N00b TOOL Q's

I've been searching, but I cannot find anything so far, forgive my stupidness

Can I use a TOOL to play retail NTSC-J PS1 and PS2 games? I only want a TOOL to use a flashy looking PS2, so the dev side is of no worry to me. Also, could I hook up my BB Unit to it to use with the online and HDD-compatible PS2 titles? Currently I'm running an SCPH-10000 with SCPH-10210 External HDD setup, which'll soon be updated to PSBBN 0.32.
Basically, I just want to swap out the PS2 for a TOOL. What model would I need if this is at all possible?

Thanx for any assistance.

 

It will play retail PS2 games (not sure on PSone games actually......).

You'll need to use the Linux side of things to boot the game (dsedb) or you'll need a PC hooked up via the LAN and use thrid party software such as ProDG.

It's not just plug and play......be warned!

 

American and european TOOLs play retail PS2 games from all regions, but japanese TOOLs only support NTSC-J ones. However, all TOOLs play so-called "master" discs from all regions, and you can patch an ISO image to be recognized as "master".

Playing PS1 games is a different story, though. I have not been able to start one yet, mainly because the PS1 starter and graphics emulator (PS1DRV) is missing. However, the PS1-side of the BIOS is included, so I assume it is possible if you can find a suitable PS1DRV.

As dickibow wrote, you can use the Linux (dev) side of the TOOL to start a game from the optical drive. You will need a standard VGA monitor and keyboard attached to the TOOL in this case (the keyboard alone is sufficient if you know what you are doing ). Alternatively, you can connect the TOOL via LAN to your computer; the PS2 SDK, installed into a Linux VM, works well.

For network support: the TOOL has a standard PCMCIA connector, which should be identical to the one of the SCPH-10000. That is all I can say, though, as I have never tried to use it. However, I once read that certain discs (HDD Utility Disc?) only work on retail units, neither on the TOOL nor the debugging stations.

 

You can render it "mostly" plug and play so it can launch a game from the optical drive when it starts, however you'll have to turn it off and on again to play with another disc, unless you connect a keyboard to the Tool.

The black units T10000 and T10000H won't work with the PSBBN, only the T150000 can, however the T10000 can work with the hdd, but only with PS2 linux, as its bios doesn't have the required drivers to use the hdd on its own, like the regular PS2 do (the scph 10k loads the drivers from the memory card during the boot process, something a Tool can't do either).

The network might work, I haven't tried it though.
What online and hdd compatible titles would you want to play?

And one last thing, it's a noisy beast!

 

Hi, Unclejun

The PS2 HDD Disc does work on the PS2 Test Console
& the PS2 TOOL T10000 as does the SONY PS2 HDD also work as well. I have tested them on both of my machines.

 

Not on all Test units, what's your model number?
h3010x I guess?

 

Test Console is - DTL - H50001!!

 

I have a DTL-H10000 and a DTL-H30002, and I don't believe the disk works on either. I've lost it now though, or I'd try it on my TOOL

Stone

 

Don't the disc has to match the region of the console ? (Utility Discs have their ELF encrypted and key is stored in the mechanics controller chip, which is region specific...)

Also, the test console need to have an updated (finished) SECRMAN module which means it can understand the "KELF" file format. The early models don't.

 

What doesn't make any sense at all is why stone are you tryng to run the SONY PS2 40GB HDD inside the TOOL anyway?
I would just go with a bigger hard drive and play games off of HD Loader - HD Adance 2.0. Forget the PS2 HDD 40GB and the HDD utility disc. They don't matter on the tool. Just wanted to clear the air. Later

Nintendo - AkA - AssemberGames

 

It does make sense, the external hdd works very well on the Tool, with ps2 linux for example, wich can use the Tool 128MB rdram and one of the Tool's internal hdd as well.

 

PS2 - T10000 TOOL HDD!!

Here's something elase you can do. You can use the External HDD & 1 internal HDD for linux and 2 other HDD's internal for HD Advance. But not everybody has the External HDD hooked up to the PCMCIA Port on the back of the TOOL. So they would have no other choice but to use the 1 out the 3 HDD's internal for linux or other apps. Is the External HDD really have to be hooked up to run Linux @ the 128MB RDRAM? Or can you just use all the RDRAM 128MB with just the internals? Anybody have any ideas. Also what model number External HDD runs with the PS2 T-10000 model TOOL?

Please reply anyone

Nintendo - AKA - SONY

Assemblergames

 

I don't see why you ever would run hdloader on a Tool, if it was working that is...
You need a custom kernel to use the 128MB rdram and the internal Tool hdd, so you have too install linux somewhere first.
Both dev and retail external hdds work on the Tool.

 

Few hardware related questions here ...

How the tool handles it's internal HDDs ? (I/O wise) Is that the same thing as one HDD connected to the retail expansion bay based PS2 ?

I guess the PCMCIA slot is handled the same way as a retail (or TEST) PCMCIA PS2 would handle it's own... Is that correct ?

As far I know HDL is incompatible with the PCMCIA hardware because it's "core" is built around Mr. Bown's HDD/DEV9 libs which at the time (2003) did not support the PCMCIA hardware correctly. It does now and modern homebrewn software with it such as elflaunch runs flawlessly on 10k units with HDD ...


And lastly ...
Why one would want to run HDL on a TOOL ? Just for being fancy ? lol
I would help if I could ... lol

 

Take a look at the disassembly guide and at the motherboard scan, so you can guess by yourself

You're right.

Absolutely no one sane would run hdl on a Tool, the noise of the unit is just too much too appreciate a game...

 

A TOOL may contain up to three HDDs, which are all handled in a different way:

• Linux-/PC-side HDD, connected to the CPU card. This is the only HDD that is directly visible to the Linux system, and accessed just like Linux accesses IDE HDDs on a normal PC (the PC-side of the TOOL boots from this one).
• PS2-side HDD, connected to an IDE socket near the PCMCIA slot on the PS2-side's mainboard. Unfortunately I have no idea how this one is being accessed or handled :shrug:.
• DVD-Emulator HDD, connected to the emulator daughter card sitting between the PS2 mainboard and the mechacon PCB. As the name implies, the emulator uses this disc to store its DVD images. As far as I know, it can only be accessed by means of the PC (Windows !) software used to control the emulator; the server software (DVDSERV) running on the TOOL talks to the emulator PCI card, which in turn talks to its daughter card be means of an additional ribbon cable.

Well, don't know about the others, but I would certainly like being able to debug HDL itself ;-). Or, for that matter, check why some games still crash with the latest patches applied...

 

PS2 linux can access it with a modified kernel, as for the rest of the games or apps, I don't know if they can, I haven't tested any.

 

The reason I would like to run HD Loader is because then you don't have to run the games through the DVD Drive itself. All games are stored on HDD externally!! There is nothing wrong with playing around with HD Loader on a TOOL machine at all specially if your not going to be using the Linux side for any development purposes that is. My TOOL is just for PS2 games being played normally. I might run SN Systems ProDG software of mine to run some ELF files but nothing more then that. Also most people don't have the SN Systems EMULATOR card nor the CD/DVD EMULATOR Software for there TOOL machines so the only way the games can be played is by an external - internal HDD. The TOOL just looks fancy next to my PS2 DTL-H50001 Test Console.

Later

Nintendo - AKA - Sony

 

Have you ever tried to run HDL with your debugger loaded on the PS2 RAM ?
Now, I'm itching to try that ...

If only I had more free time to get back on testing stuff

Nintendo:

As far I know, it's impossible to run HDL on the PCMCIA version of PS2 hardware as the drivers that are statically linked to the HDL core module have no support for that hardware. (I mentioned this a few posts ago) Me and a friend (he injected updated drivers on the HDL elf by hand) were able to make the HDL menu work properly. So we got an HDL elf which would work fine on a 10k PS2 up to the point of starting the game. It could install/remove/edit parameters for installed games but would crash on a black screen upon trying to start any game.

Now, if one of the internall HDDs on the tool behave like the 3000x units HDD hardware, then I see no reason for an non modified HDL elf not working with it.

 

Pssssssssssst, this one isn't out yet :katamari:. No, I haven't tried, but I doubt it'll work, considering what HDL has to do to the kernel to make its magic work :evil:.
I basically want to debug why a certain game crashes/hangs at random points when running under HDL. I'd need my program to catch processor exceptions similar to how the debugger stub on the TOOL does, but that's not implemented yet. Unfortunately, I, too, have too few free time to write something like that now :banghead:.

That's interesting h:. Is this patch available somewhere? Or could you describe how this injection worked?

I remember seeing some special IOP replacement images in a subfolder of the HDL one. Am I right that HDL loads one of these images, instead of the one supplied on the game disc, when a game issues an IOP reboot? If so, one would have to patch these images as well as the main HDL ELF in order to get it to work with the PCMCIA card.

I would think so, too. I'll have to get a TOOL out of storage and test this.