It took one eye blink from previous article to directly arrive on today, the last day of September ... time flies
And, in application of the contract between my Saturn projects and PPCenter, I have to write at least one blog article per month (*)
My remaining free time for this month is around 20 minutes, so I'm hurrying up to write an article
(*) PPCenter is the entity which manages the hobbies I do on my spare time. As a consequence, it also manages the revenues earned from my homebrew projects, which is why I should finish this damn article if I want to eat something else than cup noodles during next month
So I hope this Q&D article will please you, and in the meantime of this page being loaded, don't forget to send me a donation ! Every little bit helps and contribute to pay my the gasoline for my car as well as three meals per day
Custom Cartridge Shells
(as indicated in the title)
A while ago, I finally decided to put public the page about custom shells for my cartridges. Theses were designed, 3D-printed and offered by Zone66x : he is the only one to deserves the credits for this hard work
Main interest of theses custom shells is to have their shape carefully designed to hold SD card on the top of the cartridge : with regular shell made from Action Replay shells, the SD card sticks out by 2-3 mm, which was improved on custom shells with have enclosure to be at the same height of SD card's.
Another good point is that theses shells were prototyped in several shapes and colors ! I personally like transparent shells like this one
About the points that put the advantage on Action Replay shells is the solidity : Action Replay shells are way more stronger, but this was expected because theses are "just" prototypes. I suppose that using commercial 3D printing service and appropriate material would provide stronger shells, but I didn't tested things this far.
IMPORTANT : theses custom shells were offered, hence the cartridges using theses shells are not for sale and for my own collection or for friends, etc.
If you want a Gamer's Cartridge and are OK to get an Action Replay shell instead of custom one, then please check their order page from time to time and use the order form when it is available
As indicated in the title : I'm glad to announce the release of Pseudo Saturn Kai v6.374 ! It is available for download at the usual address on my homepage.
This time, there aren't any "big" feature added, but rather a streak of small fixes as well as few minor improvements too. So don't wait to upgrade your cartridge and enjoy even more your favorite games with Pseudo Saturn
What's new :
Show error message when SD card is not inserted into Rhea/Phoebe ODE.
Added RmenuKai : enjoy cheat codes on Rhea/Phoebe even without cartridge !
Improved compatibility of JHL loader-only games with Rhea/Phoebe ODEs. (Panzer Dragoon Saga can now be correctly loaded from Rhea ODE)
Improvements in automatic selection of game in cheats codes feature.
And there's also a small Easter egg hidden in some menus ... will you be able to trigger it ?
What didn't changed :
Plays games backed up on CD-R, without the need of any hardware mod.
Comes with a bunch of pre-installed cheat codes.
Provides image selection menu for Rhea and Phoebe ODE.
Available for free and for everyone : it doesn't costs any license to install, and I didn't begged any money to develop Pseudo Saturn Kai too.
This version was thoroughly tested by same beta testers who followed development from last public release, but on the other hand it was tested by ... nobody else during beta testing phase ... this is probably a fault from me (it was announced for one week on segaxtreme forums, and ... for one day on this blog), but today is the third anniversary of initial release of Pseudo Saturn Kai as well as Gamer's Cartridge so I didn't wanted to miss this occasion
So don't worry and happy playing ! I spent last 5 months in developing this version, and my favorite beta tester spent the same period in testing around twenty beta builds so it will run fine on your Saturn ! Trust me, I'm an engineer
Not my favorite PCB,
but at least it works.
It's time to pick up the kids at their Monday evening activities but I still have many tidbit stories to relate about ! So please stay tuned in future article(s)
Edit (2019/06/10) : it should be a good idea to add links for discussions on external sites :
Once upon a night, I wanted to verify Pseudo Saturn Kai products lineup and realized PRO edition was recently added !
The PRO edition itself was based on same technology as lite one, but requiring a small subscription (in one-digit dollar range) in order to allow installation. In other words, the same contents as lite (free of charge) edition, but financially supporting firmware development and maintenance costs.
Pseudo Saturn Kai PRO edition was so popular that it was attracting enough money to cover my daily personal expenses and at some point it was even enough for apartment rent as well as family's cost of fuel and light ! On the other hand, Pseudo Saturn Kai PRO edition support team was greedier and greedier about new features, visual improvements of the firmware's UI, and the longer it went the more oppressed I was to maintain Pseudo Saturn Kai code base.
And then, the poor man's alarm clock (= in simpler words, light of the morning sun) woke me covered in sweat and experiencing high heart pulsations.
I had to verify this was a nightmare ! ... But before that it was time to start the day with laundry, because procrastinating the laundry duty delays all the subsequent tasks after that until the end of the day
So during my earliest spare moment during that day (somewhere between 6:30PM and 7PM), I could verify that everything was normal regarding Pseudo Saturn Kai project : the lite version free for everybody, and the full version also free but usable only in my hardware projects.
So no deadline, no pressure, and no impatient users ! I was relieved because I have enough of that at regular work !!
On a more serious note, I'm glad to announce that release candidate version for next release of Pseudo Saturn Kai is ready !
This RC version was thoroughly tested by same beta testers who followed development from last public release, so the risk of bricking cartridge or facing bugs bigger than an elephant are quite low.
I'm however not confident about usage in unusual configuration, so that I would like it to be tested by a few more people for my peace of mind before putting it on the wild.
On the other hand, if you just want to use latest version and don't plan to give testing feedback, then please *don't* contact me and wait patiently for one week or two until RC version becomes publicly available.
What's new in upcoming next release : basically there aren't new major feature available (like cheat codes in previous v6.274 release), but enough changes and/or improvements to make everybody wanting to upgrade.
Show error message when SD card is not inserted into Rhea/Phoebe ODE.
Added RmenuKai : enjoy cheat codes on Rhea/Phoebe even without cartridge !
Improved compatibility of JHL loader-only games with Rhea/Phoebe ODEs. (Panzer Dragoon Saga can now be correctly loaded from Rhea ODE)
Improvements in automatic selection of game in cheats codes feature.
And there's also a small Easter egg hidden in some menus ... will you be able to trigger it ?
To shortly sum up the changelog, Rhea/Phoebe ODE users will be happy to find that this release will allow usage of cheat codes without the need of any cartridge And some Rhea users shall also appreciate Pseudo Saturn Kai finally loading Panzer Dragoon Saga correctly.
There are also some fixes and improvements around cheat codes (available for everybody, not requiring ODE or any special cartridge) and I sincerely hope theses will contribute to make more people enjoying playing Saturn
Rare footage of Pseudo Saturn Kai development room.
I really like Jean-Luc love for DIY work, as well as his aversion for things too make-up to be real. Everyone should be proud of their own work rather than being a simple consumer (not to say stubborn believer) of someone else's work
As indicated in the title, I wish you an happy new year for 2019 !
Did you decided about your promises for this new year ? Personally I didn't and just plan to continue having fun with my Saturn
And, I hope that the new freshly released Pseudo Saturn Kai bringed you even more fun with your beloved Saturn If you want more rings for Sonic, or doing off-track tourism in Sega Rally without minding about remaining time until next check point, this is now possible thanks to cheat codes feature
In an unrelated note, it's funny to notice that people pre-flashing Action Replay cartridges had short winter holidays, because Action Replay with new logo on label were found around one week after Pseudo Saturn Kai release
The design is questionable : why such aspect ratio for the logo ?! I guess it's to see it when cartridge is plugged, but I personally think it's a bit too "stomped" Anyway, that's still better than the original Action Replay logo !
(*)
