Sega Nomad

lions3

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Randomly came across a youtube video with a Sega Nomad. Now i've got an itch for some handheld Genesis gaming. (yes, yes, I walked right past them in the store back in the day)

Anyone have one? Love or hate it?
 

FilthyRear

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I had one. They were great, but you need to replace the screen. The ghosting on those screens are horrible.
 

DNSDies

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Replace the screen, do an internal battery mod (two thin rectangular 3.7v lipo batteries, a protection/charge PCB, and some cutting of traces and soldering on the power plug required), SMS mod, add a physical reset button, and get a Mega Everdrive.

Gives you a great portable that plays all Genesis and Master System games off a single cart!
 

lions3

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Interesting. I actually enjoy doing a little modding. One of the reasons I've built a couple 3d printers.

I knew about replacing the screen. That should be as easy as grabbing a 3.5" screen from Adafruit and an hr of modding. But I hadn't thought about the SMS mod or the internal battery. Off to visit the googles.

As to the everdrive. Never owned one, but I've heard they're nice. Any reason you suggested the expensive version of the two everdrives?
 
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StevenK

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Got a nomad, screen is almost unplayable unfortunately.
 

GohanX

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The pricier one has some extra features, but the most important thing here is that the games load instantly. On a portable waiting several minutes for even small games to load could be a deal killer.

As far as the Nomad itself goes, I've had one since they were still sold in stores. It's a great handheld with a terrible screen, swap that and it's badass. It's one of the few handhelds that have genuinely great controls, the dpad is similar in feel to the 6 button arcade pad. I'm not a fan of doing the battery mods though, using modern day rechargeable AA's gives you 4 hours of life without doing any modding or using special batteries.
 

BladeDancer314

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I advise people to just buy eneloops batteries for the turbo express and if you have a battery pack for the Nomad just do the same thing.

It's a fantastic system, with an LCD mod it's awesome.
 

SmokeMonster

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A Nomad with the 3.5" TFT mod is the ultimate handheld, tied with the Turbo Express in my opinion. Nomad's are usually in dire need of a recap though, at which time you should also perform the simple SMS mod.

I too use Eneloop AAs and get a long time between recharges with the batteryback, although I almost always play it plugged in.
 

lions3

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A Nomad with the 3.5" TFT mod is the ultimate handheld, tied with the Turbo Express in my opinion. Nomad's are usually in dire need of a recap though, at which time you should also perform the simple SMS mod.

I too use Eneloop AAs and get a long time between recharges with the batteryback, although I almost always play it plugged in.

Okay, you guys are making my Nomad interest spike. Guess it's time to start lurking on ebay for a broken screen nomad. No reason to pay extra for a screen i'm just going to replace.

Oh, and don't get me started on a Turbo Express. I've been dreaming of owning one of those since I first read about it back in the 90s. I've never even held one. ...one day ..one day.
 

DNSDies

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The reset button mod is pretty much just for if you use an Everdrive, or want to play that one X-Men game.

Everdrive requires a soft reset to save SMS SRAM data to the SD Card, and Nomad has no reset button.
It's a simple mod, just solder the reset wire of the cart edge to a button that grounds it when pressed. If you use a simple AND gate IC, you can make it reset when you press Mode and Start.

I recommended the expensive one because fast load times, and it is what I have.

The point of the battery mod is to have an internal battery and not have to fiddle with the battery pack. you also get insane play time off of it, like more than 7 hours.

If you decide to go with AAs, the eneloop rechargeable are really the greatest batteries.
 

Xavier

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I don't understand the screen hate.
Maybe mine had an extra special screen dunno, but I remember it being leaps and bounds better than anything at the time and about on par with the first gba/sp and ds.
The turbo express had little pixels and usually had several out.
The lynx's graphics were kinda blocky so it didn't really matter.
The game gear had the worst screen.. very blurry, took me a week of playing a couple hours a day to be able to tell what was on the screen.
 

BladeDancer314

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I don't understand the screen hate.
Maybe mine had an extra special screen dunno, but I remember it being leaps and bounds better than anything at the time and about on par with the first gba/sp and ds.
The turbo express had little pixels and usually had several out.
The lynx's graphics were kinda blocky so it didn't really matter.
The game gear had the worst screen.. very blurry, took me a week of playing a couple hours a day to be able to tell what was on the screen.

It's when you compare it to a current LCD that the shortcomings become very evident.
 
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lions3

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Yeah I was going to say it's probably like when I did the backlight mod on the original GBA. you just can't go back afterwords.
 

SNK416

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Wish I never sold mine, had recapped and screen done was awesome toy..
 

Spike Spiegel

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I played a LOT of games on that thing. Loved my Nomad. First played, and beat, Phantasy Star 4 on that. Talk about an awesome experience for hand held.
 

lions3

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Picked up a Nomad this weekend. Love it. You guys were right. The controls are great. Last night I thought I would boot up SF2 for a second and got sucked in to multiple games. ha.

Now to decide if I want to upgrade the screen or not. It's not horrible, but all the details are a little blurry.
 

cat

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Correct me if i'm wrong but isn't the nomad only able to play genesis games, no good to us lot in the pal territories unless it's compatible with a converter to play our pal region games. It's one of the reasons i've never bothered getting one, and i also find the psp pretty sweet for megadrive, 32x, megacd emulating.
 

cat

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Nomad can be region modded very simply. You simply cut and bridge some solder points.

http://www.gamesx.com/importmod/gen2nomadbutton.htm

Just be aware that if you do an LCD replacement, it supports PAL.

Thanks for the link dns i didn't know that the nomad could be region modded certainly makes the thought of getting one a little more appealing to me, criminal that we never saw a release over here in the uk.
 

cat

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I finally gave in and got a nomad, arrived yesterday it's a lovely thing, got the screen swapped out as well, tried about 40 megadrive games on it so far and about 22-23 work on it so the region mod will be a must.
Jap games work fine though with a convertor inserted. I'm sure they'll work straight off the bat in the nomad but it's a tight squeeze and i'm a little nervous to force them in.
 

Westcb

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I want a Nomad now...ok, I'm lying, I have long time looking for one.


I got one I bought new bitd, when I say low hours I mean low hours, lost the AC adapter straight off and never bought another :-) don't have the box anymore just the unit, you have some cool pcbs lets trade :-)
 

wyndcrosser

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anyone have a link to the lcd screens? I used to do this mod previously, but my seller ran out of stock. The ones from ebay are the board side components are too tall and make the case not close. Thanks.
 

SmokeMonster

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anyone have a link to the lcd screens? I used to do this mod previously, but my seller ran out of stock. The ones from ebay are the board side components are too tall and make the case not close. Thanks.
This type is a sharper picture and supposedly uses less power, but has no brightness/contrast controls.

Or you can remove the screen from one like this, which has controls but is a bit blurrier. I have two modded Nomads, one with each type of screen. I prefer the no-controls type personally.
 
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