Satiator By Prof. Abrasive

[afro man dan]

Wow, $260 is waaaay too much. You'd have to be an idiot to think that would be a reasonable price. He's sabotaging himself from the get-go.

[Virtua Hunter]

I was reading his reasons, it seems that money earned from the first run of 100 units will be used to pay the production for the next run (1000 units) and so on in theory.

But after he start to mass produce this, maybe around the third run I expect the price to be greatly lowered (around $100), otherwise it's not viable for him and for us, especially in the current climate.

[gamevet]

Why not just get a Terraonion instead?

https://shop.terraonion.com/en/home/...aturn_ODE.html

[Greg2600]

https://www.patreon.com/posts/faq-40787196

Long form FAQ posted yesterday.

• supports images in BIN/CUE format (single- and multi-BIN), and ISO files. It supports on-the-fly region patching of games, so you don't need to modify your games to play them out of region.
• acts as a "system disc", allowing you to boot CD-Rs, if for some reason you really want to do that.
• compatible with both RAM carts and the backup save cartridge.
• unaffected by 50/60 Hz switches, and by modchips.

Coming features.

• Saturns with BIOS 1.00, booting into the Satiator menu requires opening and closing the CD drive lid. I already have a fix for this and it just needs a little bit of integration work.
• will be a save manager integrated to the menu, so that you can transfer game saves from the Saturn's memory to the SD card and vice versa. This will also work for the backup cartridge, if you have one.
• Multi-disc games will be supported. Opening and closing the Saturn's real drive lid will be used to indicate to the Satiator that you want to switch discs.
• AR not supported AS IS, but AR also stores its firmware on Flash chips - it can be reprogrammed at will. So my plan here is to develop an alternative firmware for the AR to embrace the Satiator. This is actually an opportunity disguised as a problem: there are a number of cool features which can be implemented once you have a little bit of storage in the cart slot. This will be open source, however it eventuates. In the mean time, it's possible to use an AR as a RAM cartridge by flashing it with an empty firmware - which is what I run on my development system.

Compatibility spreadsheet.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

[Joe Redifer]

You can rip your VCDs and put them on a MODE drive and watch them in the Saturn if you have the MPEG card. Pretty cool.

[TrekkiesUnite118]

Why not just get a Terraonion instead?

https://shop.terraonion.com/en/home/...aturn_ODE.html

Because I'd like to still have the option to use my actual discs without having to completely disassemble my Saturn and reinstall the disc drive.

[zyrobs]

Why not just get a Terraonion instead?

https://shop.terraonion.com/en/home/...aturn_ODE.html

It can't back up my save game cartridge to the SD card.

[gamevet]

Because I'd like to still have the option to use my actual discs without having to completely disassemble my Saturn and reinstall the disc drive.

You can find a backup Saturn for about $60, or better yet, a Saturn with a burned out optical lens.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Sega-Saturn...Condition=7000

It can't back up my save game cartridge to the SD card.

Why would you need to do that?

It's a replacement for the CD drive. Its not like your save carts wouldn't work anymore.

[zyrobs]

Why would you need to do that?

It's a replacement for the CD drive. Its not like your save carts wouldn't work anymore.

Being able to dump data on SD card means that it can be used a dumping tool without needing to bother with soldering. And if you can dump data to SD card, that means you can also do it the other way - write savegames INTO backup carts, or even better, run binaries directly on the Saturn without needing to convert them to ISO. Plus there's the USB cable, if that will allow real time controlling, then we have miniature dev kit in our hands. Which was THE original purpose of this project.

And I've had issue with my save carts getting corrupted, and had to write my own software to recover data from them, so being able to back up the savegame cart is extremely useful.

[TrekkiesUnite118]

You can find a backup Saturn for about $60, or better yet, a Saturn with a burned out optical lens.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Sega-Saturn...Condition=7000

That's wasteful and stupid. Secondly you could probably repair the disc drive to working order in those junk systems. I think that's what irritates me more with ODEs. All the disc drives being needlessly thrown in the trash instead of being properly serviced. Which is why I think the Satiator is the better idea.

As for price, how much does MODE cost when paired with a decent sized SSD? At that point Satiator's price isn't looking too bad.

[Black_Tiger]

That's wasteful and stupid. Secondly you could probably repair the disc drive to working order in those junk systems. I think that's what irritates me more with ODEs. All the disc drives being needlessly thrown in the trash instead of being properly serviced. Which is why I think the Satiator is the better idea.

As for price, how much does MODE cost when paired with a decent sized SSD? At that point Satiator's price isn't looking too bad.

MODE supports multiple storage devices, includung the same one that Satiator uses.

A Satiator + a HiSaturn costs more than MODE + a cheap model of Saturn, but what's the point of saying this?

The only combo worth mentioning is that the MODE supports a cheaper storage format than the Satiator does, which makes it the cheaper solution.

[CrossBow]

For me the MODE ticked the right boxes since it gives options on what storage medium to use. And at least in the case of the SATA and SD , you can use them both. While still not possible to transfer files from the SD to SATA and vice versa, I could see that getting added in future firmware updates for he MODE. But cost wise it came to this for me:

MODE + Shipping = around $220 USD
250GB SSD = $50 USD
Total cost = Around $270USD. But I end up with enough storage to have images of all of my personal library of games with plenty of space left over to add in the future.

If I had gone with a Satiator I would be looking at this:
Satiator = $260 + Shipping
256GB SD Card = $40 - $60 depending on the brand speed etc...
Total cost = $300 -$320.

And while the added convenience of simply sloting the Satiator into the back and still able to use the original drive is excellent. I don't know if that warrants the extra costs to me. Also, while I've not done actual speed comparisons to know, I would think that the SSD in this case will perform faster overall than an SD card would. Then again, I know we are limited to the speeds of the actual interface with the Saturn/Dreamcast in this case. But to me it would be having that option to use either for less price is really cool. Okay so I can't use my discs in that Saturn or Dreamcast. Well, they aren't the only consoles I have. Most of us are collectors and likely have at least 1 if not two spare units? I personally have 3 Saturns and 3 or 4 Dreamcasts but only 1 of each has any modifications to them. The others do not and I still have the disc drives on them to use with actual discs if I want or need.

But I'm the wrong guy about this I guess as my Saturn has a Rhea in it and I've never thought how tragic it is that I can't actually use my physical Saturn game disc in that system.

People own books but then still end up using eReaders or eReader apps on the tablets to read eBooks? What is the difference here exactly?

[wowsux133]

That's wasteful and stupid. Secondly you could probably repair the disc drive to working order in those junk systems. I think that's what irritates me more with ODEs. All the disc drives being needlessly thrown in the trash instead of being properly serviced. Which is why I think the Satiator is the better idea.

It's not like you have to throw out the drive. I keep all my drives safely stashed away when they get replaced with ODEs, I and many others would never throw away working hardware. That's on the end user, not the ODE itself.

As for price, how much does MODE cost when paired with a decent sized SSD? At that point Satiator's price isn't looking too bad.

Except that point goes completely out the window when you ask the same question for the Satiator. How much does the Satiator cost when paired with a 1TB SD card compared to a MODE with a 1TB SSD (1TB to my knowledge will fit everything)? Either way the Satiator is losing on the cost front.

[TrekkiesUnite118]

MODE supports multiple storage devices, includung the same one that Satiator uses.

A Satiator + a HiSaturn costs more than MODE + a cheap model of Saturn, but what's the point of saying this?

The only combo worth mentioning is that the MODE supports a cheaper storage format than the Satiator does, which makes it the cheaper solution.

At the cost of being a royal pain in the ass if you still want to use your real discs.

Not to mention the bugs they introduce which can be quite frustrating for people making homebrew, hacks, and translation patches. For example MODE had a recent firmware update where they put things in memory and didn't clean up after themselves. So then people tried to play English Grandia only to have it display garbage every line, because MODE put things in memory that the game normally expects to be cleared at start up. They just today released an update that fixed it, but I still got quite a few frustrating bug reports of people telling me the patch is broken and buggy when I couldn't reproduce it on a real system with an actual CD. And that's just the tip of that iceberg. I get quite a few bug reports from MODE and Fenrir users for things that 9/10 boil down to bugs in the ODE. The MODE people do reach out to me for how to fix the issues, but it's still frustrating dealing with the bug reports and people saying patch is buggy and unstable.

The only one I have not gotten any non-reproducible bug reports from users for is the Satiator. And yes beta testers for the Satiator have been playing the English Grandia patch on it.

It's not like you have to throw out the drive. I keep all my drives safely stashed away when they get replaced with ODEs, I and many others would never throw away working hardware. That's on the end user, not the ODE itself.

Yet the majority of people picking these up are probably not doing that.

Except that point goes completely out the window when you ask the same question for the Satiator. How much does the Satiator cost when paired with a 1TB SD card compared to a MODE with a 1TB SSD (1TB to my knowledge will fit everything)? Either way the Satiator is losing on the cost front.

We're talking maybe a difference of $50 tops when you factor in shipping. And I think the added convenience of how it installs, it works along side the drive, has additional features like backing up and restoring saves, USB Dev support, etc. more than makes up for it.

[wowsux133]

Yet the majority of people picking these up are probably not doing that.

And we know that for certain? Either way it's not the ODE's fault. It's like blaming the beer for drunk driving.

We're talking maybe a difference of $50 tops when you factor in shipping. And I think the added convenience of how it installs, it works along side the drive, has additional features like backing up and restoring saves, USB Dev support, etc. more than makes up for it.

The MODE is $200 before shipping, the Satiator is $260. If you buy the MODE direct from TO, it's about $236 to America (it's going to be far less from StoneAgeGamer). We don't know the cost of the Satiator yet. For the sake of argument, let's say that the MODE will cost $236 and the Satiator will have free shipping in America, and we'll ignore tax. So a base price of $236 for MODE versus $260 for the Satiator. Now let's get into storage. A 1TB SDD is around $100, depending on brand and type it could be more or less, but you don't need anything fancy for the MODE. The cheapest 1TB SD card available right now on Amazon (that I could find) is $233. Amazon ships for free even without Prime over a certain amount, which is like $35 I believe.

So worst case scenario, A MODE will set you back $236 and a great SSD (Samsung EVO, well beyond what you need for a Saturn) will cost you $140. That's a total of $376. Best case scenario for the Satiator is $260 flat, then $233 for the 1TB Sandisk Extreme, which is a total of $493.