wrre 3 ppl there a husband and wife and Ben 😂
You would be half right
Talking that fast and still being understandable is kind of a gift. If he tried to go a little faster he'd be approaching John Moschitta speeds.
Fun fact: a Tang Screwdriver is called a "Cosmonaut".
pragmax Cosmonaut... Saturn... totally makes sense.
Great way of going to Pluto
The hard drive will probably only work in an old 90s PC, where you can set the following data in the BIOS manually:
Heads: 63
Cylinders: 16
Sectors: 1047
My 1996 PC can accept both old and new IDE drives, so you can probably find a PC like that, put a lightweight version of Linux on a modern hard drive, connect it up, then also connect up this Pluto hard drive and dump it that way. Or use network dumping.
FruitCake CHS vs LBA wasn’t the issue. The problem he mentioned wasn’t copying from the drive, but rather mounting the file system. It was probably custom /purpose-built - not FAT16 (something Linux would have loaded in a heartbeat) - the only other file system that would make any sense for ‘93-‘95, when that was being developed. Plus, I’m sure he was already working from a block copy, as Ben is plenty savvy enough not to muck with the drive itself. All the commenters yelling “dd if=/dev/hd? ...” can seriously take a deep breath and chill out.