PSNee further development

General information to do with the PlayStation 1 Hardware. Including modchips, pinouts, rare or obscure development equipment, etc.
rama3
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Post by rama3 » July 26th, 2017, 12:00 am

Just a heads up:
I'm pretty much done with this job. The only thing left to do would be porting the PSOne patch to ATtiny.
But honestly, it would require yet another 50 lines of code, just to free the extra pin.
I might do it one day but it's not a priority now.

I'm installing this code using Arduino Mini boards in various PSX revisions and so far it's doing a nice job.

kalymnos77: Did you want to swap the psxdev.net branch to master?

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Post by kalymnos77 » July 26th, 2017, 1:52 am

I was waiting for you to be ready, there are just two things that are missing in my opinion.

Have more layout installation, to make a file.zip. The second thing would be (if you agree) that you explain a little more about your hack.

The two things are not vital, it is more comfort, and I like to know the stories.

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Post by rama3 » July 26th, 2017, 3:27 am

More pics would be nice, yeah. I guess I can check the thread and fill some voids.

If by hack you mean "hack of PsNee", well, there's not much left of the original :p
The original doesn't have a mechanism to turn the injections off. It bases everything on a timer.
After power on, it will start sending injections for some time, then turns off.
It also doesn't know when it's required to turn on again (except for after a reset), so it gets detected by anti-mod games.

I added that mechanism to know when to inject and when to turn it off. This is the 2 wires for SUBQ / SQCK.
The PSX transmits the current subchannel Q data on this bus. It tells the console where on the disk the read head is.
We know that the protection symbols only exist on the earliest sectors, and that anti-mod games exploit this by looking for the symbols elsewhere on the disk. (If they get those symbols, a modchip must be generating them.)
So with that information, my code knows when the PSX wants to see the unlock symbols, and when it's "fake" / anti-mod.
The chip is continously looking at that subcode bus, so as an extra I don't need the reset wire or any other timing hints that other modchips use. That makes it compatible and fully functional with all revisions of the PSX, not just the later ones. Also with this method, the chip knows more about the current CD. This allows it to not send unlock symbols for a music CD > The BIOS starts right into the CD player, instead of after a long delay with other modchips.

My method has some drawbacks though:
It's more logic / code. More things to go wrong. The testing done so far suggests it's working fine though ;p
It's not a good example anymore to demonstrate PSX security and how modchips work.

Well, that's about it, I guess :)
Last edited by rama3 on July 26th, 2017, 3:37 am, edited 2 times in total.

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Post by kalymnos77 » July 26th, 2017, 3:35 am

Yes exactly, I'll take care of it tomorrow, tonight it's RPG :dance

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Post by MasterDomino » July 26th, 2017, 8:01 pm

Hello, at the beginning i want to apologize for my lack of knowledge, as i started modding my psx with pu-18 pal board inside i normally flashed everything from the old psnee project and soldered everything to the board it didnt work now i tried this project, but as i soldered it the first time i didnt notice the gate pad broke of(i broke it off) and soo i tried using one of the pins in the ic thats mentioned as gate in some 12c508 modchip guide but even after desoldering my pro mini it wont run my original tekken gets stuck at unauthorised message with corrupted half of the text xD and wont load some cds, i wanted to ask you guys for help in where to exactly bridge stuff to fix it soo it first runs the original games first(i know i ask for much) then ill mod it again :P i attach here a image of how it looks now with both things marked(pad that goes of the gate pin in ic is also lifted but i put it back down).https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_94dF ... sp=sharing
ps. rama3 thanks for great work.

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Post by kalymnos77 » July 26th, 2017, 8:51 pm

hello MasterDomino.
I'm not sure what I see, there is no welding between the legs to the left of the chip?
Then to see if there are trace problems, I use a multimeter in continuity mode.
Sorry for not being able to say more I have not got psx model on hand.

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Post by MasterDomino » July 26th, 2017, 9:11 pm

kalymnos77 wrote:hello MasterDomino.
I'm not sure what I see, there is no welding between the legs to the left of the chip?
Then to see if there are trace problems, I use a multimeter in continuity mode.
Sorry for not being able to say more I have not got psx model on hand.
generally i mean the upper pad i damaged and its not here soo theres no continuity and the other pad to the left went thru the same and has no connection now i generally want to know now where i should bridge this connections to for the system to work as its displays gibberish now when i try to run the original tekken.

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Post by rama3 » July 26th, 2017, 11:15 pm

Please post a picture of your soldering iron and the solder you use!

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Post by MasterDomino » July 26th, 2017, 11:20 pm

rama3 wrote:Please post a picture of your soldering iron and the solder you use!
i know im new here but its rather not going to change anything(using basic ones no heatgun etc. just 60% tin 40% lead), im just searching to where this connections should go and maybe where i could wire it to.

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Post by rama3 » July 26th, 2017, 11:30 pm

Well, you have maybe 2 more chances of fixing this and it will require precission soldering.
Seeing your pads, I think we need to fix that problem first.
You probably use the wrong (too big, too hot) iron and maybe your solder is also too wide.

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Post by MasterDomino » July 26th, 2017, 11:33 pm

rama3 wrote:Well, you have maybe 2 more chances of fixing this and it will require precission soldering.
Seeing your pads, I think we need to fix that problem first.
You probably use the wrong (too big, too hot) iron and maybe your solder is also too wide.
soo thats the explanation well i do have a variable temperature soldering iron and also the solder is 1mm thick.

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Post by rama3 » July 26th, 2017, 11:36 pm


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Post by MasterDomino » July 26th, 2017, 11:39 pm

rama3 wrote:
understood. another question as theres this small issue that now without a modchip my console wont boot the tekken(original) will just instead show the unauthorised message is that caused because this gate pad got lifted off?

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Post by rama3 » July 26th, 2017, 11:46 pm

It depends on what you broke. You did break something though and this is the time for a multimeter.

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Post by kalymnos77 » July 27th, 2017, 1:24 am

Here is the PsNee v7 is on the master, i hope that will be your taste ;)

https://github.com/kalymos/PsNee

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Post by TriMesh » July 27th, 2017, 3:31 am

MasterDomino wrote:
rama3 wrote:
understood. another question as theres this small issue that now without a modchip my console wont boot the tekken(original) will just instead show the unauthorised message is that caused because this gate pad got lifted off?
If it's only the pad, then it shouldn't cause any problems. The trace from that pad just goes to the end of the cap next to it. There also don't appear to be any parts missing.

For reference, here is the wiring underneath those parts - the signal on that pad goes only to the C and R next to it and pin 7 of the chip. If there is continuity, then the lifted trace is not your problem.

Image
PU-18-wobble-processor.jpg
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Post by rama3 » July 27th, 2017, 4:35 am

"wobble-processor.jpg"
Wait, is the entire IC just there for the copy protection? xD

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Post by Oxygeen » July 27th, 2017, 4:38 am

Hey there peps, i'm here to ask you some help, while trying to install my Arduino nano, i removed the requiered pad to provide 3.5v (aka 3.3v to the arduino) is there another place to grab the volts ? If not, is there a way to fix this ? Thanks....

I really need to change my soldering Iron...

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Post by rama3 » July 27th, 2017, 4:52 am

Broke the pad on the Nano, or broke it on the PSX? The PSX has many places to take Vcc from. Just don't take it from any analog sections.

By the way, I don't know if the Nano is compatible.

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Post by TriMesh » July 27th, 2017, 9:27 am

rama3 wrote:"wobble-processor.jpg"
Wait, is the entire IC just there for the copy protection? xD
Yes, that is a semi-custom linear IC that's been designed entirely for handling the PSX copy protection. The input is the tracking error signal from the optical pickup, and the output is NRZ data that can be fed into the mechacon MCU.

On the older (PU-7, PU-8) boards, there were 3 chips that were solely dedicated to the copy protection, all off-the-shelf linear parts. I guess that custom linear chip was cheaper.

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