PCB Porn: Sega Pico

I picked up this Pico at a thrift store recently, and finally got around to taking a peek inside. SOME of you might find this interesting...

Overall PCB shot
http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d4...psa802893c.jpg

Closer PCB shot
http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d4...psfe5b182c.jpg

CPU - Never seen the "-A" lettering on a 68000 before.
http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d4...ps02ba341b.jpg

IC labelled "PSG" - Nice job with the wax pen...
http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d4...pse13ad3cd.jpg

The all too familiar VDP
http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d4...ps3efe5866.jpg

Haven't actually tested this thing yet, but hey! for $5 why not.

I am too much of a Sega whore.

naiss shots !

That's one sexy beast :D
One of these days I hope to pick up a pico too.
Watched one of Lukemorse1's vids where he finds two of them for a buck a piece. Was yelling rather much at the screen at that point.

Now, who's going to be the first to get Sonic to run on this thing, minus sound?

Can I please ask you to:
- post higher resolution images
- take shots of the front/back of any board in the machine, with at least the pcb markings readable (the 171-xxx 837-xxx ones, and if some movable/removable component is in the way of the full marking, then move them)
- take a shot of the serial number sticker of the thing

I actually collect these for sega hardware. A lot of their stuff went through ridiculous amounts of pcb revisions, and the Pico is no exception.

Maybe there's region jumpers lol.

Do we have to fix the jailbars on this too?

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Originally Posted by Guntz

Do we have to fix the jailbars on this too?

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Hmm, it obviously has the familiar combo of 315-5313 VDP with CXA1145 encoder. Though I don't think chip revision affects jailbars.

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Originally Posted by Robivy64

I picked up this Pico at a thrift store recently, and finally got around to taking a peek inside. SOME of you might find this interesting...

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It's a launch unit!

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Originally Posted by Robivy64

CPU - Never seen the "-A" lettering on a 68000 before.

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Some Picos use '68EC000' and 12 MHz variants as well.

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Originally Posted by evildragon

Now, who's going to be the first to get Sonic to run on this thing, minus sound?

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Or with the sound using a '1998 revision' Pico.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by zyrobs

Can I please ask you to:
- post higher resolution images
- take shots of the front/back of any board in the machine, with at least the pcb markings readable (the 171-xxx 837-xxx ones, and if some movable/removable component is in the way of the full marking, then move them)
- take a shot of the serial number sticker of the thing

I actually collect these for sega hardware. A lot of their stuff went through ridiculous amounts of pcb revisions, and the Pico is no exception.

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Just go to this website predominantly dedicated to the many PCB revisions of the Pico.

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Originally Posted by lumclaw

Maybe there's region jumpers lol.

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You bet there are!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Guntz

Do we have to fix the jailbars on this too?

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by lumclaw

Hmm, it obviously has the familiar combo of 315-5313 VDP with CXA1145 encoder. Though I don't think chip revision affects jailbars.

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It's more or less the same video encoding formation that a model 1 VA7 uses.

I can't believe anyone would be jelous of lukemorse. That guy's a loser.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Robotwo

That's one sexy beast :D
One of these days I hope to pick up a pico too.
Watched one of Lukemorse1's vids where he finds two of them for a buck a piece. Was yelling rather much at the screen at that point.

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You are!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by evildragon

Now, who's going to be the first to get Sonic to run on this thing, minus sound?

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Drakon

I can't believe anyone would be jelous of lukemorse. That guy's a loser.

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Not saying I envy him as a person, but rather the amount of cheap gaming hardware he can find in his local area.
If I could buy games and such for $1 a piece around here I'd be broke the majority of the month too.

The minimum price for ANY retro games around here is somewhere around $15
Plus there's only one second hand store in this whole town which has had any retro games (mostly mediocre NES ones and MegaDrive sports titles)
So if I want a decent game I only buy like 1 or 2 a month at most.

Didn't even notice that this is a VA0. Pretty cool!

Yeah well I'd rather live where I live and pay insane prices to import stuff.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Robotwo

Not saying I envy him as a person, but rather the amount of cheap gaming hardware he can find in his local area.
If I could buy games and such for $1 a piece around here I'd be broke the majority of the month too.

The minimum price for ANY retro games around here is somewhere around $15
Plus there's only one second hand store in this whole town which has had any retro games (mostly mediocre NES ones and MegaDrive sports titles)
So if I want a decent game I only buy like 1 or 2 a month at most.

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Pico's are funky little machines. I found one lot locally from a lady for $10 and when I got it home to go through everything it turns out one of the things included was some not for resale demo cart that's super rare. Oh, and Pooh Corner is really fun :D

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Originally Posted by Drakon

You are!

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Looks like it's already been done, in reverse. Sort of. To an adapter, not to a console though.

http://www.retrode.org/2012/02/sega-...ug-in-adapter/

http://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?showtopic=8091

somebody needs to port alien soldier to sega pico

Why...

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Originally Posted by Robivy64

Why...

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Because it would be awesome.

The PSG labeled chip isn't the PSG generator. The PSG is generated at the VDP, don't let that fool you.

I was thinking the PSG stood for Pen Stylus Grabber or something like that, lol, because it appears to be directly wired to the digitizer.

I'm sure that chip must be the I/O controller and bus arbiter.

I'm not so sure about that.. Look closely at how it's wired.. 75% of it's pins are going to the stylus digitizer panel.

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Originally Posted by villahed94

I'm sure that chip must be the I/O controller and bus arbiter.

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IC11

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Originally Posted by evildragon

... stylus digitizer panel.

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"Carbon-coated clear plastic sheets."

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Originally Posted by chessage

Just go to this website predominantly dedicated to the many PCB revisions of the Pico.

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I already have those, sadly they don't include full front/back shots of every component.

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Originally Posted by zyrobs

I already have those, sadly they don't include full front/back shots of every component.

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What are you talking about? They're only missing the back of the VA2.

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Originally Posted by Drakon

I can't believe anyone would be jelous of lukemorse. That guy's a loser.

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He may be a lil soft but a nice dude. His wife almost left him over his video game collection. What a bitch! She knew what this dude was about when she met him and now she wants him to get rid of his stuff. He also has a Skyline so you can't be a loser if you have a skyline. He is also a Vet so......

All of his videos have the same annoying intro. But I do agree a skyline's pretty cool.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by evilevoix

He may be a lil soft but a nice dude. His wife almost left him over his video game collection. What a bitch! She knew what this dude was about when she met him and now she wants him to get rid of his stuff. He also has a Skyline so you can't be a loser if you have a skyline. He is also a Vet so......

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But that all too familiar "Awright! Back again, Luke here." is so soothing~ D:

Had no issues with lukemorse1 until I was contacted by a few people that he had deceived in some of his sales.

I can only speak in regards to his X68000 sales, as two people in particular reached out to me via youtube for help.

Some of his repair videos are a little "off kilter". Replacing capacitors by using old capacitors from other electronics, and sanding edge connectors in an attempt to resolve dirty connections are among the few...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by chessage

What are you talking about? They're only missing the back of the VA2.

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I'm talking about all the other pcbs in the system, not just the motherboard.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by zyrobs

I'm talking about all the other pcbs in the system, not just the motherboard.

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Yeah, they're missing the back of the pen PCB and both sides of the control pad PCB.

This is interesting, I found one picture of the French RGB motherboard. Note its different AV connector. Too bad it's not detailed enough to read chip numbers or anything. :(

http://mo5.com/commun/images/consoles/sega/F_picocm.jpg