6 ms·

Reading this collection of console breakdowns I saw SMS had region locking so I looked up the Megadrive. When I was a kid I had a Japaneese Megadrive in Europe.

by bullen 4y ago

Reading this collection of console breakdowns I saw SMS had region locking so I looked up the Megadrive. When I was a kid I had a Japaneese Megadrive in Europe. I had this Japan exclusive space shooter game bough in France because they shared secam with Japan and I borrowed it out to a store in exchange for one other cartridge of my choice in return = I could play any and all games for as long as the japaneese game was in demand from kids in my hometown. So that cart could be pushed into a european Megadrive (but not the other way around as easily the corners where half circle vs. quarter circle and the Japaneese Megadrive had a plastic latch that I removed to be able to use European carts without friction) but the version checking is something I never saw in those years. All games worked on all machines.

gryson 4y ago
Region-locking was optional on Mega Drive cartridges, meaning publishers could choose whether or not to include it on their games. That's why so many Mega Drive games are region free. Sega started to implement it after a certain point on games they published. It could be bypassed with some kind of pass through attachment.
- bullen 4y ago
  Do you know when Sega started using it? I traded my Megadrive for an old Atari 800XL with a diskdrive and Basic book! :D Honestly the Atari was way better because it had a keyboard and you could program it! So my whole retro hardware history (with trades): 1986 C64C -> 1987 SMS -> 1993 Gameboy 1989 Megadrive -> 1992 Atari 800XL 1995 Mac Classic!? 1997 Sun Solaris (at uni.) 20 year break using mainly PC and Raspberry 2017 C64 (with RR-Net and Nunchuck64) 2022 Amiga 1200 I have promised myself to stop hoarding devices now. :P Looking back the sadest part is how most kids never got to learn assembly on their devices back then, even if we wanted to the barrier was too high without cartridges, internet and interested parents! I coded basic on both my C64C and Atari 800XL but I always knew it was too slow.
  - fredoralive 4y ago
    Games started having region checks around 1992, although it isn't consistent which ones do and don't have it.
talideon 4y ago
Japan used NTSC, not SECAM. Are you sure you weren't using a multisystem TV or that your MD wasn't modded for SECAM?
- bullen 4y ago
  Probably RGB signals over SCART? All I know is France imported Japaneese consoles because all their TVs had SCART in 1989, while Sweden got SCART a little later and never imported anything.
  - talideon 4y ago
    Possibly, but then you have the issue of refresh rates to deal with. That said, Japan has a very odd electrical grid. Or rather it has _two_ grids, with one in the west running at 60Hz and the other in the east running at 50Hz. SCART didn't really see much adoption in Japan, and they even had their own incompatible variation in it - same connectors, different pinout - for reasons, but if you had a suitable cable, that wouldn't matter as the signals were the same, just in different places. I'm guessing the grey importers would substitute the Japanese A/V cable with something that would work in Europe.

by bullen 4y ago

gryson 4y ago

Region-locking was optional on Mega Drive cartridges, meaning publishers could choose whether or not to include it on their games. That's why so many Mega Drive games are region free. Sega started to implement it after a certain point on games they published. It could be bypassed with some kind of pass through attachment.

bullen 4y ago
Do you know when Sega started using it? I traded my Megadrive for an old Atari 800XL with a diskdrive and Basic book! :D Honestly the Atari was way better because it had a keyboard and you could program it! So my whole retro hardware history (with trades): 1986 C64C -> 1987 SMS -> 1993 Gameboy 1989 Megadrive -> 1992 Atari 800XL 1995 Mac Classic!? 1997 Sun Solaris (at uni.) 20 year break using mainly PC and Raspberry 2017 C64 (with RR-Net and Nunchuck64) 2022 Amiga 1200 I have promised myself to stop hoarding devices now. :P Looking back the sadest part is how most kids never got to learn assembly on their devices back then, even if we wanted to the barrier was too high without cartridges, internet and interested parents! I coded basic on both my C64C and Atari 800XL but I always knew it was too slow.
- fredoralive 4y ago
  Games started having region checks around 1992, although it isn't consistent which ones do and don't have it.

talideon 4y ago

Japan used NTSC, not SECAM. Are you sure you weren't using a multisystem TV or that your MD wasn't modded for SECAM?

bullen 4y ago
Probably RGB signals over SCART? All I know is France imported Japaneese consoles because all their TVs had SCART in 1989, while Sweden got SCART a little later and never imported anything.
- talideon 4y ago
  Possibly, but then you have the issue of refresh rates to deal with. That said, Japan has a very odd electrical grid. Or rather it has _two_ grids, with one in the west running at 60Hz and the other in the east running at 50Hz. SCART didn't really see much adoption in Japan, and they even had their own incompatible variation in it - same connectors, different pinout - for reasons, but if you had a suitable cable, that wouldn't matter as the signals were the same, just in different places. I'm guessing the grey importers would substitute the Japanese A/V cable with something that would work in Europe.