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The Gamestar, a Mega Drive Clone!

In December 27 from 2021, I got this interesting box!

Box Front (IMAGE FROM A DIFFERENT LISTING)
Box Back
Box Side

A Mega Drive Clone shipped from another city, I wanted one when I was 11, so I was thrilled! The box contains images of the Jurassic Park movie, the katakana "MEGA DRIVE" (メガ ドライブ) and phrase taken from the original JP box, a rather nice logo inspired by the original MD Logo (I like it very much =^▽^=), claims to have Street Fighter, whatever is happening on the bottom right of the white side; please fill me in on that because I'm confused and still am -_-; , and Captain Tsubasa, known here in the middle east as "Captain Majid".

This was tested in the store it was sold in (can't believe it was still here years later!), so its used, the box was full of shipping Stickers, I tried to remove them in the pictures above.

The box set contains the manual, the console unit, 2 Controllers (one being used and unwrapped), an AC adapter, an RF cable and an RF switch box, the AV cable was mysteriously missing.

The Console itself is an Asian PAL Model 1 Clone, running in Japanese 50HZ, mentions of Sega were removed there, along with the CH and EXT port.

Bottom Sticker

The bottom sticker of the unit, which straight up says it's a "MEGA DRIVE", this sticker is the only one I've seen from it so far, may be from around 1995 from looking in the PCB and chip dates, I later found a french forum page that seems to have noted the Model it was based on. (HAA-2510)

www.gamopat-forum.com/t69034-megadrive-ou-pas

it almost took me an hour to set up the TV as I didn't know how RF worked at the time, I was met with a Multicart Menu, about 156 games in 1 (kind of; my calaculations might be wrong, teehee!), filled with the repeats of 7 games some of which alter the starting point, these are cycled through via bankswitching, how facinating.

The Multicart

NOTE: This Video was recorded months after the first time because I didn't have an Easycap and AV Cable!

List of games, all are modified in one way or another. -

Most of the titles are early 80s-90s titles, most of it has a weird feeling from how different they feel from late MD titles (right around from when games like sonic came), makes me a little nostalgic despite not even being born until decades later!

Disassembly

Two Boards Top
Main Board Top
Power & Audio Board Top
BIWAVE RF Box
Two Boards Bottom
Main Board Bottom
Multicart PCB
Power & Audio Board Bottom

Seems to be a VA5 Clone, specifically a 504-II, with two PCBs connected together, split presumably for cost cutting, it notably has a whole second cartridge slot in the bottom side of the main PCB, the multicart PCB was actually stuck onto the board with sticky double sided thick tape.

Below are a table of chips I can identify, thanks for UNAUTHORIZON for indentifying a few unlabled chips, they are hosting more PCB images I took

(UNAUTHORIZON entry)

Accessory Support

A notable thing about how this console is built is that despite having the expansion connector for a Mega CD, it went unused and blocked permanently by the shell.

It might support the 32X

Only thing to mind is ensuring they are the right region, there are official asian PAL MD products but they unfortunately rare and very expensive nowadays D:, so modding is the way to go.

Aftermath

As of writing, the console is sort of on its last legs, unfortunately has shell damage and broken pins on the board connector that need resoldering, most of the accessories like the original controllers and AC broken, my fault! u-u;

It desperately needs the board connector fixed, which would be an issue to service as they are header pin connectors! UmU;

That's all I have on documenting this neat old-school MD bootleg, bye! ^▽^

Design by EGGRAMEN.