Portable MD - how to region switch?

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Markfrizb
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Portable MD - how to region switch?

Post by Markfrizb »

I picked up this portable Mega Drive from Aliexpress.
It, of course, came with zero documentation in English.
There is a Mode button which may suggest that it can region swap? Does anyone here have any experience with this little device? I put a USA cartridge in it and got the region error message. I put (guessing region free?) Sonic 2 cartridge in it and it played fine. Would like to have it native USA region if possible or if there is some button combination using the mode button to get it to USA region. All the box descriptions are in Chinese so it may actually say how to switch.

For curiosity, I opened it up. Not much going on inside. Glob top pinning suggests it is related to the button inputs. Otherwise, 1 flash rom and one processor. The other side of the pcb is just a smattering of caps and resistors mostly, all seem related for sound amplification and power.

Thanks

On the pcb, there’s a silk that says “test” but the button function is reset.
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Gilbert
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Re: Portable MD - how to region switch?

Post by Gilbert »

From the photo, the texts on the box are in Japanese instead of Chinese.
Anyway, you may scan/take photos of the manual/box and post them here.
I'm Chinese so I could read the Chinese text if any, and I can read around 70% Japanese (there are people here who are better in Japanese than me here).
calima
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Re: Portable MD - how to region switch?

Post by calima »

The mode button is probably unrelated to pal/ntsc, it's likely the mode button of the 6-button controller. IIRC holding it at boot makes the controller behave as a 3-button one, which is needed for some games released before the 6-button controller existed. Some games also use it as an extra button.
Markfrizb
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Re: Portable MD - how to region switch?

Post by Markfrizb »

Thank you!!
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Gilbert
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Re: Portable MD - how to region switch?

Post by Gilbert »

I may look further when I get home later (or someone else may already read through it and translated it).

From the box, the mode button is to disable the XYZ buttons in case a game does not support the 6-button pad and is unplayable in 6-button mode.
It says to keep the mode button pressed while booting a game to disable 6-button mode.
Markfrizb
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Re: Portable MD - how to region switch?

Post by Markfrizb »

Gilbert wrote: Wed Dec 14, 2022 10:22 pm I may look further when I get home later (or someone else may already read through it and translated it).

From the box, the mode button is to disable the XYZ buttons in case a game does not support the 6-button pad and is unplayable in 6-button mode.
It says to keep the mode button pressed while booting a game to disable 6-button mode.
Thank you.
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TmEE
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Re: Portable MD - how to region switch?

Post by TmEE »

What is on the other side of the PCB ?

Region change is as usual done by two signals that are connected to GND or VCC, and there probably is something somewhere that looks like giving the option to do so.
Markfrizb
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Re: Portable MD - how to region switch?

Post by Markfrizb »

TmEE wrote: Thu Dec 15, 2022 8:37 am What is on the other side of the PCB ?

Region change is as usual done by two signals that are connected to GND or VCC, and there probably is something somewhere that looks like giving the option to do so.
Maybe some of these ??
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lidnariq
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Re: Portable MD - how to region switch?

Post by lidnariq »

Yup, those look very likely.

TV_N/P, N/P, O/J are all well-documented jumpers. I don't know about TV_S/S, however.
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TmEE
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Re: Portable MD - how to region switch?

Post by TmEE »

N/P and O/J are the region jumpers. N+O = US, P+O = EU, N+J=JP (P+J is a setting no machine uses)
TV_5/6 should choose actual 50 or 60Hz output on the video signal, and N/S PAL or NTSC encoding.

VCO_SEL should be for whether 14 or 17MHz crystal is used, you leave that alone.
Markfrizb
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Re: Portable MD - how to region switch?

Post by Markfrizb »

TmEE wrote: Thu Dec 15, 2022 4:25 pm N/P and O/J are the region jumpers. N+O = US, P+O = EU, N+J=JP (P+J is a setting no machine uses)
TV_5/6 should choose actual 50 or 60Hz output on the video signal, and N/S PAL or NTSC encoding.

VCO_SEL should be for whether 14 or 17MHz crystal is used, you leave that alone.
Sweet! Thank you very much!!! I’ll test the jumpers tomorrow

Edit: Those jumpers are UNDER the horizontal edge connector! I didn’t even see them until today. Thanks again

Edit too: I didn’t want to wait til tomorrow and I guess I must have lifted those middle pads….. :shock: :(
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Markfrizb
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Re: Portable MD - how to region switch?

Post by Markfrizb »

I managed to map where those pads go to…. Thanks to high pixel cameras! It looks like I could just mass bridge the 5 pins (which pulls them all to ground) to have game screen USA-NTSC, 60hz TV-out.

Here’s a picture incase this helps someone else out.
Now to figure out if this can support the SMS adapters
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Markfrizb
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Re: Portable MD - how to region switch?

Post by Markfrizb »

I’ll post this as a wrap up of this issue.
I bridged those 5 pins as I described above, and that should have put the handheld into USA-NTSC…..but it didn’t. I still get the region message from the USA cart. I’ve thrown my hands up at this point…. It’s just going to be a (assumed Jap NTSC) handheld. I did try to get a SMS to run using a converter and that didn’t yield anything either.
lidnariq
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Re: Portable MD - how to region switch?

Post by lidnariq »

Do you have a copy of 240p test suite? It should tell you how those jumpers are set up.
Markfrizb
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Re: Portable MD - how to region switch?

Post by Markfrizb »

lidnariq wrote: Mon Dec 19, 2022 7:11 pm Do you have a copy of 240p test suite? It should tell you how those jumpers are set up.
Maybe…. Probably do. Good idea! I didn’t realize the test suite would display that information.

It’s in PAL mode apparently.

So the question is….. can I just change the mass bridging of those pins from (currently) ground to +5v ? Would that make the switch? I don’t really care about the TV out modes.

I’m not in love with this little unit to play games on…. but I want to be able to quickly test games when I go to retro game conventions, etc… so it’s really a test tool of sorts
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