Hello Assembler-Community, I'm currently trying to get into the Playstation 1, I had one back in the day but I missed a lot of great games. My current situation is that I have both a Japanese Playstation 1, which I run with an 110v-converter wich works but is kinda meh and I still have my old PAL-Playstation (need to look up the exact model). The thing is, due to my constant lack of money, I'm currently considering selling my Japanese PS1, which is complete in a box and everything, and just mod my PAL-console. What are the advanteges/disadvantages of owning a Japanese PS1 in comparison to an modded PAL one? Besides the collectable aspect of course. Only with a modded console I could play unreleased/beta games of course, that would be a huge +-point, also Japanese games should be no problem, right? What do you think? -waffeldelta
It largely depends on your model. Except the VCD PS1 there are no significant hardware revisions exclusive to Japan, as far as I know. Aside from the hardware revision there's not much of a difference, except the whole region locking thing which is what I imagine you'd chip the PAL one for.
Thanks for your answer! There was a PS1 which could read VCDs? Which model was that exactly? Right, I planned to chip the PAL one to play games from Japan or USA. Do you know if there are any restrictions like games that don't work on modded console? -Waffeldelta
If you play NTSC games (either J or U/C) on a PAL PlayStation you may or may not get color depending on the exact model you have, the sort of cable you are using and the capabilities of your TV. If you are running PAL games, you will get a correct image whatever cable you use. If you are using NTSC games and have an RGB cable and a TV that can accept RGB, then it will work with no problems. If you are using NTSC games, composite and have a SCPH-1002 or SCPH-55x2 then you will probably get a black and white image. If you are using NTSC games, composite and have a SCPH-7002, SCPH-7502, SCPH-9002 or a SCPH-102, then it depends on your TV set. It may just work for you (your TV can handle NTSC4.43), you may get color but it's messed up (your TV supports PAL-60, but not NTSC-4.43) or you may get a black and white image (no PAL 60 support). In the second case, there is a simple mod you can do (cut one trace and add a wire) to force the output to PAL-60, which your TV should display correctly. In the third case, try getting a RGB cable. If you have one of the older models, then you either have to use an RGB cable or do a rather more complicated mod. Apart from the video issues, a modded PAL console should be able to boot anything no matter which territory it was intended for. Edit: SCPH-5903 - it's an Asia market specific model that has a white housing with an orange "VideoCD" on the upper left corner. They were certainly on sale in HK, and possibly other places. I don't think they sold very well because the added cost over the regular model was more that the 3rd-party VCD players cost. They still turn up occasionally, but are quite uncommon - and in HK finding one with a box is almost impossible, because most people have small apartments with limited storage space here and they tend to throw boxes away.
Thanks for your answer! I just took a look at my PAL-PS1 and it is the SCPH-9002 model. The good thing is that I have an RGB cable here. I searched through the marketplace section of the forum and saw that there are quite some users who are selling chips for the PS1. What is the difference between these chips? Do some of them work only with a certian PS1 model? And is it considered difficult to mod a Playstation with a chip? -Waffeldelta
OK, if you have an RGB cable, then you should have no problem displaying either PAL or NTSC games - and you may find that with that model it works OK even in composite mode. There are some chips that are specialized for certain models - for example, the ONEchip is, as you might guess from the name, intended for the PSone. There are also some old chips that don't work in newer consoles (SCPH-750x or later) and some newer chips (like the later Mayumis) that won't work on old (SCPH-100x) consoles. There are also some (mostly NTSC) games that detect modchips, and hence it's a good idea to install a chip that has the ability to disable itself once it's no longer needed (AKA "Stealth") to play these games. The two most common chips for the later consoles are the Mayumi V4 and Mutlmode 3 - they provide basically the same features, and which to use is largely a matter of personal preference. The major advantage of the MM3 is that you can install it (although in non-stealth mode) on the old consoles with a PU-7 or PU-8 board - the Mayumi works only on PU-18 and up. Obviously this is not an issue for you, since your console has a PU-23 board. Modding a PS is not that hard, but does require some fairly fine soldering - some of the contact points are about 1mm across, so it might not be the best thing to start on if you have never soldered anything before. Best thing to do is find the install diagrams and have a look at them.
Sorry for the necrobump. The black&white issue applies to me with a SCPH-102 onechip so I was wondering if we can mod the video output to a correct 3.58MHz NTSC/4.43MHz PAL one. For super famicoms I often install a little video clock switch board which depending on the mode NTSC or PAL feeds the clock signal into the S-PPU2 to achieve a color image on most any TV. This works very well even though I use 2 crystals instead of deriving the clock from the actual console's internal clock which theoretically could result in some synch issues I believe. My questions is whether a similar mod is viable for the PSone.
Figured this couldn't be too difficult so I just had a shot at it. The SNES PPU 50/60Hz pin vs PSone video encoder mode pin were inverted so I had to swap the 4.43 and 3.58MHz crystal locations and figured I might as well grab the 4.43 that's already there instead of wasting a crystal on it. What I did was remove the resistor that connects the main clock derived 4.43MHz and the video encoder chip subcarrier input pin 15. Used the output selector method pin 13 to switch between the 4.43MHz and 3.58MHz boosted by a 7404 inverter. Finding a decent install spot wasn't entirely clear due to the height of the crystal. Mounting it upside-down made soldering somewhat interesting but allowed for the RF shield to be installed without pressing on it. Oh, before I forget to mention, now I get color for both PAL and NTSC games, so mission accomplished.
