Be Excellent To Each Other

I want topic subtitles back, damnit.

Anyway, last night I continued my Master System Modding campaign, trying to fit a 50/60Hz switch to a later-era SMS1 (with Hang On and Safari Hunt built in). This is my test platform, before I try and mod an original model, just-the-BIOS SMS1.

So, I'd prepared the mainboard, cutting a trace, desoldering three holes, testing everything with the continuity meter. I'd prepared my switch, with three shiny wires soldered on nicely, and all tested. All I had to do was combine the two. Easy, right?

Thanks to a combination of lead-free solder with a stupidly high melting point (Maplin don't sell the leaded stuff), the tip of my soldering iron being too wide (the alternative tips are out of stock at Maplin) and the fact that my bargainous reduced solder-station barely gets hot enough to actually melt lead-free solder (from, you guessed it, Maplin - good joined up stocking, there), it all went a bit wrong.

I ended up accidently filling the PAL pinhole with unremovable solder, rendering a switch impossible. Cutting my losses, I just used a stretch of wire to hotwire the thing into NTSC mode. I should point out that at this point I'd already managed to slip with the iron, accidently burning marks across the PCB and nearly melting a resistor. I wasn't very hopeful it would work.

Skip to the end, and blow me down, it works. Everything is now full-screen and full speed - the difference is incredible, and makes me wonder how I ever coped with a PAL Master System back in the day. Even the mundanity of Hang On was suddenly a novel, speedy experience, and SMS Sonic was actually fast, finally (although, amusingly, prone to slowdown now it was trying to run at full speed).

Now I just need that flash-cart, and we're SMS-reviews-a-go-go.

That sounds like something that would happen to me. I'll just send my consoles to you to mod Actually, I've got a couple of modded mega drives - I wonder what happens if you use a power base converter with them? Ideally it'd make the Master System games run full-screen but that's perhaps a little too optimistic. Mind you, I'm damned if I know where my power base converter is anyway.

It does indeed do exactly that - I've got a switched Japanese Megadrive with a Master System Converter and it uses the Megadrive's region settings. So the 50Hz/60Hz switch makes MS games run full-screen, full-speed and the Japanese/English switch makes some games pop up with the 'Sega Mark III' logo when you boot them up.