Look who I picked up on my way home today. Two sassy ladies, I like to call Sophia 2 and Sophia 3. Now there is even more to do! More on their repairs as we go! They are Sega Saturn dev kits and originated from the UK.

Unfortunately, neither of these Sega Saturn programming boxes is particularly happy. The first one has no video output, which is rather familiar territory after my adventures with the original Sophia. There’s also some cosmetic damage, including scratches and a rather unhappy-looking power switch.

One nice difference is that these UK units run on 240 V, so there’s no need for the enormous transformer I’ve been using with the Japanese machine. The cases are slightly different too. The power switches on these units have a curved profile, unlike the flat one on my Japanese Sophia.

There are some interesting differences in the circuit boards as well, even though they’re broadly the same hardware. I’ve now got three Sophia kits and a total of six SH-2 boards between them. That’s quite a collection of Sega Saturn development hardware, particularly when two of the machines don’t want to work!

The second unit isn’t producing video either, and it’s missing one of its little front-panel buttons. I’ll start by investigating the capacitors, since that worked rather well last time. With three Sophia units available, I can also swap some boards around to help narrow down the faults.

Worst case, I might be able to borrow a power supply from one of them to get another going. For now, though, there’s plenty to investigate. Sophia repair channel signing out!