WTF!! My 3do's had some kinda conversion done on it. Any ideas?? *UPDATED WITH PIKS*

[Jei]

Hi people,

Just bought a bundle of consoles from someone, one of which is a USA 3do FZ1. Now i'm familiar with the machine but the thing that first confused me is that the power adapter isn't a USA one and rather a European two plug. Wierd huh?

So I opened up the machine, was missing a screw

Checked the PSU and it's a 220volt european one, thank god I didn't plug it through the stepdown!!

Anyway upon further inspection the S-Video port has been blocked off with black tape, and the RF port has been removed.

Checked inside and below is what I found, WTF, is this a self modified RGB 3do??? Cause I can't think of anything else

[Commander Marklar]

PAL machine, I reckon

[Jei]

**Updated**

Here is the pik of the ports, notice the S-Video has been blocked off with black tape, it's easily removable and the port is still hiding behind....someone didn't want this to be used

And in place of the RF output there's this wierd connector. It's similar to Sivdeo in size but the pins are of a different sequence and has 8 holes

It's very similar to a Saturn's AV out but the pins are slighty different.

[Jei]

**Updated**

Here is whats inside the machine, It's got a couple of wires going to various points on the board, and the cables at the back are soldered on. It's been done professionally but you can tell this has been added.

WTF

[Jei]

Update for anyone who's interested, The guy I bought it from says he used to work in a games store and the engineer used to play around with pretty much every console they had in there.

It's had the power supply changed to the euro one for ease of use (no stepdown needed) and he wasn't so sure about the rest. Said he'l try and get in contact with the engineer (Although he ain't seen him in a while)

Anyway, i've sourced very few places about a 3do RGB mod and apparently it's been classed as impossible by some places. It involves taking a digital signal, coverting it to analogue, then some fine trickery converting back to digital to get a TRUE rgb signal. (Hence why the board's so big and has so many capacitors etc on it)

I've never heard of it, am shocked and very very happy

I just need a 8pin connector made up so if anyone's got any contacts who's decent with leads please let me know. As far as i know it's a standard 8pin din.

J

[sj33]

So I'm right in saying -

-There are no RGB-native 3DO'?
-Your lucky enough to have one that *does* do RGB?

If so, you scored lucky big-time there!

[deepsky]

Mark 1 megadrive is an 8 pin Din isn't it? has it been modded to use one of those perhaps?

[Jei]

So I'm right in saying -

-There are no RGB-native 3DO'?
-Your lucky enough to have one that *does* do RGB?

If so, you scored lucky big-time there!

Yep, from what I gather on the net, and from typical places i've spoken to (ie Raven Games etc) many people have tried but there's no obvious tracks on the board to find the signal from.

Now i'm guessing that somehow the signal is tapped into the S-Video port, hence why he's blocked it off from the back (Even though it's still there).

The cabling is neat, the install is immaculate but you can tell it's been done by hand. I can see where he's taken a ground and a power source for the board.

From what i've heard it's a majorly tricky procedure that many people didn't bother doing because of how difficult it is. All I need is a 8pin cable to test RGB output.

There's a post on gamesx of someone who's attempted it and he had a very similar idea to whats going on inside the 3do i've got. He even mentions the same pins from the video chip and goes on to describe the conversion between analogue and digital in order to get a TRUE RGB signal.

I know theres a basic external mod which will output a composite signal through an RGB cable but this is in a different league.

[Jei]

Mark 1 megadrive is an 8 pin Din isn't it? has it been modded to use one of those perhaps?

Its a lot smaller than the mark 1 megadrive. It's very similar in size to the saturn one (which also happens to be 8pin), but the layout of where the holes are is different

[Baseley09]

Maybe the port from a Megadrive 2 (and also Multimega?), like the Saturn but not quite the same.....it is 8 pin.

http://cgi.ebay.ie/SEGA-Megadrive-2-Genesis-RF-32x-RGB-Scart-mega-drive-II_W0QQitemZ8260150518QQcategoryZ3642QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

The germans have cracked 3DO RGB in recent times, here is the info.......its in German tho :/

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

[Jei]

Maybe the port from a Megadrive 2

Quite possibly, Can anyone get me a closeup picture of either the dins on the cable or the connector on the back of a megadrive 2 so I can compare layout??

I couldn't make much sense of the german stuff but at least I know now it can be done.

[Baseley09]

Maybe, I dunno if region is different?


From here has most av http://webgb.hp.infoseek.co.jp/gtech/connect.html

[Jei]

Well thats the megadrive one out of the window.

It looks like this....



Which that site shows as PCE-PAD but if I recall right the PC-Engine Video Output doesn't look like this

Anyone with a PCE mind checking?

[Commander Marklar]

I can check later if needed, got several PCE's lying around so I'll check when I get home. Good find man, surprised there's no lead with it. Shouldn't be too difficult wiring up a SCART lead for it though

edit: Just a thought. The PCE isn't wired for RGB out of the box, most typically having the port replaced with either a built-in cable or something new. Using a regular PCE lead won't give you an RGB picture.

[Jei]

I considered that myself but the picture that i've shown it looks like above is for the PCE-Pad (Just ran google translation on the site)

Also little update but there are two wires that have been hard-wired from the Component Audio out L&R internally, they go from there to the PCB board so i'm pretty positive about this now.

Does anyone know someone/where that can hard-wire a RGB cable out for this DIN output??

I can follow the traces and find out which PIN is for what if someone's willing to make me a cable up