The purpose of this modification is to allow the user to play both Japanese and American games on their Saturn without having a special cartridge plugged into their machine. The benefit of this over the cartridge method is that you can now play SNK and Capcom games that support the RAM cartridge upgrade. Also it is cheaper than buying a special cart for playing imports.
I have written two different FAQs for modifying the Saturn to play both Japanese and American games. Each FAQ is for a different board revision. The only difference you need to know between the boards is the varying location of the jumper switches and which pole is common on them. Click on one of the buttons below to go to the FAQ. If while reading the FAQ you discover that your board is not the one represented, try looking at the other FAQ. If neither FAQ represents your board, read the paragraph after the below buttons.
All of the Saturns that I have modified use the same jumpers to control the country code. To determine the common pole of each pair of jumpers I just looked very closely at the board to see which poles had a printed wire connecting them. The connected poles are the common. With a little effort the two FAQs I have written should allow anyone, regardless of which board their machine has, to modify their Saturn.