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NeX
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Hello everyone

Post by NeX » March 28th, 2015, 4:57 am

Hi there,

i am new to the forums and playstation 1, though of course i have been playing on playstations since i was about 7.

i am interested in the hardware side of things, i have a modification i want to do to my playstation, and i thought i would put some effort into it, so i have got a nice transparent case for it as well.

but i would like some inspiration so i want to know what kind of modifications people have been doing to their playstations and the advantages of them.

i have a SCPH1002 mainboard. the laser array doesn't seem to fit the transparent case i have so i was thinking of doing a transplant to a different laser. anyone tried something like that?

this community looks like a really interesting one, seeing people go so deep into the hardware that the processor die has been mapped out is really inspiring. i hope to become a member that can contribute something new and interesting, but everyone has to start somewhere.

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Shadow
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Post by Shadow » March 28th, 2015, 2:55 pm

Hi. You can do an 8MB modification to increase the RAM for homebrew use, add bluetooth serial comms, add a PSIO cartridge (when it's released), overclock, add a 110/240VAC dual-switching power supply, add a modchip, add an RGB out cable, add a switch with a resistor to the CD-ROM diode to change it's power levels so that you can play from CD-RW's, add dual-BIOS's, add dual-PAL/NTSC crystals, add an Xplorer/Xploder cartridge with CAETLA 0.34 and add a CD-ROM access LED.
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.

NeX
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Posts: 5
Joined: Mar 19, 2015

Post by NeX » March 30th, 2015, 2:14 am

thanks for the reply!

with the 8MB mod, does that only help homebrew software? for example i have a "game" called music, it makes music on the playstation. if i make a big song on a PS2 its fine, but if i load that same song on a PS1 it says "not enough memory" so i am wondering if the playstation would see that extra memory automatically in a situation like this where memory usage is dependent on what samples the user loads.

does the RGB mod allow for a VGA connector? or just composite?

thanks again for the input this is exactly what i was after, i am going to search the forums for these mods and see what i find,

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Post by Shadow » March 30th, 2015, 12:32 pm

I have Music 2000. It's not a bad game actually. As for your memory problems, I want to say *possibly* it might work. It depends if they are doing a manual RAM check, but I highly doubt it. I wouldn't even seriously try. There would be a 0.1% chance :P

The RGB mod I was talking about is taking the RGB lines from the PSX, and adding a DB-9 or coaxial RGB leads for ease of use. It's just standard analog RGB. VGA will not work without an upscaler, because VGA requires if I recall 15-31KHz. The RGB the PSX outputs (the same goes for a SEGA Mega Drive, Nintendo 64, AMIGA, etc) is for use on old CRT monitors that accept analog RGB at a low frequency, such as the Commodore 1084 monitor series.
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.

NeX
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Posts: 5
Joined: Mar 19, 2015

Post by NeX » March 30th, 2015, 6:23 pm

yea i have music 2000 as well, the modification i want to do with give a crude midi out signal so that it can sync with other midi devices. at the moment this works just by dividing the left and right audio channels and having one track with a signal on it to get the midi timing. its a hack but its all i can think of at the moment. it would be great to modify the game or have some sort of adapter that gets a genuine midi signal without losing the stereo effect, but thats beyond me at the moment.

i see you have an 8MB console, any chance you could do a quick check and see how many samples could be loaded? i wonder what the difference is between the PS1 and the PS2 that makes the game automatically aware of the extra memory. after all the game was created before the PS2 existed.

as for the RGB, thats a shame that it isn't VGA, that would give a really nice crisp signal, but i assume the RGB is still higher quality than standard composite?

thanks for the info, i am going to pull out all the bits for my playstation and get something working today hopefully!

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Post by Shadow » March 30th, 2015, 7:29 pm

Interesting. Yes, I will have to give that a try. Give me a list of instructions/steps so you can be sure I setup the samples correctly.

I too thought of somehow getting MIDI into the game, and the only way is via serial. Problem is, the game was never programmed to do such a thing. The only way you could add it in is if you had the source code. There is no way in hell someone could reverse it and do it all by assembly.

Yes, RGB is much higher quality than composite. Then again, so is S-Video. So, if your TV has S-Video, use that instead.
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.

NeX
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Posts: 5
Joined: Mar 19, 2015

Post by NeX » March 30th, 2015, 7:44 pm

erm ok, well all i know is that if you keep loading samples (from the pre-made loops) eventually it will say not enough memory. i would assume that if you did that until it ran out of memory on the 8MB playstation and then saved the file and tried to load it on a regular playstation it should error and not load. thats what happens if i load a very large track that was made on the PS2, on a PS1. thats how i would do it anyway.

as awesome as it would be to be able to get note data in and out of the game, all i am interested in is the sync data, so just the BPM signal and start/stop signals. start and stop can easily be got from the controller, and the BPM can be taken from a silent track on one audio channel.

this is an ultra dirty hack i made to get midi sync out of the playstation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYW_6gCU-Jo

its actually so dirty i am kinda ashamed of it. but basically i split the video signal and used a tiny 3.5" LCD and then a photodiode placed over the BPM "light" on the screen, i was able to pick up a BPM and multiply it for the midi signal. problem is it turns out that that light doesn't always start as soon as the music plays, so its only in time the first time the song is played. but it did work, and it give me stereo audio, but i am looking to make something a little more reliable and build it into the playstation.

yea i think i will go with SVideo as the motherboard has that already, but maybe i will add the RGB mod just because i can.

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Post by Shadow » March 30th, 2015, 8:01 pm

Okay, one thing you could try and do is disassemble the PS-EXE, add 'AddSIO(9600)', and then find the memory address that triggers the 'play' and 'stop' events. Once they are found, add 'printf("0");' on stop, and 'printf("1");' on play. You can then plug up to the serial port, and use an ATMEGA328 (Arduino UNO) to wait for either '1' or '0' on the serial port and manipulate the data from there. That should in theory, work.

The hardest part is finding the memory addresses of the start and stop commands. You don't want to use the start button, because as far as I recall, you need to press the start button in the menu to get into the main program.

It's a lot of work to go through, but again, in theory, completely possible :P
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.

NeX
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Posts: 5
Joined: Mar 19, 2015

Post by NeX » March 30th, 2015, 8:19 pm

i think already this is vastly beyond my skill! i can do the hardware side of things, working with data from the serial port is no problem, but the software side of things i have no idea where to start. i was hoping that the playstation used some sort of hardware midi system to generate audio samples (from what i understand the audio is all midi triggered even if its only at a software level, but i might be wrong about that) then there might be a way to pick up some sort of timing signal from the playstation. but that was a long long shot....

in the youtube video i actually got the start command from the beginning of the BPM signal, so it was basically a combined signal. that way it only responded when music was playing. the stop command was a timeout on the BPM signal which is why the midi slave device keeps playing a little longer.

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Shadow
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Post by Shadow » March 30th, 2015, 8:28 pm

I'll take a look and see what I can do...
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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