I'm really curious and it seems like my theory is true. I doubt they made 300.000 debugging stations and Net Yaroze's. So yeah, the serial numbers. Weren't they just like (3)00000 ? I've seen "000000" and "300036" so these would be #0 and #36 right? and it also seems the DTL-Hxxxx didn't matter. That they were just random, I know of a serial number that is on a 1002 and the next serial number to it is on a 1001.
I have seen Japanese Net Yaroze with serial number 300003. It might be a pre-production unit but the seller refused my ask to burn random CD-R with any game and check if it will boot it. Not every Debugging Station has six digits in the serial number. My GREY DTL-H1100 has only five digits. I don't know why Sony released grey system with so strange serial number.
all sony production like that .... eg. PS4 take out HDD cover, some have QR code burn in PCB, some not have it ...
i think the first number is a major revision it's all explained here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_models
Sadly, nope. In the serial number itself. I've always seen 3 as the first digit. I have a DTL-H1002 and it has 3 as the first digit and same with a Net Yaroze I saw. which was DTL-H3001.
