PlayStation Development Network

Howdy!

I am glad that I found this community! I never knew that these old retro systems had people still developing for them, let alone pushing the boundaries of what these systems can do! I've been here for only a few days and I am already getting motivated to start working on stuff!

Some context...

I am, as of this post, a junior in college; Computer Science major. However, I don't consider myself all that great with programming or with Computer Science in general, which is a weird perdicament for me, considering my ambitions to work in Cyber Security as a career. I have had some experience with Java (I kind of lost it though), and I'm currently in the process of learning C for my coursework. Yet, I never really took to it as much as I should have - I really only did the assignments in class, and left it at that. A lack of ambition and retention has not been kind to me.

The general advice that I have received from all of my mentors when it comes to coding is to "find a reason to want to code; find projects that you want to work on, and keep your nose to the grindstone." Over the past few months, I have really gotten into learning about how online gaming works, how systems connect to each other, and how these companies run their services. After learning specifically about the Xband Modem from the 90s and projects like the DreamPi, I figured that any of these systems, including the PSX, could have some networking functionality. Although I don't intend to become a game developer for the PSX, or for any system for that matter, I would definitely like play around with the PSX, and try and have the know-how to make something like a PSX-like DreamPi a reality, but time will tell, and I have a looonnnnggg way to go before I have the skills to pull that off.

I have really enjoyed seeing the work that Lameguy64 and danhans42 have done; in particular the PSXNET project and the ESP8266 chip projects; definitely steps towards something bigger. I wish you guys the best of luck!

As for a place to start, I have taken it upon myself to download all of the resources here on the website (although I am having trouble getting psyq working on my Win10 64 bit machine; I'll save that for another post). Even though at the moment it's mostly Greek to me, I am excited to decipher it all. Along side my personal resources for learning code, I hope I can have some project, no matter how small, done within the year... that's my deadline!

It also helps that I used to collect PS1 some years ago, so I have a sizeable collection to do testing and what not. Unfortunately, all three of my PSXs have bit the dust, and I got no hardware at the moment, but I'm on the hunt for two replacements!

Anyway, I'm just happy to be here... I look forward to reading the forum every morning with my coffee! Cheers!

You can try looking on Orion's website at http://onorisoft.free.fr/psx/tutorial/tuto.htm - he's got some helpful information on how to develop for the PSX using less ancient OSes

Hi welcome!
Your mentors are smart people!

The problem with retro dev, 20+ years later is:
1. Hardware is going to get harder and more expensive to get
2. Experienced people forgetting the tech and less people with the right skills will be interested in learning.

Which means, the communities will be so small, we'll know each other on first name basis
That's not a bad thing, but not very sustainable in the long run, happy to be proven wrong tho

That's why I gave 32blit a plug.. it's the new old way of doing things... and you never know, people that start there could come here

Please don't advertise on the forums when it's got nothing to do with PlayStation development. That's the second time you did it. I've been monitoring your posts recently, and the stuff you've been posting isn't even really all that helpful. It's always just "your own two cents" on post after post. Slow down, or we'll have to issue a temporary ban.

I removed the 32blit plug.. it has a lot to do with PS1 programming, their both low powered tech and they provide education and a community.. which as mentioned above is important to many getting started, how many people come here wanting to program the PS1 and dont know where to start and just give up, too many!

N̶o̶t̶ ̶v̶e̶r̶y̶ ̶h̶e̶l̶p̶f̶u̶l̶?̶ ̶"̶m̶y̶ ̶t̶w̶o̶ ̶c̶e̶n̶t̶s̶"̶?̶ ̶C̶a̶n̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶m̶o̶r̶e̶ ̶s̶p̶e̶c̶i̶f̶i̶c̶?̶

Don't worry about I guess you don't like my opinions, that's fare enough, I'll be sure to keep them to myself.

gwald wrote: ↑May 17th, 2019, 8:42 pm I removed the 32blit plug.. it has a lot to do with PS1 programming, their both low powered tech and they provide education and a community.. which as mentioned above is important to many getting started, how many people come here wanting to program the PS1 and dont know where to start and just give up, too many!

N̶o̶t̶ ̶v̶e̶r̶y̶ ̶h̶e̶l̶p̶f̶u̶l̶?̶ ̶"̶m̶y̶ ̶t̶w̶o̶ ̶c̶e̶n̶t̶s̶"̶?̶ ̶C̶a̶n̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶m̶o̶r̶e̶ ̶s̶p̶e̶c̶i̶f̶i̶c̶?̶

Don't worry about I guess you don't like my opinions, that's fare enough, I'll be sure to keep them to myself.

I get where you're coming from, but it's got absolutely nothing to do with the PlayStation.

You can share your opinions, but just keep it on topic. Take for example "TriMesh's" post in reply to the OP. Simple, direct and shared a useful link to help the OP. Otherwise if we have users posting generic messages everywhere, the forums fill up with it and it makes it much harder to search and find for the information people want

For example, the other day I went to search for something here on the forums and I kept getting post after post with your generic chit-chat and it didn't help me find what I wanted. I'm not saying that the post here you did isn't bad because it does have useful info to the OP, but most of the rest of your posts are and I've had other members here complain about it. This isn't Facebook

Continue posting by all means please, but just keep in mind to keep everything straight to the point

Hello and welcome to the forum!

Basically, I had some knowledge and experience - all mainly Arduino/VS and Python - but my C skills were completely non-existent. Even now, my C programming is poor at best. I learnt what I know today by initially using the Yaroze environment to build simple console applications - this meant I could use standard books on C to build up my knowledge on the language without too much knowledge of the PlayStation.

I wouldn't recommend using Yaroze knowing what I know now - I would just start off with PsyQ and take it from there. If you cant be bothered with that, just start using GCC on Linux or something and get started.

The example apps on here that have source available, as well as others on github can be helpful with getting something simple off the ground. Thats all I have done to make a few tweaks to xflash, which I keep playing around with to try new things and code.

There are a few videos I found on youtube that help with some simple examples such as setting up the environment and some simple example applications.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCS2Z2j ... ZKf4_GMnsA


Best of luck.

Dan