Rare Hardware: Who has a DTL-H2000 dev-board?

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Rare Hardware: Who has a DTL-H2000 dev-board?

Post by nocash » April 29th, 2016, 5:18 am

Does anybody have a DTL-H2000 dev-board? Or knows somebody having one? That boards are the oldest known working PSX prototypes, and they are having still undumped cdrom firmware EPROMs. Getting that firmware dumped might be interesting for history/curiosity. For example, the firmware appears to be running on a CPU with different instruction set as in later PSX retail models, and there seems to be a real-time clock attached to the cdrom controller, so there should be at least some minor differences to later PSX models.

If somebody does have that hardware, and hesitates to dump the chip: Let's jump on the ROM-rot-panic train: Normally hardware won't rot away too soon. But then, these boards have the firmware stored on EPROMs, and, exposed to sunlight that memory can get erased in a few weeks/months. With the protective sticker it may last longer, although that might depend on wheter the sticker is made of plain paper, or if it contains some metal foil. I don't really know if EPROMs could last dozens or hundreds of years, but sooner or later it might come in handy to have some backup-dump so you could "refresh" worn-out/self-erased EPROMs if neccessary.

Tech info: The firmware is located on a (socketed) 32pin PLCC EPROM, so it should be very easy to remove the chip, and dump it using whatever dumping utilities you might have. However, observe that the pinout might be different as expected; the exact pinout can be found in the CXP82300 datasheet, http://www.datasheetarchive.com/CXP82300-datasheet.html - it's almost standard pinout, just with four NC pins inserted at weird locations - but the pins could be easily "shifted" to their normal locations via a simple adaptor.

For DIP chips, EPROMs exist in 28pin/32pin packages (depending on their capacity). For PLCC chips, EPROMs do always use 32pin package (but with different pinouts, depending on their capacity). So, if you want to use a PLCC-to-DIP adaptor for dumping, then you will need a 32pin/PLCC-to-28pin/DIP adaptor. A 32pin/PLCC-to-32pin/DIP adaptor won't work (although, if you have such a thing, then you could combine it with a32pin/DIP-to-28pin/DIP adaptor; that would require custom wiring, but DIP-to-DIP wiring should be easier than PLCC-to-DIP wiring).

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Post by Shadow » April 29th, 2016, 4:24 pm

Actually the oldest prototype is the Sony DTL-H500 (NEWS based) system.
I sent A H-2000 to Trimesh a long time ago. I've got a few on hand too. I never got around to dumping it.

By the way, have you checked your email address? I've sent you an email or two requesting some information regarding the CD-ROM tri-buffers.

The chip awaits to be dumped, and they are covered with a foil based label.
The EPROM data wont be going anywhere for a long time yet :)

Oh, I also have the PLCC sockets and I made a PCB to dump it, but I can't find it at the moment.
I think it's packed in my old PlayStation development box. I'll dig it out later.

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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 Shadow » May 2nd, 2016, 9:24 pm

I'll dump this within 2 weeks from now. I ordered some PLCC to DIP adapters for my programmer.
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 » September 3rd, 2016, 5:46 am

Oops, Shadow just pointed out that the EPROM isn't using standard PLCC package - instead, it's using LCC package (as also mentioned in the CXP82300-U01Q datasheet). PLCC sockets are having the contacts at the sides, whilst LCC sockets should have the contacts at the bottom of the chip - that kind of sockets seem to be extremely rare (I didn't even knew that that package type did exist).

Here are some images to show the package differences...

LCC chip (bottom view):
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PLCC chips (top and bottom views):
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How does one dump LCC chips? My current ideas would be...
- soldering wires to the chip (might get bad contacts when putting it back into the LCC socket on the DTL-H2000 board).
- buying an original LCC adaptor (found one for >$500, which would be crazy).
- using a PLCC sockets with the contacts bend inwards (and with the chip just pushed down enough to rest on that contacts... could that work?)

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Post by Shadow » September 3rd, 2016, 2:39 pm

I've got a friend of a friend who has a really old programmer with a LCC adapter.

Soldering is a possibility, but I didn't want to do that because the IC from the H2000 is rare and it's gold plated.
Bending the pins might work, but it's going to be tricky making the IC sit in the adapter afterwards nicely.
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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