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Sega Dreamcast Hybrid Bios Mod
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29-11-2011 6:22pm#1Having done the region flash mod a few times, I thought this looked interesting. What it is, is essentially a replacement BIOS chip for your Sega Dreamcast. The new BIOS is a Dev/Retail hybrid of dev console bios & retail console bios, that just happens to be region free.
Your DC remains the same region as it originally is, however all region checking has been removed, so you can boot any region games without reflashing the region code, or without powering off to reset modchips.
You also get a Dev boot animation which is a nice touch.
Dreamcast stripped down to the motherboard
The original bios chip in place, this can be either removed completely as in this case, or you can wire up a switch & have both chips selectable at any given time.
The replacement hybrid BIOS
Original bios removed, I desoldered rather then snipping the pins
The pad for pin 1 lifted, as can be seen here. After some cursing, I noticed in the tutorials it's actually not needed, as pin 1 of the new chip should be lifted & soldered to pin 23. Jammy or what :cool: It's fixable should it happen on another pad though, not really a big deal.
New BIOS soldered into place
Pin 44 of the new chip wired to pin nine of the adjacent chip, the point is very small so I added a strip of insulation tape to help secure it. And the happily lifted pin 1 of the new chip, soldered to its own pin 23, which is soldered to the mobo.
Console back together, won't be needing this anymore. As I mentioned, you can keep the original bios if you wish & have it selectable with a switch. I don't know why you'd want that, but its an option nonethless.
All going well, you should see the dev bios animation
The console is now truly region free, no more region flashing or changing, region checks simply don't exist. Nice :cool:
Here's the boot animation someone put up on youtube, if your console is PAL the swirl will be blue as normal etc
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWFhMi-lDmwComments
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How did you go about desoldering?
Did you solely use braid, or a pump also?
Haven't tried desoldering an SMT part yet, but I'd say its tricky if you do not remove all the solder from each pad!
I desoldered each leg individually, by heating it up with a fine tipped low watt iron, & then when the solder became molten I simply and gently pried the legs off the pads . I didn't actually remove all the solder from the pads either, I removed the old solder with a pump then tinned each pad instead. I tinned the chip legs then, & it was simply a matter of lining up the legs & flowing the solder for a perfect join.Lovely mod, but I like the one the Doc did as I have the orange swirl now.
Do you have to flash that dev bios on to a blank rom? Or can they be bought ready to go?
You could get the red swirl if you want, you simply have to have your DC in NTSC mode beforehand. This would involve doing the old region flashing mod also though, hardly worth it. The dev boot screen is cool enough in blue for me :cool:
I got the chip from Docentore actually, he has some that are preflashed & ready for installation as in this case. You can buy them that way, there's a link on mmmonkeys site to a retailer, not sure if its the same ones Doc got though?0
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