DDR unit with Midnight Blue PS2 inside

Sometimes you have to step back from an arcade once you've opened it up and smile! This is one of those moments. A friend of mine operates DDR units and he was discussing converting from one motherboard to another. He posted images and details. Whilst viewing his material, I noticed a complete Sony Playstation 2 Midnight Blue BB console lurking, case and all within the guts of the unit.

I thought it might be of interest to a few users here. Thanks to Chi for the thread.

http://forum.arcadeotaku.com/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=8564

 

Awesome, one of my most wanted PS2 consoles

 

http://system16.com/hardware.php?id=831

At first I thought it was the possibility to obtain kind of an "official Jamma adaptor", but apparently it's far from being that easy. ._:

 

Yeah, but thats just a normal PS2 case, this one is the Midnight Blue, which is surprising

 

That's interesting! So are these PS2 units stock? Or are they modified in some way? Are the games regular PS2, or are they modified in some way to work with the adapter?

 

They aren't stock. Atleast not totally as that would be crazy. Checkout system-16's page and it says Notes : It's a Playstation 2 (Model SCPH-50000 (MB/NH) - Japanese NTSC), with a hard drive and an adaptor board.

 

It was probably more convenient for Konami to use the MB consoles as they came from the factory preassembled with the HDD which would mean less workforce and money to spend on their side.

 

I've asked the owner about the version of BIOS etc, but I am not sure whether he'll have the time to check. Fingers crossed. :nod:

Most people will be more familiar with the PS2 in an arcade looking like this.





I did have images of the custom Namco daughter board and the full V1 PS2 somewhere. I'll need to look for them.

First time I've ever seen a complete PS2 including case.

 

Yeah thats a System 246 board, same as I have.

 

They are stock, I have a DDR supernova one I am repairing the io board on for a friend. next time I head to my workshop, I'll note the version. They are normal JP consoles.

 

Do you mean they are "retail" units stuck inside without any firmware changes? I've never watched a DDR unit boot.

 

Anyone know why they would rather use stock PS2s? (costs I guess)

Does DDR exclusively run on stock PS2s and not proper system 246/256?

 

Just for information sake, System246 uses a GH-006 motherboard (what mod chip makers call "US V3" with DEV9 (CXD9611R) and Digital video encoder (SC44728APB) positions not populated. CXD9611 is the chip that gives the PS2 the support to "Expansion bay I/O or "DEV9" and the i2C bus which is used to control de "Digital video encoder". The Digital Video Encoder generates composite video and s-video on retails and that's something that will be never used on a arcade machine.

Then finally it has a specific BIOS ROM and "Mechanics Controller" (MECHACON) CXP102064 which (since the machine has no DVD drive on the PS2 side) handles only MAGIC GATE security for the dongles (which contain the game program and bootloader)

Obviously, the DVD drive seen in the picture is a Samsung, but usually these come with a Toshiba drive. The ATA port it connects to is provided by the NAMCO board which connects to the PS2 side through a special connection which is not populated on normal retail units.

Nifty stuff.

Now about the retail PS2 on DDR machines, why not ?
Sony can easily license any company they feel like to use their system that way. The PS2 can boot anything from the hard disk as long the hard disk has the right Sony firmware (to be reconised as valid/licenced PS2 Hard disk drive) and the properly Magic Gate encrypted elf file is placed on the right place of the drive. It even allow them to bind the DDR drive to that specific PS2 using the unit S/N and firewire mac address.

Now to be honest, I would love to poke around the DDR PS2 haha

 

We found a whole host of cheap ass DVD rom units actually work perfectly well in the 246, unlike Namco's claim that genuine drives costing £££ were required.

I've tried a whole pile of them and not found a drive that gave me any issues yet, but there may be specific titles that fail to load that I don't own.

 

As long the drive won't stop the disc or slow down after a while (most of the current DVD drives do that :\) it will work on the System 246... A good test is put the drive on a PC and use it for a while... If you put in a DVDR with AVI movies and play them for a while observe if the drive tries to slow down or stop the disc after a while you pause the video.

Sadly the same cannot be done with Konami PS1 based hardware which seem to use vendor specific commands to read discs. CD-ROM Drives for them should be of Matstushita/Panasonic brand as far I know. You know of any alternate brands that can be used ?

 

For the System 573? I've only ever owned one and I sold it not all that long ago. I've no idea whether anyone has created a list or looked into it. There really isn't that much for that system that was worth worrying about was there? Unless you are a Hyper Bishi Bashi fan or DDR 2000?

 

It's not for me, it's for a local arcade operator I help. I repair some of the arcade boards for him... He usually brings me the ones that are based on game consoles as he know I work with retail consoles repair and usually I successfully repair most of the problems in them.

Well... It's a System 573 with digital board (DDR Max2) and he did bring me a box full of used Matsushita CD-R drives all with worn out lasers. Sadly we can't find lasers for the drives here in Brazil. And the DDR machine is quite popular here in the town ...
A lot of wannabe dancers are sad... haha

Anyway thanks for the info and sorry for the thread hijack ... lol

 

Nothing wrong with DDR.

Very cool looking PS2 as well.

 

Love learning about these machines.

-hl718