Devices for the PS1 serial/parallel ports

[Lum]

What kinds of things are these used for? I heard about various old Gameshark type items and the system link cable.

Even though I've got a modded PS2... Since my PS1's tested so far seem to work, I was considering keeping one around anyway. Just the space savings of PSone would be nice. Unless there's some must-own accessory needing a fat PS1.

[AleffCorrea]

I guess they used it for some dev-only stuff, like diagnosis tools for repairing. And they could have manufactured some live-screenshot device to connect with a computer, gamesharks could tamper with the psx memory in real time, so I think it's possible. Just a guess, though.

[Hedgeyourbets]

It's mostly just various gameshark/action replay/xploder devices as far as I know. I think there was also some sort of gameboy game player, unofficial of course.

[unclejun]

Some stuff I posted a while ago:
http://www.assemblergames.com/forums...d-parallel-I-O

[Lum]

Wow that's scarce stuff. I suppose I should dig around, see what games benefit much from a gameshark.

[Zetrox2k]

Well, serial port is used for system link (very few games but was so much fun! my bro and eye extended the crappy 1.5m cable to 30m between our rooms... ah those were the days...)

Serial port was also used to sync test data from PC, mainly on dev consoles (ie, Net Yaroze, DTL-Hxxxx Consoles)

Parallel port was used for cheat devices, which could be synced to the PC. They also enabled region free gaming, as well playing backups through a disc swap trick on an unmodded console... (used to do this on my net yaroze devkit, struggled everytime though as my action replay device was JAP).

Parallel port could do some nifty stuff... I even have a Video CD addon hardware that allowed it to read VideoCD discs, an mp3 player device that runs mp3's, and a gameboy device which allows it to play gameboy games.... I miss those 2am school mornings :)

[Lum]

Region free is good. Video CD hm? I never did get around to testing my Saturn card...

[Segment_Fault]

I even have a Video CD addon hardware that allowed it to read VideoCD discs

http://www.imagebam.com/gallery/lcl7...phbotcujdl7z2t

an mp3 player device that runs mp3's

http://www.imagebam.com/gallery/8l0l...3oqey6kpltan1i

and a gameboy device which allows it to play gameboy games....

http://www.imagebam.com/gallery/4woa...azetgym8h8b7sf

Of course, there are numerous clones of these devices under numerous HK/TW brand names. Common point = Caetla hacks.

They even made "internal PCB" versions for PSone and 9000 series :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45v7FBf1saA

[APE]

Wow that's scarce stuff. I suppose I should dig around, see what games benefit much from a gameshark.

FF7 had a well flesh out debug menu IIRC.

And IIRC you can write out an EPROM with the firmware for these carts and wire it up to the port directly. Though I can't find the schematics or any of the firmware.

[Calpis]

And IIRC you can write out an EPROM with the firmware for these carts and wire it up to the port directly. Though I can't find the schematics or any of the firmware.

Not quite, you still need an address decoder for the ROM, and an address decoder for the switch if you plan to use codes, and flash instead of EPROM if you plan to add new codes.