Beginner's guide to connecting to the PSX.
Posted: January 20th, 2016, 2:22 am
I keep seeing the same questions about how to get the PSX set up for homebrew. To be fair, objectively it's probably a bit of a nightmare to figure out the best solution for you given that there are so many options spanning about 20 years, and various fragmented posts here and there might make things a little awkward. So here's a quick guide to the hardware side of things. Gives a shout if anything's inaccurate or could do with some clearing up.
There are about 5 main ways to get set up, in order of difficulty, (I'm bundling serial comms in), though there are others.
1- Dev Kit
2- Net Yaroze
3- Boot disc
4- Action Replay or clone (Excluding XPlorer)
5- XPlorer Cartridge (specifically)
(6- Emulate- http://problemkaputt.de/psx.htm)
I'll start with the 3 most awkward to get them out of the way. While this means you'll be reading through a bunch of things that possibly aren't appropriate to your situation I ask that you read it through since it's in this order for a reason! (Especially 3-5).
1-Dev Kit.
The dev kit included a card you'd plug into your PC with what is essentially a playstation built onto it. It's what most every game was developed on, alongside the Psy-Q software development kit. While not many people have or use the official dev kit, the Psy-Q SDK is still quite popular and has more or less all the tools needed for the software side of things. It's also available on Psxdev.
DevKit: http://www.psxdev.net/forum/viewforum.php?f=28
PsyQ: http://www.psxdev.net/downloads.html
2- Net Yaroze.
This was a hobbyist dev kit released by Sony. You get a shiny black playstation with boot CD to use the serial port, but it's expensive, and doesn't quite produce a standard PSX .EXE. You could however totally use this machine and cable with any of the other methods.
Yaroze: http://www.psxdev.net/yaroze.html
3- Boot disc.
It's so easy to boot a CDR or load an .exe from it. If you had a lot of time, money and patience you could absolutely burn every copy of your brew to a new disc, but you'll eventually burn out your laser (not immediately, a few hundred to a thousand boots perhaps). Ideally though you'd only want to make a boot disc to help with the final 2 methods. Again, I'm not saying do this every time, instead I'm saying use it once or twice to get you to a more permanent solution.
Some examples:
Cartridge:
- Wedge the disc lid sensor down and plug Action Replay/Xplorer in. When the disc slows down, replace it with the CDR and hit boot, or go into CD filesystem and launch your .EXE.
ModChip:
- Make an iso with your System.CNF and .EXE, license it with a third party tool. Burn it, boot it.
CD GEN - http://www.psxdev.net/help/cdrom_mastering.html
PSXLicense: - http://www.psxdev.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=69&t=704
Disc Swap:
- Make an iso with your System.CNF and .EXE, license it with a third party tool. Burn it, wedge your PSX lid down and ready yourself for the frustration. What you'll be doing is swapping out the CDR and Black disc while the system boots. Start with Black, as the disc's about to spin up (from diamond->black screen) put the CDR in, it'll spin up and slow down twice. As soon as possible, pop the black disc back in for about a second. (Sometimes 5 seconds the disc will slow down and chug round slowly instead depending on the black game). The screen will blank, and you can put your CDR in. You can absolutely use this method in a pinch, but obviously it's fiddly, the timing changes depending on the model (though all work, including a PS2 in PS1 mode). Bear in mind you're exposing yourself to a laser, and you're probably screwing that laser up a little.
CD GEN - http://www.psxdev.net/help/cdrom_mastering.html
PSXLicense: - http://www.psxdev.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=69&t=704
Modifying an existing disc:
- Say you have something like a demo disc. Once it's booted up, it's able to load other .EXE files off the disc. If you were to make an iso of this disc and burn it, you could pop it in after the disc had booted, then use the disc as normal, since the boot checks were already done. Now let's say you replace one of the demo .exe files with one of yours, the system isn't going to know and lauching your tekken 3 demo or whatever will launch your homebrew. Easiest way is to use IMGBurn to make the iso, a program to replace the .exe *inside the iso* then re-burn it with IMGBurn. You can't just edit the layout of the .ISO, or hex edit the file into the ISO as one will invalidate the table of contents and the other will invalidate the .ISO.
It is however much safer, and easier on your console.
PSX Mode 2 Replace Tool - http://sicklebrick.com/wp-downloads/sic ... EPLACE.rar
IMGBurn - http://www.imgburn.com/index.php?act=download&
4- Action Replay Cartridge. (Not XPlorer).
Notice how these (mostly) have a DB25 printer style parallel connector on them? Yeah don't go connecting that up to your PC just yet, there's a big voltage difference and things won't go well for you. There are however ISA (pre PCI) expansion cards for the PC that will drop you to the correct voltage and work as normal on a different port (Official, Clone or home made "Freewing").This is obviously less than ideal on modern PCs but using the parallel port offers slightly more control (than serial), especially with some of the third party ROMs available with debugging features. (Caetla is one example)
Good software to start with here (PC side) would be Catflap to send over your .EXEs, or XKiller if you want to replace the ROM on the cart over parallel. If your cart still isn't responding, use a boot disc to write the Caetla 0.34 or 0.35 ROM onto the cart, and everything should be peachy.
Alternatively, what you could do is modify your Action Replay to automatically boot something that uses the serial port (Shadow's PSXSerial is a good start), opening up the possibility of using USB adapters. A little slower than the parallel port, but so much more convenient. It's also your only option if your cart doesn't have a parallel port.
Full disclosure, I put UniROM together, but if you replace your cartridge's ROM with it it lets you instaboot PSXSerial and send .EXEs over right away. In this case, what you do is burn a boot disc that replaces the cartridge rom. From this point on, you can boot without CDs and use the parallel or serial port.
At this point (PC side) you'd be using PSXSerial for serial comms, or Catflap or Parallel comms.
Freewing - http://hitmen.c02.at/html/psx_hardware.html
Catflap (InpOut) - http://www.psxdev.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=226
Catflap (GiveIO) - http://www.psxdev.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=759
PSXSerial Hardware - http://www.psxdev.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=425
PSXSerial Hardware - http://www.psxdev.net/forum/viewtopic.p ... 396&p=2915
PSXSerial with Arduino - http://www.psxdev.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=760
PSXSerial (PC software) - http://www.psxdev.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=69&t=378
UniROM - http://www.psxdev.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=722
Caetla (All Versions) - http://www.psxdev.net/forum/viewtopic.p ... lit=caetla
5- XPlorer (Not action replay)
If the cart you have is specifically an XPlorer, then the DB25 printer style port can totally be plugged straight into your PC! Seriously that's it. On the PC side of things you could use Catflap, X-Killer, the official XLink software and launch .EXEs, memory edit and replace the rom.
Again, if you'd rather be using the serial port, burn UniROM to a bootdisc and replace your XPlorer's ROM. As before you can now use PSXSerial. For me anyway, this is by far the most convenient solution
<LINK> XKiller
Catflap (InpOut) - http://www.psxdev.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=226
Catflap (GiveIO) - http://www.psxdev.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=759
PSXSerial Hardware - http://www.psxdev.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=425
PSXSerial Hardware - http://www.psxdev.net/forum/viewtopic.p ... 396&p=2915
PSXSerial with Arduino - http://www.psxdev.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=760
PSXSerial (PC software) - http://www.psxdev.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=69&t=378
UniROM - http://www.psxdev.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=722
6- Emulate.
You're not guaranteed compatibility, but no$psx in particular does such a damn good job, and has a built in assembler plus various other useful tools! Definitely worth a shot, and a fantastic debugging aid!
P.s. you can totally load .EXEs!
There are about 5 main ways to get set up, in order of difficulty, (I'm bundling serial comms in), though there are others.
1- Dev Kit
2- Net Yaroze
3- Boot disc
4- Action Replay or clone (Excluding XPlorer)
5- XPlorer Cartridge (specifically)
(6- Emulate- http://problemkaputt.de/psx.htm)
I'll start with the 3 most awkward to get them out of the way. While this means you'll be reading through a bunch of things that possibly aren't appropriate to your situation I ask that you read it through since it's in this order for a reason! (Especially 3-5).
1-Dev Kit.
The dev kit included a card you'd plug into your PC with what is essentially a playstation built onto it. It's what most every game was developed on, alongside the Psy-Q software development kit. While not many people have or use the official dev kit, the Psy-Q SDK is still quite popular and has more or less all the tools needed for the software side of things. It's also available on Psxdev.
DevKit: http://www.psxdev.net/forum/viewforum.php?f=28
PsyQ: http://www.psxdev.net/downloads.html
2- Net Yaroze.
This was a hobbyist dev kit released by Sony. You get a shiny black playstation with boot CD to use the serial port, but it's expensive, and doesn't quite produce a standard PSX .EXE. You could however totally use this machine and cable with any of the other methods.
Yaroze: http://www.psxdev.net/yaroze.html
3- Boot disc.
It's so easy to boot a CDR or load an .exe from it. If you had a lot of time, money and patience you could absolutely burn every copy of your brew to a new disc, but you'll eventually burn out your laser (not immediately, a few hundred to a thousand boots perhaps). Ideally though you'd only want to make a boot disc to help with the final 2 methods. Again, I'm not saying do this every time, instead I'm saying use it once or twice to get you to a more permanent solution.
Some examples:
Cartridge:
- Wedge the disc lid sensor down and plug Action Replay/Xplorer in. When the disc slows down, replace it with the CDR and hit boot, or go into CD filesystem and launch your .EXE.
ModChip:
- Make an iso with your System.CNF and .EXE, license it with a third party tool. Burn it, boot it.
CD GEN - http://www.psxdev.net/help/cdrom_mastering.html
PSXLicense: - http://www.psxdev.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=69&t=704
Disc Swap:
- Make an iso with your System.CNF and .EXE, license it with a third party tool. Burn it, wedge your PSX lid down and ready yourself for the frustration. What you'll be doing is swapping out the CDR and Black disc while the system boots. Start with Black, as the disc's about to spin up (from diamond->black screen) put the CDR in, it'll spin up and slow down twice. As soon as possible, pop the black disc back in for about a second. (Sometimes 5 seconds the disc will slow down and chug round slowly instead depending on the black game). The screen will blank, and you can put your CDR in. You can absolutely use this method in a pinch, but obviously it's fiddly, the timing changes depending on the model (though all work, including a PS2 in PS1 mode). Bear in mind you're exposing yourself to a laser, and you're probably screwing that laser up a little.
CD GEN - http://www.psxdev.net/help/cdrom_mastering.html
PSXLicense: - http://www.psxdev.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=69&t=704
Modifying an existing disc:
- Say you have something like a demo disc. Once it's booted up, it's able to load other .EXE files off the disc. If you were to make an iso of this disc and burn it, you could pop it in after the disc had booted, then use the disc as normal, since the boot checks were already done. Now let's say you replace one of the demo .exe files with one of yours, the system isn't going to know and lauching your tekken 3 demo or whatever will launch your homebrew. Easiest way is to use IMGBurn to make the iso, a program to replace the .exe *inside the iso* then re-burn it with IMGBurn. You can't just edit the layout of the .ISO, or hex edit the file into the ISO as one will invalidate the table of contents and the other will invalidate the .ISO.
It is however much safer, and easier on your console.
PSX Mode 2 Replace Tool - http://sicklebrick.com/wp-downloads/sic ... EPLACE.rar
IMGBurn - http://www.imgburn.com/index.php?act=download&
4- Action Replay Cartridge. (Not XPlorer).
Notice how these (mostly) have a DB25 printer style parallel connector on them? Yeah don't go connecting that up to your PC just yet, there's a big voltage difference and things won't go well for you. There are however ISA (pre PCI) expansion cards for the PC that will drop you to the correct voltage and work as normal on a different port (Official, Clone or home made "Freewing").This is obviously less than ideal on modern PCs but using the parallel port offers slightly more control (than serial), especially with some of the third party ROMs available with debugging features. (Caetla is one example)
Good software to start with here (PC side) would be Catflap to send over your .EXEs, or XKiller if you want to replace the ROM on the cart over parallel. If your cart still isn't responding, use a boot disc to write the Caetla 0.34 or 0.35 ROM onto the cart, and everything should be peachy.
Alternatively, what you could do is modify your Action Replay to automatically boot something that uses the serial port (Shadow's PSXSerial is a good start), opening up the possibility of using USB adapters. A little slower than the parallel port, but so much more convenient. It's also your only option if your cart doesn't have a parallel port.
Full disclosure, I put UniROM together, but if you replace your cartridge's ROM with it it lets you instaboot PSXSerial and send .EXEs over right away. In this case, what you do is burn a boot disc that replaces the cartridge rom. From this point on, you can boot without CDs and use the parallel or serial port.
At this point (PC side) you'd be using PSXSerial for serial comms, or Catflap or Parallel comms.
Freewing - http://hitmen.c02.at/html/psx_hardware.html
Catflap (InpOut) - http://www.psxdev.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=226
Catflap (GiveIO) - http://www.psxdev.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=759
PSXSerial Hardware - http://www.psxdev.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=425
PSXSerial Hardware - http://www.psxdev.net/forum/viewtopic.p ... 396&p=2915
PSXSerial with Arduino - http://www.psxdev.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=760
PSXSerial (PC software) - http://www.psxdev.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=69&t=378
UniROM - http://www.psxdev.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=722
Caetla (All Versions) - http://www.psxdev.net/forum/viewtopic.p ... lit=caetla
5- XPlorer (Not action replay)
If the cart you have is specifically an XPlorer, then the DB25 printer style port can totally be plugged straight into your PC! Seriously that's it. On the PC side of things you could use Catflap, X-Killer, the official XLink software and launch .EXEs, memory edit and replace the rom.
Again, if you'd rather be using the serial port, burn UniROM to a bootdisc and replace your XPlorer's ROM. As before you can now use PSXSerial. For me anyway, this is by far the most convenient solution
<LINK> XKiller
Catflap (InpOut) - http://www.psxdev.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=226
Catflap (GiveIO) - http://www.psxdev.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=759
PSXSerial Hardware - http://www.psxdev.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=425
PSXSerial Hardware - http://www.psxdev.net/forum/viewtopic.p ... 396&p=2915
PSXSerial with Arduino - http://www.psxdev.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=760
PSXSerial (PC software) - http://www.psxdev.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=69&t=378
UniROM - http://www.psxdev.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=722
6- Emulate.
You're not guaranteed compatibility, but no$psx in particular does such a damn good job, and has a built in assembler plus various other useful tools! Definitely worth a shot, and a fantastic debugging aid!
P.s. you can totally load .EXEs!