You’re probably wondering why on earth I’m doing this. Well, there’s a curious little problem that can appear when you swap the sound chip in a Sega Mega Drive Model 1 for a YM3438. In Sonic Spinball, going into the options menu and coming back out can leave you with no music. Not terribly useful in a game that rather relies on sound!

The Sega TeraDrive already has a YM3438 as part of its original hardware, so I thought it would be interesting to see whether it behaves the same way. I’ve got the Mega EverDrive ready, and Sonic Spinball seems like a good place to start.

Into the options menu we go, and then back to the game. The music is still playing! That’s encouraging, although it raises another question. Why does the native TeraDrive arrangement behave differently from a Mega Drive Model 1 that’s had its sound chip changed?

I also tried the American and European versions of Sonic Spinball, and both retained their sound after entering the options screen. I checked some of the other games that had been mentioned in connection with this problem too, although I forgot to record that part. Typical!

So the TeraDrive’s YM3438 seems perfectly happy in this particular test. That doesn’t explain what’s going on with the modified Mega Drive, but at least it’s another useful result. YM3438, you’re a mystery to me!

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