You can see from Sega Mega-Tech Conversion – Phase 1 – that we concluded we had a dead system here, so now I had to decide what to do with it.
Gathering Dust in the shed
The Mega-Tech (here on known as the MT) has been sat in the shed now for the over a year (have even moved homes TWICE in that time!), its time to pull it out and get it in the house/workshop and make a decision as to what to do with it now. The options are:-
- Create a clone of the original Mega-Tech using the top screen for a selection menu, and the bottom screen for gameplay, this will bring it back to its exact former glory – clean it up, maybe replace (replicate) decals on side.
- Create a Sega Master System emulator type machine which will make use of the 3 buttons per player, using a front end such as Hyperspin, or something similar to choose the games from, that way the machine stays Sega and is prety much as it were, but with a much bigger selection.
- Maintain the cosmetic ‘retro’ look, have it play ‘classic’ retro games, from all consoles up to a certain time, for example all the Megadrive (Genesis), Master System, Snes, NES, Mame and similar
Pulling the MT back into the home/workshop, its easy to see what a mess its in with the T-Moulding hanging off in places (nothing a bit of hot glue wont fix) and the control panel looking very old and ‘sun aged’ – the gallery below shows you the dirt and grime.
A DECISION IS MADE
Although even now Im not still 100% sure, I decided that to get the most playability use from a machine, that emulating ALL the old school consoles would be the route I wish to take, unfortunately some of these consoles were slightly more advanced from when the MT was released (such as the Megadrive(Genesis)) and that 3 buttons just would not cut it, so at this point the following decision was made
Im going to create a machine, which keeps the look and feel of the original Sega Mega-Tech, but to enhance playability Im going to include all the classic consoles, games and arcade hits, and some of the not-so-classic ones, but systems that I personally love, such as the Intellivision and of course the Atari 2600. I want the machine to keep the look and feel of the original Mega-Tech, this is key, I want to re-use as much original parts as I can, especially the PSU, monitors and hopefully controller – this is a hobbyist machine and the coin slot will ONLY be for aesthetics not for actual money.
With this in mind, I then go about cleaning the boards, recalling the PSU from Ash (the chap who inspected the original motherboards) and ordering a VGA to CGA converter (These old CRTs aint going to run themselves, and who wants to mess with software settings for days on end to get 15khz!).
SEGA MEGA-TECH CONVERSION – PHASE 3 >>>>
