Jupiter - Disc Based Playstation 1 Clone

Just thought of a question yesterday,

Does this use standard Playstation memory cards? or does it use some sort of internal "virtual" memory card system?

 

Mine had usb ports, but nothing would work in them?
It was the CD drive that failed on my unit

 

Theres another one on ebay for sale rn, same price as the last one:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/OPERA-PlayS...1eafd3&pid=100011&rk=1&rkt=12&sd=282549465145

 

That is in the "hell no" level of money for a crappy emulator.

 

It has a virtual memory card feature. I used it on a couple of games and it worked.

PS: Totally forgot to mention this cool feature before!

 

Hey ramiq27, I also have a couple of questions.
You've mentioned that Jupiter utilizes the same controller ports as the Mega Drive / Atari and so on. Have you tried to use such controller to Jupiter? It is compatible with the original Mega Drive controller? Also, what happens with the games which demand an analogue controller? They won't work, or there's some sort of advertisement for a dualshock like controller by the same company?
Finally, I have a friend who lives in Dubai, can Jupiter be found there for a reasonable price, or did you bought it from ebay?

 

I haven't tried any Sega controllers but will do next time I fire it up. I don't think games that require analogue will be compatible with the controllers provided and I feel like this console didn't last long enough in the market or was successful enough to receive any extra peripherals or accessories from the manufacturer like that.

I purchased my Jupiter from a seller from Bahrain. Cost me around $150 shipped. It was the only one he had.

I haven't seen any Jupiter or Opera for sale in this area after that other than the one currently on eBay. I am happy I bought it before anyone else

 

I believe Ape Escape requires analog, I am guessing if you tried playing that it would just complain.

Unless someone can map the pins of the console's controller port and construct some sort of controller adapter. If the pins are the same, meaning you just need to match a pin to a pin, all you would need to do is hack up a Playstation controller extension cable with a Sega Genesis like end. That would also beg the question, if such an adapter could be meade, would the Jupiter/Opera console recognize a Dual Shock Analog Controller.


Edit: Both controllers are 9 pins, I would imagine the signal is the same as I couldn't see some bootlegger reinventing the wheel here as they probably just used the much cheaper 9 pin sega genesis/Atari style plug. I am thinking if they changed the input method too much the games wouldn't like it.


Edit No 2, For Great Justice: Temptation was way too much and I now have an Opera console on the way. I have a couple of Playstation extension cables so once I get the system, getting real controller to work on it will be one of many projects.

 

Posted my unboxing of my brand new Opera Console on youtube:



Observations so far:

Tested 5 games, all games worked fine except for Dead or Alive which ran slow. Soul Blade, Fighting Force, Thrill Kill (CD-R, game crashed before performing a thrill kill) and Battle Arena Toshinden seamed to run just fine in game. Tested Lunar Silver Star Story Complete too (Fan art version, but I think the data is the same), it had problems playing the intro movie, I couldn't skip it, might try that one more later.

The system uses Emusoft's EMU32 software to run the Playstation games on the hardware. I would wonder if updating that software for better compatibility would be possible (possibly through the usb ports)

The most common glitch is slow fmv playback. Not too slow but slightly slower then.

VCD Playback is good, I have yet to try any VCD 2.0 or anything fancy, but I bet it handles that just fine as well since its first purpose is as a vcd player.

The manual and box talk about 8 bit game playback which I would assume means nes roms on a cd, I will have to experiment with how to do this to see if I can get that function working.

Weirdest thing is the controller, the lights flash like Christmas lights regardless of whats going on in a game or on screen. I would imagine that would be very distracting if the lights were off in the room.

 

There's another Opera one on ebay right now in Dubai with 299 B.I.N or make offer. I admittedly skipped some parts of the video but didn't notice that there was a manufacturing date on them to indicate how long they have been around. Were you able to find out anything about saving games and capacity?

 

Great video man! I will include it in the original post if you don't mind.

If you ever figure out how to play 8bit games on it please let us know. And if you ever managed to splice a PS controller with a Sega 9pin connector it would be awesome.

 

My Jupiter has a virtual memory feature that has worked on most games I tried. Not sure about the capacity or if there is a way to manage saved files. Will fiddle around with it once I get a chance.

As for manufacturing date, on the board on the bottom left corner of my unit '0203' is stamped which might indicate that it was made in February of 2003. Check first post.

 

I haven't tried the memory thing yet, I also didn't notice any manufacture date on mine at all.

As far as the 8 bit games go, I will probably try burning a cd with some nes roms on it and see if the system likes it.

Considering it uses emulation, I am going to say it is unlikely that the system will use a real playstation controller unless the input signals are exactly the same.

Also, considering this uses emulation, I am surprised it runs so well, the hardware must be pretty powerful to produce such results as what I have seen.

 

Nice device, like a raspberry pi with CDRom drive attached.
JTAG so you can see if the MCU responds and you might figure out what MCU it is, AND you can maybe dump the flash rom contents over Jtag. no need to remove the heatsink that way.

 

Hm... Interesting... Has anyone ever tried Ridge Racer on this thing? As far as I know, the game loads the entire game rom onto system memory and streams the audio from the disc. It probably might see the game as a Audio CD, or it'll boot the game but there won't be any music from it. I don't know.

 

That Sony chip near that heat sink thingy is probably an audio processor. If you guys already know that then don't criticize me.

 

What's so special about Ridge Racer?

What makes you think so? If you Google it, it's a CD-ROM DSP.

 

"Emusoft's EMU32 software to run the Playstation games" I dint see that video review first, so its a MCU with ram, jtag and a Sony cdrom dsp. expenive kit for a vcd+ps1 emulator, 14 euro for a USB cdrom drive, add a raspi or banana pi and your almost done (no nice case and soldering required ofcourse...)

 

I ran Dead or Alive on it, since the data track is always first, games that use CD Audio tracks run fine and are not just seen as an audio cd.

Sure you can make silly emulation boxes, but this item is quite the curiosity as it was sold as a VCD Player with Playstation and Famicom games via emulation.

 

I have a similar console of that. but only compatible with SEGA games.