Dev-ability of PSX ? (the PVR, not the PS1)

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Wed Sep 29, 2004 2:19 pm

I picked up a cut-rate PSX. The thing is solid as a tank. Extremely well constructed. In fact, for the firesale price paid, it was a bargain based
solely on features and construction.

Unfortunately, it does not boot the MC exploit (shocking). Worse, it does not accept a JPN Linux RTE disc for booting (not surprising in hindsight). It is different than using an out-of-region disc, where it ignores the out-of-region disc completely. The JPN linux RTE disc results in an error message basically saying you can't use this disc. (Thats the gist, I will translate it completely when I have more time). I may try disconnecting the internal HDD to see if that affects bootup.

Chances are I will relegate this specifically to be the "entertainment" system and let the other PS2's be the dev systems, but I was curious about how accessible the additional hardware devices were, thus wanting to try booting homebrew onto it.

Has anyone themselves had, or heard from anyone else about, any successes in dealing with this exotic beast ?

In pictures, I tried comparing many of the chip part numbers to those on the new PStwo. Not surprising, they are very close. The revision of IOP chip appears to be exactly the same, as well as SSBUS. Of course, both of them also use the new EE+GS.

My personal feeling is that the PSX was an experiment to try different things, and Sony wasn't terribly worried if as a product line is didn't perform very well, so long as many specific concepts used in the product itself succeeded, to be used in other products.

Post by **pixel** » Wed Sep 29, 2004 5:11 pm

On a side note, this PSX is a failure. I'd even say this was a test board from SONY, in order to test if building a full featured console will catch the crowd. It hasn't, and they sure will learn their errors for PS3: build a cheaper box, with less multimedia features, focusing on gaming.

Anyway: have you try swapping discs or something ? In order to boot homebrew I mean. And, just for your interest, I managed to boot ps2link using the Action Replay Max Evo's usb stick (had to pack the binary though, since the loading address won't do otherwise... maybe a highload could do too.)

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Wed Sep 29, 2004 5:40 pm

pixel wrote:
Anyway: have you try swapping discs or something ? In order to boot homebrew I mean. And, just for your interest, I managed to boot ps2link using the Action Replay Max Evo's usb stick (had to pack the binary though, since the loading address won't do otherwise... maybe a highload could do too.)

1. Swapping which discs ? PS1 disks ? :) I only have two JPN PS1 discs,
that work fine on a normal PS2 to boot the exploit. I haven't yet tried
swapping the hard disk.

2. The USB boot sounds very interesting. That may be the ticket for me.
I guess I should consider picking up AR MAX Evo (JPN). :)

Thanks for the info!

Gorim

Post by **pixel** » Wed Sep 29, 2004 5:59 pm

I mean, swapping as in putting a demo disc, then, when it boots, pulls the tray out using a knife or something similar, then put your homebrew ps2link, and close the tray :P

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Wed Sep 29, 2004 7:01 pm

pixel wrote:I mean, swapping as in putting a demo disc, then, when it boots, pulls the tray out using a knife or something similar, then put your homebrew ps2link, and close the tray :P

Oh...well...

a. I don't have a demo disc. But...thats the least of my problems :)
b. The DVD drive is not a "tray" type. It auto-loads when you insert
the DVD. Maybe I *could* insert a tweezer tool through the opening
and pulled the disc out, but then I worry about breaking the DVD
mechanism. *sigh* oh well.

Bottom line, I don't think a swap trick will work with this one.

Gorim

Guichi · Post by **Guichi** » Wed Sep 29, 2004 10:00 pm

karat does not have distributors license for the action replay line anymore. their last update was AR 2.27b or something like that. There is no jap AR Max Evo with supah sjeep Pgen.

The PSX may be a sales failure but to developers this thing is a dev goldmine. The PSX has 64m RAM on the EE(compared to 32 in normal PS2) and 8m RAM on IOP!

Actually getting code running on it is another story. :)

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 1:42 am

Guichi wrote:
The PSX may be a sales failure but to developers this thing is a dev goldmine. The PSX has 64m RAM on the EE(compared to 32 in normal PS2) and 8m RAM on IOP!

Actually getting code running on it is another story. :)

Indeed you are right. I just pulled out the mainboard and there are 4 darling little 16Mb (2MB) drams right next to the IOP. A bunch of other 16Mb drams
litter the board in addition attached to various DSP and media processors.

Oh, and those are indeed a pair of cute 32MB RDRAM chips.

Now I only wish I can find a way to make use of them. :)

zaphod · Post by **zaphod** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 7:23 am

It seems the Max Media Player Boot is the most proising method here. ONly problem is making a decent elf launcher that's compatible with it's braindead .ELF loader.

Post by **pixel** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 7:42 am

Read what I said above about their loader.

Guichi · Post by **Guichi** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 10:00 pm

zaphod wrote:It seems the Max Media Player Boot is the most proising method here. ONly problem is making a decent elf launcher that's compatible with it's braindead .ELF loader.

As i said, there is no AR Max for jp consoles.

Gorim if you want to use this strictly as a dev machine and not worry about looks. rip the casing off and use the swap trick, you can try to get yourself the older pro action replay 2.x or one of the later versions of the xploder for jp units. chances are that some of the xploders may still keep the disc spinning but the many of the AR do not.

There is also a high chance that sony has added anti AR schemes once again, they have done this in the past to prevent their discs from booting. If that is the case then you may have to end up with a swap magic set.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Thu Sep 30, 2004 11:26 pm

Hey Guichi, thanks for the advice!

Unfortunately, I kinda do care about looks, since it does look fairly cool.

On the other hand, I find it kinda amazing how many separate RISC media
processors and microcontrollers are in this thing beyond the normal PS2
chipsets. I would love to get a closer look from the software side.

I am going to try a couple of different things such as disconnecting the
HDD. I suspect it tries to boot from that first. Maybe...just maybe, it
would then boot from CDROM. Otherwise.... well.... just have to think
some more. :)

Gorim

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Fri Oct 01, 2004 12:49 am

Well, Sony really put thought into this thing. If the HDD ide cable is
disconnected, when the system powers on, it just shuts itself back off.
Dang! :)

zaphod · Post by **zaphod** » Thu Dec 15, 2005 5:54 am

Well for those who ahve one, i might suggest buying swap magic japan version, or maybe pro loader. they seem to have elf loaders in them, and i think at last one of them can boot a USB elf.

gorim · Post by **gorim** » Thu Dec 29, 2005 11:34 pm

zaphod wrote:Well for those who ahve one, i might suggest buying swap magic japan version, or maybe pro loader. they seem to have elf loaders in them, and i think at last one of them can boot a USB elf.

Actually I tried this last summer and it does work. I used it to boot ps2link quite fine from a USB mass storage device.

Was tempted to try ps2linux. Maybe I should. :)