27th June 2011, 1:40 AM
The railing will be a metal rod visible inside the laser assembly itself, where the laser attaches and the motor moves it across the rod. Or, it'll be plastic. The assembly internals will also either be metal or plastic. The plastic, plus heat, is the main cause of the eventual failure of those drives. The ones made almost entirely of plastic would deform, misaligning the laser over time.
Notably, most of those assemblies can be interchanged with each other across system models. Even though later once actually moved the assembly to different sides around the disk tray, it really doesn't matter where it is. The cable length could be an issue though. I've heard of people taking the latest model drives from the remodeled PSOne versions and sticking them into the 1001 models with a small amount of filing on two corners to make it fit smoothly and not having any issues. Apparently the DAC in the 1001 models has slightly clearer sound, so that combination is supposed to be a "best of both worlds" sort of thing. Well, that's how some people talk at any rate. I've not heard any real evidence supporting it, except typical audiophile nonsense that, at best, would only apply during a solar flare or in wires several hundred feet long, and at worst comes across as nonsense. In this case, it's the claim that there's something about the RCA connectors that's simply superior quality to the old one. Nah, I'm not buying that. On the other hand, there really are some big audio differences between a number of Genesis models, in some cases the audio actually gets processed differently. In my case, it seems I have just about the worst possible model I could have short of owning the Genesis 3. That said, most of my Genesis games sound pretty good to my ears. (There's also video issues with that model, but due to the way the 32X operates, it's negated by a rather nice video processor in mine which replaces the video output dutie even in normal Genesis mode.)
Well, there was actually a major glitch in how the 1001 models handled a draw command which programmers had to work around. However, since that model was already out, it's not like it ever mattered. Every developer from then on was forced to use that work around on every single game just to make sure it was fully compatible with all models, so I'm not sure if Sony ever even bothered fixing that glitch considering developers were hobbled from taking advantage of it anyway. (Well, it wasn't too major in the end and I'm sure developer's kits just automatically converted the draw command into the work-around code.)
Notably, most of those assemblies can be interchanged with each other across system models. Even though later once actually moved the assembly to different sides around the disk tray, it really doesn't matter where it is. The cable length could be an issue though. I've heard of people taking the latest model drives from the remodeled PSOne versions and sticking them into the 1001 models with a small amount of filing on two corners to make it fit smoothly and not having any issues. Apparently the DAC in the 1001 models has slightly clearer sound, so that combination is supposed to be a "best of both worlds" sort of thing. Well, that's how some people talk at any rate. I've not heard any real evidence supporting it, except typical audiophile nonsense that, at best, would only apply during a solar flare or in wires several hundred feet long, and at worst comes across as nonsense. In this case, it's the claim that there's something about the RCA connectors that's simply superior quality to the old one. Nah, I'm not buying that. On the other hand, there really are some big audio differences between a number of Genesis models, in some cases the audio actually gets processed differently. In my case, it seems I have just about the worst possible model I could have short of owning the Genesis 3. That said, most of my Genesis games sound pretty good to my ears. (There's also video issues with that model, but due to the way the 32X operates, it's negated by a rather nice video processor in mine which replaces the video output dutie even in normal Genesis mode.)
Well, there was actually a major glitch in how the 1001 models handled a draw command which programmers had to work around. However, since that model was already out, it's not like it ever mattered. Every developer from then on was forced to use that work around on every single game just to make sure it was fully compatible with all models, so I'm not sure if Sony ever even bothered fixing that glitch considering developers were hobbled from taking advantage of it anyway. (Well, it wasn't too major in the end and I'm sure developer's kits just automatically converted the draw command into the work-around code.)
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)