Yes, but doesn't that run on a different layer than the CD drive firmware? I'm specifically referring to this quote:
> Microsoft may have reached some level of completion on that project and sold it to Sega for the Saturn's complicated storage controller, but it's also possible that the connection between the Saturn and MAW is mistaken and the software Microsoft delivered to Sega was a simple, from-scratch effort.
win32/win16 code has a very distinctive style, so I think if an emulator author dumped the firmware and even just looked at it with `strings` it would be pretty obvious whether or not the firmware is some kind of slimmed down version of proto-Windows. At least that's the next place I would look for answers.
A reader has done exactly that and reports pretty confidently that the CD-ROM subsystem firmware is not Windows, and appears to be mostly hand-written assembly and probably by Hitachi. Unsurprising considering their prominent role in the CD-ROM industry.
It is true that the later Sega Dreamcast could run Windows CE, although the Saturn, as far as I can tell, never could. Windows CE had barely been started when the Saturn came out, so it doesn't seem realistic that there had been a plan in the Saturn era to put CE on it. If I had to speculate (and I do) I think that perhaps the Sega-Microsoft partnership for the Saturn didn't work out, perhaps due to the failure of WinPad or Pegasus, but did start the relationship that lead to CE support on the Dreamcast.
> Microsoft may have reached some level of completion on that project and sold it to Sega for the Saturn's complicated storage controller, but it's also possible that the connection between the Saturn and MAW is mistaken and the software Microsoft delivered to Sega was a simple, from-scratch effort.
win32/win16 code has a very distinctive style, so I think if an emulator author dumped the firmware and even just looked at it with `strings` it would be pretty obvious whether or not the firmware is some kind of slimmed down version of proto-Windows. At least that's the next place I would look for answers.