Xploder (Xplorer) Pinouts and Detailed Information

Confidential documents, images and information by Sony and miscellaneous hackers for the PlayStation 1
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Shadow
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Xploder (Xplorer) Pinouts and Detailed Information

Post by Shadow » July 9th, 2013, 12:21 am

XPLODER CART INFO
By Codeman
1/28/99 rev .1

Email damage4(at)yahoo.com
Web http://damage-inc.webjump.com


NOTE: The website is long gone. It does not exist on Archive.org either.
xploder.pdf
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Development Console: SCPH-5502 with 8MB RAM, MM3 Modchip, PAL 60 Colour Modification (for NTSC), PSIO Switch Board, DB-9 breakout headers for both RGB and Serial output and an Xplorer with CAETLA 0.34.

PlayStation Development PC: Windows 98 SE, Pentium 3 at 400MHz, 128MB SDRAM, DTL-H2000, DTL-H2010, DTL-H201A, DTL-S2020 (with 4GB SCSI-2 HDD), 21" Sony G420, CD-R burner, 3.25" and 5.25" Floppy Diskette Drives, ZIP 100 Diskette Drive and an IBM Model M keyboard.

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Post by nocash » December 30th, 2013, 2:59 am

Great to see that xploder.pdf file with schematic and memory map, thanks for uploading it!
I've compared it with the three PCB versions - see here for PCB photos: http://www.psxdev.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=54&t=81 - that leaves some questions:

What is the 3pin transistor-like thing? Is that a 7805 voltage regulator?

Where does that extra resistor on the FX Pro board connect to? How many ohms does it have? Looks as if it might pass the power supply to some pin(s) on the DB25 connector; for use by the X-Assist add-on?

What are those two 0-ohm resistor patches on the V2 boards for?
On the photo from Type 79: There are two patches near the FLASH chip (and maybe another patch near 74HC373)?
On the photo from Shadow: There are two patches near the SRAM solder pads?
If the PCB wires aren't cut, then it does almost look as if the patches would short-cut some PSX address lines to VCC, that really wouldn't be a "flawless" hardware design.
And do those patches exist only on the V2 boards? The other PCB photos don't show such patches (though they might exist on the solder side, or they might use a PCB revision that is doing those short-cut stuff natively; without needing the resistor patches).

The FX PRO board has 128Kx8 SRAM on it. Where is that memory located in the memory map?
And what is it used for? For storing cheat search results without needing a PC connected on the DB25 connector?

And the FX PRO board has 4Mbit (512Kx8) FLASH on it. Where is that located in memory map?
Unless the cheat device developer knew how to reprogram the PSX Memory Control registers, they are probably squeezing the 512K FLASH + 128K SRAM + I/O ports into the default 512K window at 1F000000h, which would be possible only when using bank switching.

Oh, and the schematic is showing an 8bit output latch: 4bits to DB25 connector, 2bits unused, and 2bits passed to the PAL. What are that latter 2bits for?
And, according to schematic, the PAL connects to A16 and A14, what is that for?

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Post by Type 79 » December 30th, 2013, 7:49 am

nocash wrote: What is the 3pin transistor-like thing? Is that a 7805 voltage regulator?
Yes, 78L05
nocash wrote: Where does that extra resistor on the FX Pro board connect to? How many ohms does it have? Looks as if it might pass the power supply to some pin(s) on the DB25 connector; for use by the X-Assist add-on?
0.22ohm, power to DB25 Pin15
nocash wrote: What are those two 0-ohm resistor patches on the V2 boards for?
On the photo from Type 79: There are two patches near the FLASH chip
470k resistors
v2.jpg
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Post by nocash » December 30th, 2013, 9:25 pm

Type 79 wrote:Yes, 78L05
Great, thanks.
Type 79 wrote:0.22ohm, power to DB25 Pin15
Okay, that would be the /ERROR input on the PC printer port (but the actual purpose is probably supply input on X-Assist device).
Type 79 wrote:470k resistors
Oh, on the photos it looked like 0 ohm (with a black ring). But with your edited schematic it's quite clear that the thing can't possibly shortcut /RD and /WR to VCC via 0 ohm.
470k is quite high resistance, that should have only minimal effect on the signals. Assuming that /RD and /WR are 3.5V signals, then the resistors are probably somehow tweaking them to work with 5V TTL chips (maybe making the rising edges a bit faster).

The things that are still unclear to me are the 128K SRAM and 512K FLASH mapping, and the two unknown PAL outputs, and the two A16+A14 PAL inputs.
Btw. this patch seems to deal with 512K FLASH: http://www.psxdev.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=392 but I haven't disassembled it & don't how it is doing that.

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