PlayStation Development Network

For auction is a very rare SCEI Official Prototype Keyboard adaptor for the original PlayStation 1 (PS1). The keyboard adaptor was never officially released but was to be used with the PlayStation modem that was under development. The adaptor allowed you to hook up a PS/2 keyboard and PC standard mouse. This is truly part of PlayStation history!

Was it really used with the internet CD?

In theory, it should have been / was. The Online Connection CD's 'Getting started' on-disc guide clearly shows it in simplified form (viewable in video here: https://youtu.be/2jqbWfRh0bg?t=187) along with making reference in setting up the real keyboard with it.

There's also a second image reference, with it colored differently and having both a mouse and keyboard plugged in (though only the cords) here https://youtu.be/2jqbWfRh0bg?t=59

There are on-disc text files that contain the phrase "Keyboard and Mouse Adapter Initialized" or whatever word they used, so it more than likely was. Considering there is a finalized, smaller retail version that was never released, it's more than likely it was indeed used with the Online Connection CD.

It would have been, if you pardon the pun, a 'key' add-on to have.

I was thinking about something, now that we have this "Lightspan_OnlineConnection_CD" that we can use to test the keyboard adapter.
maybe someone could just make an adapter using an arduino for example, and test it using the lightspan CD.
I'm willing to try it, but I'm not very good at electronics so, no success guaranteed

also I tried to make a modem emulator by pluging my net yaroze serial cable, and openning the serial port on my computer, the speed is 28800 bauds, I get the "AT&F" command from the lightspan CD.
after some trial and errors, I finally get to the PPP packets, now I need to implement this ... I found ppp handling in KOS SDK from Dreamcast. I hope I can get this to work

Rather than mimicking the existing adapter, it should be achievable with a low end atmega 328 or 32u4 or something. All support SPI as they can be used to accept control from Joypads or in Shendos project, a memory card.

Would be pretty cool to get a plug-in working for arduino so we could actually make our own joypad that would be detected by the PS1, then expand this to support mice and keyboards.

If it was achievable to get a joypad running on Arduino, that could be then used to make adapters for other joypds or even make wireless pads etc. Possibilities are endless.

Unfortunately its something I probably lack the skill to do on my own.

I'd be willing to lend someone mine if they think they could decipher something from it.

Please send it to me and I'll reverse engineer it! Been wanting to get my hands on one for several years.

Okay, will send it out tomorrow.

One interesting thing is that it's using a mask-programmed 68HC05 - which would normally imply these were made in quite large quantities. Makes you wonder where they all went.

Great deeRez! It's the best news of the year!

News?

I never received anything. It was never sent to me.

Covid happened, and international mail started having issues.
My from Japan packages for example got put on shipping hiatus.

So I didn't want to risk sending it out to where Shadow resides during that time,
but this is still on the schedule to send.

You can send it using FedEx or DHL. These companies are operating fine still

Hi guys,

Using basic information provided by @nocash here: http://www.psxdev.net/forum/viewtopic.p ... =20#p13515

I was able to emulate the Keyboard in my BlueRetro project and make it work with the Lightspan Online CD. Sorry if this is old news and someone already done that
More info here:
https://hackaday.io/project/170365-blue ... rd-support

Small DEMO:
https://youtu.be/seiH0Epy7h4

Basically, the first byte sent after the 0x5A header is the size of the scan code and the scan code follow in network byte order. I could validate scan code up to 3 bytes. It doesn't look to be possible send multiple scan code at once. I didn't observe any data being sent to the keyboard in my traces.

Trace of BlueRetro PSX KB emulation talking with the Lightspan CD:
https://github.com/darthcloud/bt_traces ... online.txt

check line 7662 & 7677 of the trace for example of Make and Break code.

@deeRez
Not sure if you have shipped the SCPH-2000 adapter yet, but if not I could ship to you for free one a of my BlueRetro board with a PSX sniffer cable and you could on your own make a dump of the communication between the adapter and the console. That would be a very easy first step before you ship the actual HW for further analysis. I could ship to you if needed any HW you might need like pre-mod PSOne, PS/2 KB & mouse etc.. Once you get the HW from me we could setup a zoom/messenger meeting to walk you through the steps of making the protocol traces. I'm in Canada btw.

It was never shipped. I never received anything.

@darthcloud thanks for the offer but currently too busy to tinker with stuff personally.

The other part of delaying in shipping this out is that I'm displaced due to Covid,
and haven't gotten my hands on a printer yet/customs packet,
and am quite a distance from the post office.

But I dislike those forum conversations where someone promises to send something and then disappears.
Mark my words, this will get shipped out. It's just this year is an anomaly due to the Covid pandemic.

I'm in the US, and Shadow is in Australia.

We can speed this up if I could find someone in the US that can do the reverse engineering,
or can handle proxying the the package for international shipping that Shadow is OK with having their address,
so that I only need to get one form printed.

You can send it to 'Nicolas Noble' in the Discord channel. He is in the USA

For the record the item was sent a while back and Shadow's received it I'm told
Ball's in your court now Shadow

Funny how when one needs to send it they badger you 24/7 but then when they get it they take their time

I wasn't as busy last year in February unlike I am now. I do have it and I will check it and reverse it as soon as I have time