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Q: What is the asm used in the PSX?
A: The PSX is equipped with a MIPS r3000. This processor is little endian, so
don't you worry if you know SNES or PC hacking.
I've found a tech-doc about the processor here:
http://psx.rules.org/system.txt
Q: What is your full bookmark about PSX developpment?
A: http://www.psxdev.ip3.com/
http://psxdev.de/
http://psx.rules.org/
http://www.geocities.co.jp/Playtown/2004/psx/ny_e.htm
http://www.upl.cs.wisc.edu/~hamblin/psxdev.html
http://www.gamefreax.de/cgi-bin/gamefreax/tools.pl?function=showfiles&system=Playstation%201
http://phatt.hn.org/nitrous/psxutils.htm
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Pines/6131/psxprog.html
http://home.hiwaay.net/~jfrohwei/home.html
http://www.flyonthenet.it/net/psx_faq.htm
http://badtaste.free.fr/
http://membres.lycos.fr/fennec
http://www.execpc.com/%7Ehalkun/PSX
http://www.loser-console.org/psx/main.html
and this two *can* be useful:
http://www.mrc.uidaho.edu/mrc/people/jff/digital/MIPSir.html
http://www.animetix.com/products/gamutpsm2.htm
Q: What hardware do I need to fully do PSX debugging?
A: You first need an Action Replay, or GameShark, or GameHunter, or whatever.
Those things may have many different names. Just don't stick on the name.
Look at this picture, if it looks like that, then it's an Action Replay:
http://membres.lycos.fr/fennec/mipsice/images/AR.jpg
Well, I hope I don't say anything wrong, but everytime I saw something
like this, it was an Action Replay.
We usually call this thing "PAR" for "Pro Action Replay".
The next thing to buy, is a PC Comm Link. It's an ISA card you plug into
any computer equipped with a free ISA slot, and that you link to the PAR
with a shipped cable.
To buy those two things, you can go to this website:
http://www.lik-sang.com
If you're lucky enough, this link will be still valid:
http://www.lik-sang.com/catalog/product_info.php?category=0&products_id=234&
There is actually two versions of PAR. One with 1M of EEPROM, and one with
2M. Don't buy those with 2M. I got one, and I crashed it when I wanted to
play with it. It is trash now. Well, give it a try if you want. I don't want
to trash any more PAR ;-)
Ho, and, last thing: it's MegaBits, not MegaBytes. So 1M means actually
128KB of usable memory.
Q: What's exactly a PAR?
A: It's a small device you plug on the parallel port of your playstation. That
means you can't plug them on PSOne, or on playstations model 9xxx. I had to
buy a 5xxx playstation to be able to plug the PAR on it.
When this device is plugged in, it loads the EEPROM into the memory of the
playstation. The EEPROM contains a small programm that affects the way the
playstation works. So, you'll see a menu with some options, and you will
be able to cheat into any game, or to see the movies on the cd, etc...
The idea is that you can put into the EEPROM any program you may want. So
you will be able to put, say, a debugging thing as a program.
Q: What software do I need to fully do PSX debugging?
A: Here comes the funny part. You need two things. First, you need what's
called "CAETLA". Take care: there is a common mistake. Many people types
"CAELTA" instead of the right name.
Don't expect to find the web site of Caetla any more. It is closed. The only
way to get it is to look for it into the internet. Just take a look on
the links I gave.
Caetla is composed of two things. The bios replacement for your PAR, and
some tools. The tools are usually in japanese, but there is some hacked
translated versions that lays everywhere.
Every tools from Caetla works the same. It takes the sames arguments. The
may one you may want to use is the -P switch. It allows you to select a
PC Comm Link. By default, all the tools look for a PC Comm Link on the port
0x320. If you want to specify a different port, just do it that way: if your
PC Comm Link is on the port 0x3?0, then add the switch -P?. My PC Comm Link
is on the port 0x330. So I usually type -P3.
The only good purpose of the DOS versions of the Caetla tools, is to flash
the bios of your PAR, called CAEFLASH.
This is not a difficult task. You first may want to test if the CAEFLASH
tool is able to do its work. Type the following command:
CAEFLASH -T
(add the -P option if necessary).
It will say something like this: "Trying to talk to the PAR". If your
playstation is switched on, reset it. Otherwise, power it up.
When the PSX powers up, the TV should get black, you may hear the CD
spinning, and nothing else should happen on the PSX side. On your computer
side, the CAEFLASH should say that it has "detected the PAR, press the
space bar to continue". Do so, and CAEFLASH will then try to detect the PAR
hardware. Say 'y' to the question if the hardware is correct, and the write
test will begin.
After that, you may want to backup your old BIOS before flashing it. This is
the following command:
CAEFLASH -B backup.rom
"backup.rom" is the filename that will be written. You will have to repeat
exactly the same as above. Every time you use CAEFLASH, you will have to
repeat the same operations.
Then, you can finally flash your PAR bios with the CAETLA bios. Just do
the following:
CAEFLASH CAETLA35.BIN
CAETLA35.BIN is the file I got that contains the Caetla 0.35 bios. You may
have a different filename. Note that the 0.35 is the last bios produced by
Caetla.
When you did that, you will be able to toy with other tools. All the PSX
tools you may want to use are for the Caetla bios. So, you only need to find
a PSX debugger now. PSDEB is a good choice. As usual, look on the links I
gave, and you will be able to find many windows and linux tools that works
with the Caetla bios.
Q: Help! When I flashed my PAR with the Caetla bios, it is now all in japanese!
A: Don't panic and press the buttons L2 and Select simoultaneously, and answer
"Yes" (Remember: "Ok" is the 'O' button of your pad)
Q: Help! When I flashed my PAR with the Caetla bios, it is now black and white!
A: Don't panic and press the buttons L1 and Select simoultaneously ;-)
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