Sega Saturn

Glossary

Modding discussions are full of acronyms and jargon. Here are the terms you'll encounter most often while planning a Saturn project.

ODE — Optical Drive Emulator. A board that replaces or supplements the CD drive, loading game images from an SD card.
BIOS — The Saturn's built-in firmware. Its revision number matters for some mods; the earliest 1.00 version has known incompatibilities.
Ribbon cable — The flat connector between the drive and mainboard. It has either 20 or 21 pins, which dictates the ODE kit you need.
Region lock — A built-in check that blocks games from other territories. US, Japan, and PAL are the three regions.
RGB — The Saturn's native high-quality video output, no mod required to access it.
CD-R — Writable optical media. Booting these requires a cartridge or ODE that bypasses the original copy protection.
Cartridge slot — The rear expansion port. Used by RAM carts, backup memory, and the Pseudo Saturn Kai boot cart.
Firmware — Updatable software running on an ODE, distinct from the console's BIOS.
Homebrew — Software written by hobbyists rather than commercial publishers.

Keep this page handy; later install guides assume you recognize these terms.