Sega Saturn Flashcart on the way?

[RetroDefense]

As a retro gamer who prefers playing on original hardware - as it should be - I've been facing what is a common problem anymore: dead or dying optical drives. My PSP's drive died while in storage (?!?) and my Sega CD is beginning to show it's age. So over the past year or two, I've been keeping an eye on various optical drive "bypass" efforts. Essentially replacing the intended means of reading software with something more reliable and solid state.

With more modern systems, this usually involves mods allowing for better realized hard drive support, etc. But during the industry's earlier transition to optical, systems were more proprietary and less flexible. The Sega Saturn included - my fave system of the 32/64-bit era.

So needless to say, the idea of some sort of bypass for the Saturn is very exciting. I was a little surprised to hear this works via the VCD module slot instead of the Saturn's standard cart slot, but hey, no complaints here.

Here's the full skinny. It's long and filled with technobabble but is fascinating if you're into this kind of thing.

[Data]

Another option I discovered for the console moders is the Rhea card made by the same people who built GDemu. Rhea works in Saturn and GDemu works in a Dreamcast and both are deigned to replace the optical media. You put the backups of the games you own on to a SD card and insert the card into the console.

[RetroDefense]

Another option I discovered for the console moders is the Rhea card made by the same people who built GDemu. Rhea works in Saturn and GDemu works in a Dreamcast and both are deigned to replace the optical media. You put the backups of the games you own on to a SD card and insert the card into the console.

I've been eyeing Rhea/Phoebe for a while. I hear it's an easy enough install - no soldering work required - but I prefer the (semi) external plug-and-play option if I can get away with it. My Sega Saturn drive is still functional - knock on wood - so there's really no reason to pull it at this point.

(That said, I have been picking up spare optical drive systems for modification - working on a Xbox - and will probably do the same with others eventually. Saturn included.)

Would like to find a good external Dreamcast PnP solution but they don't seem to exist - bottleneck with the serial port, apparently.