Nix McRetro
Will the excitement never end? Today we’re having a look inside the Sega Genesis Activator, one of the more unusual accessories Sega released during the early 1990s. I don’t remember seeing many of these around Australia when they were current, so this one came from the United States.
The Activator was a motion-control peripheral released in 1993, based on the Light Harp work of Asaf Gurner and Oded Zur. You were supposed to stand inside its arrangement of infrared sensors and control games with your movements. In practice, it wasn’t exactly the most enjoyable gaming experience I’ve ever had!
Anyway, I’ve got the section with the power cable here, so let’s open it up and see what’s hiding inside. Out come the screws, and… wow! There’s rather more circuitry than I was expecting.
Inside we’ve got a main circuit board, a smaller board connected to it and a whole collection of components. There’s a familiar 7805 voltage regulator, which suggests some of the circuitry needs a regulated 5-volt supply. There’s also a larger 80C51-family controller chip, along with plenty of resistors and other bits and pieces.
The smaller board is secured with hot glue and appears to contain part of the infrared sensing arrangement. There are also some rather interesting soldering jobs on the boards. I’ve certainly seen neater work, although I suppose I can’t complain too much given some of my own creations!
I then opened another section of the Activator to compare the internals. This one was much simpler, with a smaller circuit board and a ribbon cable connecting it to the rest of the assembly. The amount of wiring makes a little more sense once you’ve seen how the different sections connect together.
The hardware was made for Sega of America, and the pieces I’ve got here are marked as manufactured in Mexico. It’s an interesting bit of gaming history, even if I can’t say I’m especially fond of actually using the thing.
See anything you recognise? Pipe up in the comments if you do! I rather enjoyed looking at the circuitry, even if the Activator itself is still a rather ridiculous contraption.