Wierd Megadrive 1 - Is it Dev or just old?

[halfacandan]

Hi. I've got a MD1 which has an extra port at the back. It's a male connector with 9 pins (just like the controller ports at the front but male instead of female). It says EXT above it and the words "High Deffinition Graphics . Stereo Sound" are printed behind the cart slot (not present on my other MDs). I've tested it with PAL games via the RF and it works fine.

Model No: 1600-05
Serial No: 120211850

Any suggestions?

Thanks
Dan

[halfacandan]

My 2 other MD1s are Model No: 1601-05 so I presume that this "wierd one" is just an older model.

[halfacandan]

"Model number 1600-05 (original model), 1601-05 (second variation without "High Definition Graphics - Stereo Sound" text or EXT port)"

http://www.answers.com/topic/sega-mega-drive-sega-genesis

But what does the EXT port do? Also, are there any differences in performance or value of the 2 models?

Thanks
Dan

[Pistol]

Looks like you didn't read the whole of the article you linked to!

The EXT port on the original Genesis/Mega Drive console is used with a modem peripheral that was only released in the Japanese market. The port operates identically to the two joystick ports, but has a female DB9 connector instead of a male DB9 one. The lines to this port also appear to have been used for game selection on arcade adaptations of the Mega Drive/Genesis hardware.

[halfacandan]

Silly me! I was i a bit of a rush. Just got a pack of retro consoles in and it took about 5 hours to clean and test them all!

Thanks
Dan

[anagrama]

Yeah, the 1600 was the earliest model, later updated to the 1601 which dropped the EXT port. (My 1600 has a very low serial, 11000266, which suggests it was the 266th MegaDrive made in Europe )

The 1600 is also missing the "Produced by or under license from Sega Enterprises" screen, which was introduced to prevent the early unlicensed Accolade (and EA, in the US) games from working.

Note that the "High Definition Graphics..." text can appear on both models, but was removed from later revisions of the 1601 (there's at least half a dozen different MD1 revisions, and about the same again for the MD2).


Out of interest, what's the country of manufacture on yours? All the 1600 units I've seen so far are made in China (as opposed to Taiwan, Japan or Malaysia), but they all have serials that start "11...." rather than "12...".

[anagrama]

Also, that answers.com page isn't entirely accurate - only UK PAL-I models are 160x-05, there's also 160x-18 (Germany, PAL-G) and 160x-15 (??, PAL-B)

[halfacandan]

Out of interest, what's the country of manufacture on yours? All the 1600 units I've seen so far are made in China (as opposed to Taiwan, Japan or Malaysia), but they all have serials that start "11...." rather than "12...".

Yep, It's a China-produced unit.