Saturday 10 January 2009

Sega Saturn Data Link (Will wonders never cease?)



There's been a fair amount of mail firing through the Father's inbox since the announcement of Saturnalia (Saturn February) but this particular announcement couldn't wait a month to come to your attention.

It would seem that Saturn Junkyard reader and techno-genius Kent Rittenhouse, has been locked away in a Frankenstein style type laboratory, surrounded by glass valves, lightning conductors and discarded Saturn parts.

During his self imposed 5 year exile, he has been working on a device so fiendishly brilliant, that NASA are reportedly folding, due to the fact that they can't keep up with the competition... But hey! Why listen to me drone on, when you can hear about the project from the man himself?

Over to you Kent...

" Hello, I would like to provide some information on a Saturn accessory which I am actively building & selling.

After an Action Replay Plus disaster a few years ago (in which I lost 10 years of game-saves),
I began work on a device which would allow backing up
game-saves to a PC.

I ended up with a USB-based device, that I call the "Sega Saturn Data Link". It allows transfer of Saturn game-saves between a Saturn and PC. The game-save files are also compatible with the emulators SSF and Cassini.

So if you play a
game on an emulator, you can use that game-save on a real Saturn (and visa-versa).

The other cool feature of the device is that it also has homebrew applications. Small homebrew games, which are small enough to load into the Saturn's main ram, can be download to the Saturn. This allows a homebrew developer to tryout his code without burning a CDR each time.

You can also dump your Saturn's BIOS to a PC file, and I am also working on
future upgrades.

I am doing this work in my spare time, but so far, I have been able to fill every order that has come in, in a reasonable amount of time.

For further information, I have a website, www.GamingEnterprisesInc.com, which goes into a little more depth on the features.

Best regards,
Kent Rittenhouse"

Wow, how cool is that??? I'm gonna start saving up for one of those suckers RIGHT NOW. In one fell swoop, Kent has brought the Saturn into the 21stCentury! I'm gonna post a link in the sidebar that will enable you to navigate straight to Kent's homepage long after this post has gone.

Mr. Rittenhouse, we at the Saturn Junkyard salutes your genius! Oh and enjoy the video below...



4 comments:

Animated AF said...

Wow, that is something else! I might be inclinced to order one of those off him, as the Saturn memory cards have been nothing but a nuisance for me. Also: does anyone have that AM2 wallpaper being used in that video? It's awesome.

fatherkrishna said...

It is something else isn't it? I agree, the whole Saturn memory card/save thing is a complete pain in the arse! Way back in the day when I was compulsively playing Casper (more about that later) I used to draw out maps and leave my Saturn on for days, cos I had no way of saving.

I don't know, life is so much less complicated for the kids these days...
;)

NebachadnezzaR said...

Not that's impressive!

You can see a lot of work went into that. My hat's off to the developer. Now, if only I had one of those action replay thingies...

Anonymous said...

Pretty sweet... :) I might save up for one of those, then I can backup saves from every console I own that uses memory cards...