The Blog

Amstrad Sega Mega PC - Activating PC Only Mode

Nix McRetro // 13th November 2012 // IBM PC, Sega, YouTube

This is a quick video on how to override the Mega Drive ISA card for PC only mode. By doing this you can troubleshoot issues on the PC side with access to the entire motherboard. I am fairly sure I’ve covered this previously in a post but without the accompanying... Continue reading

Apple Macintosh LC 475 VRAM Mismatch

Nix McRetro // 12th November 2012 // Apple, Hacks, Repairs

Ever wonder what happens when you pair a 256KB VRAM chip with a 512KB VRAM chip? They say it should never be done… and they have a good reason for it not to be done. It makes the display look like junk! Lines running everywhere, the display doesn’t update well... Continue reading

Sega Mega Drive 32X / Mega-CD Distorted Video (Part 2)

Nix McRetro // 8th November 2012 // Repairs, Sega, YouTube

Noted that the video distortion also happens on the Mega-CD side of things, but still not on the actual Mega Drive itself. A YouTuber, specifically patrikw25, gave me an idea. The grounding plates for the Mega Drive 32X… Perhaps they are actually required… It will be an interesting test and... Continue reading

Sega Mega-CD Karaoke Overview

Nix McRetro // 8th November 2012 // Sega, YouTube

As you can see the karaoke unit/microphone I repaired a while back is still working well. It is your lucky day (and my neighbours unlucky day…) where you can now listen to the fantastic noise that is myself singing along to some grunge/punk CD+G songs. The songs were downloaded as... Continue reading

Sega TeraDrive BIOS Dump

Nix McRetro // 7th November 2012 // Hacks, Sega

You can grab this dump from the File Server. It was dumped using DEBUG.COM - see the mess link in the references for how this was done. If anyone can tell me more about this system by analysing the above BIOS dumps, it would be most appreciated. If the link... Continue reading