PlayStation and GameCube Development and Debugging kits

I recently posted this topic in the GameTZ forums and also the Sony Programming and Development Forum on this site, and a member there suggested I repost it here. Here are links to my original topics:
http://gametz.com/General/playsta...
https://assemblergames.com/threads/...o-debug-info-while-launching-ps2-games.67169/ (I'm still waiting for a reply to my latest post there though).

I recently acquired the development tools of a "Dale Desharone". More information about him can be located here:
http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,34...

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with these items, but thought I would share.
Dale Desharone past away at a young age around 10 years ago. See here:
http://blog.hardcoregaming101.net/2012/09/dale-desharone-uns...

I've been told that his mother is moving from their home and was clearing out his room. He had these items in his room. A friend of mine was given these items,but passed them onto me. He feels they have a better chance of finding a good home with me. I'm not sure if I'll keep everything or not at this point. I'm conflicted on it. I have a huge video game console collection, and really have very little room left for more, but I love unique items like this. And there is all the background on these items too that make them extra special to me.

There are 3 drives included. One is for burning PS1 games, one PS2 games and one is for Gamecube I believe.
There is a weird Gamecube memory card emulator here which I have not yet tested. The Gamecube only plays his "Skye" beta copy (pictured above). I heard it will not play retail games.
The silver disc is an incomplete beta copy of a PS1 game titled M&M's Shellshocked.
The big PS2 Development system will not play PS2 games unless I update it's flash which is possible,but I'm afraid to do unless someone knows the answer to the following questions:
How do I dump the original ROM in case something goes wrong (in case I need to go back to it)?
Does the SDK Version need to match the new ROM version? If so, how do I get the new SDK on the Tool?
See all the pictures here (and there are more in the above previous posts):
http://tinypic.com/a/bdnlau/1...

 

For the nintendo stuff:
That silver writer is worth a couple hundred dollars.
The NR cube is probably worth between 150-250.

Darkened Skye has a date of 2 months before gamecube release, but it was released for windows about 9 months before that. I would guess it's pretty close to final. Maybe $50?

Memory card emulator I would pay around $50 for. They're fairly common and don't have any use these days.

 

Well taken care of, I didn't realize they were so close in color either.

 

The playstation serial cables are ~$50 each when they come up
The green debug playstations are anywhere from $100 to $400 depending on condition. They get EXTREMELY brittle as they age.

 

Right now the green debug stations are in great condition. How would I go about preventing them from becoming brittle? Right now I have them on display in a glass cabinet. Cover them in Armor-All perhaps? I suppose the brittleness would pertain to the Gamecube too?

 

no i would recommend heavily against that, armor all is a cheap product that actually dries out vehicle interiors, ive seen it myself. if anything thatll hurt it. reduce light exposure to led's only in your display cabinet and dont allow sunlight in as the uv will break down the plastic further

 

The ROM is just meant to fit the SDK that the developer used. The purpose of the test mode that was added later on, was for developers to test their work from a master disc.
Originally, developers had to write a small program that boots the executable from the disc, if they wanted to boot a master disc. Otherwise, they would just have to boot their game with dsedb, and the game would access the CD/DVD. So it wasn't really a missing feature, but the TOOL just wasn't intended for people to use for playing games...

Development was not done on the TOOL and neither did the Sony-licensed developers log into the TOOL directly, so you don't need to update anything on the TOOL to update the ROM.

If updating the ROM somehow fails, you can follow up with the recovery procedure that is documented (in the README file of the SDK, I believe).
When you do flash the TOOL, remember that you want to flash the TOOL mode's ROM (not WS mode).