[help] setting up homebrew, buying console.

[syghost]

my interest has peaked for quite a while, but I never could figure out myself how to get psy-q working
I heard from Lameguy64 that , using psn00b , you do not need an official playstation DTLH-2000 , just a regular dev console[]? to use with his SDK? honestly I have no programming experience at all but im throwing myself at MIPS assembly right now because why not>? ill figure out how to use it... but if someone could show me some examples on how to get it running. im planning to buy all the materials also got my discord acc banned so I couldn't really get back onto his server.

so from my knowledge im going to need;
windows 2000 / NT/ 95
DTLH2000/console with some drivers?
extra memory cards for the dev console?
the cables?
and a ps1?


how much would the DTLH cost? going to be looking around these forums to see if somebody is selling any, then ebay after. I want to make a series on YT on how to get started with this, because from what I see, I don't really see anybody setting this stuff up and running, from the programming end as well. sorry if im asking a question thats been asked millions of times. observing Lameguy using his SDK , it looks like he's using terminal to run his assembler programs? remember seeing some full fledged games being made with it by his community like holy cow. would you guys know of any other SDK's in development atm? im on windows XP but im probably going to invest into a pc of the time.

is there a discord server for this site? maybe IRC? im doing a tad bit of programming with c89 but still have no idea what im doing at all. just want some help setting everything up !!! going to delete this thread too once I have everything mapped out. @! you guys are awesome

[NITROYUASH]

For the first time, before you will start to build your custom devkit, i recommend you to play with emulators. Try to compile and run your first PS-EXE's and test it using NO$PSX emu.

• 1. SCPH from 100X to 750X;
  Your best choice is SCPH-500X, SCPH-550X or SCPH-700X SCPH-750X.
  Your console SHOULD HAVE a modchip. NTSC-J have problems with it. So, no NTSC-J i guess?
  PAL region is ok, but it's slower than NTSC/NTSC-J.
  SCPH-100X or SCPH-300X or SCPH-350X will ok too, but it have some problems with GPU...
  
  Modchipped NTSC SCPH-5001 / 5501 or NTSC SCPH-7001 / 7501 will be perfect.
  If you living in Europe, you will have problems with NTSC region (different voltage), so your European perfect choice is PAL SCPH-5002 / 5502 or PAL SCPH-7002 / 7502.
  
  Modchip allows you to burn-n-play your Homebrew using CD-R discs. It's important because even with possibility to test your code directly without CD, after finishing your work, you'll need to test your CD stuff.
  
  Don't even try SCPH-900X or any PS1 SLIM models. It doesn't have SERIAL/PARALLEL ports. It's important part!
  
  That's it. You don't need any devkits.
• 2. Communications with PC:
  Your best choice so far is Xplorer FX cartridge with firmware CAETLA or n00brom.
  It allows you not only to transfer PS-EXE files to console from PC, it also have a PC Driver support.
  Psy-Q have PC functions, that allows you to connect to your PC and get any files from HDD directly. CAETLA firmware support this driver too, so it's working like a part of dev-kit cartridge. Xplorer FX is the best choice. The main reason, is, of course, LPT instead of ISA (Action Replay Cartridges). ISA is pretty outdated, so you can't use it on modern pc without being black mage LVL 90. Actually, LPT port is outdated for almost all modern PC's, so that's the problem.
  So in perfect scenario, you have an Xplorer FX, LPT cable with DB25-DB25 type, and computer with LPT port (native, most chinese addons/usb for LPT will not work). As alternative, you can replace CAETLA with n00brom. I don't now so much about n00brom cause i'm using CAETLA and my old laptop for communications between PC and PS1, but i am sure LameGuy made a great job in this direction and i'm pretty sure this firmware doesn't need an old OS like WinXP or Win98 ;)
  Also, Pc Driver supports only in Xplorer if you want to use n00brom. But i really don't recommend ANYTHING except Xplorer.
  
  It's possible to transfer PS-EXE using SERIAL->PC cable. But it's slow and doesn't have PC Driver, of course. It also requires to run a serial loaders for PS1 (PSXSerial or LiteLoad) using CD-R disc. So this method will ok if you need to test only PS-EXE files.
• 3. PC itself and SDK:
  As i said before, you need a PC with LPT port if you want to use Caetla/n00brom Xplorer + PS1.
  But actually, you can use any modern PC too. PS-EXE can be compiled even in Win10, but it will be a little tricky. You just need to replace some outdated Psy-Q stuff. It have a lot of programs like this. And almost all of them have a modern replacement, thankfully. ACTUALLY! You don't need to use a PSY-Q! It have a modern replacement: PSn00bSDK
  If you don't have LPT, you can buy an expansion for PCI. Be careful with AliExpress, PCI-E will not work correctly cause it doesn't have a static address or something like this and not all LPT expansions will works correctly! USB-LPT will NOT work.

So if you have a PC with LPT, a modchipped console with PARALLEL cable and Xplorer with PCDrv firmware? Congratulations, you can made a professional PS1 games and test it on a real hardware without burning thousands of CD-R's.