I've recently bought a Net Yaroze and I'm curious what are the differences between it and a normal PS1 SCPH-1002 with a chip. Do they have different motherboards, bios or something like that? Can I connect a grey PS1, using an Access Card and a special cable from Software Development Kit, to PC and use it as a Net Yaroze? Finally, I bought my Net Yaroze without Software Development Kit. I'd like to know is it possible to somehow replace accessories from Software Development Kit and use Net Yaroze to create some games? I've read somewhere about a cracked boot screen which can replace the Access Card. Is it true? If yes, is there any replacement for the official cable that connects Net Yaroze to PC? Thank you in advance for satisfying my curiosity.
Well,one that I know is that the Net Yaroze is region free by all means. It has both NTSC and PAL xtals while the 1002 doesn't,eliminating the need for a RGB cable. IIRC it can also boot CD-R discs but I'm not sure about that until somebody here can clarify that.
There are basically only three differences between a Yaroze and a retail console: 1) The Yaroze has a special CD controller that will boot discs from any region - the Yaroze boot disc has a "region" all of it's own, and no unmodified retail console will boot it. 2) It has the parts installed to generate correctly formatted video signals in both PAL and NTSC modes 3) It has that cool black textured case. The Yaroze boot disc won't work on an unmodified retail machine because of the unique region coding - but it will boot on a debug console or a retail console with a modchip. The access card and serial cable will work correctly on any console - retail, debug or Yaroze. If you have a modified retail console or a debug, then you can just use a CD-R copy of the Yaroze boot disc. The access card check can be bypassed using some action replay/gameshark codes or if you are using a CD-R you can patch it before burning it. The serial cable is simply a level translator between the 3.3V signal levels output by the PlayStation and RS-232 levels. Apparently the "SharkLink" cable used with the CD based GameShark will work, or you can get a 3.3V mobile phone cable and a PlayStation link cable, cut them up and solder them together. So the short answer is that yes, every part of the software development kit can be replaced. The only catch is that you need a modded console to use it, since the Yaroze can't boot CD-Rs, only originals. The other thing you should be aware of is that the program supplied to upload data to the Yaroze (siocons) was designed to run under DOS, and when run on a modern OS with virtualized serial ports it tends to be slow and / or unreliable - to the extent where on my machine DOSBOX works better than running siocons native.
It's really interesting. I thought that Net Yaroze was more unique. It seems that modded SCPH-1002 is even more "powerful" because it not only can boot discs from any region but also run CD-R so we don't have to buy Software Development Kit. We can use a patched CD-R to boot the console in a proper way, make a cable on our own and download proper software from the Net and we can say that we have a grey Net Yaroze. After reading you answer I think that Net Yaroze was too expensive taking into account that it cost 750$. So the same thing is with a debug console? I mean is it the same as a modded retail console, for example SCPH-1002 or does it have different bios or hardware? And the last question could someone explain me in a simple way what was the role of the access card? It was only used to boot Net Yaroze in a Net Yaroze mode? And if we have a modded SCPH-1002 we can run it in a Net Yaroze mode using a proper boot CD that I can probably easily find on the Internet?
They are basically the same as a modded retail - some of the early ones had a different BIOS, but that was to address a cosmetic issue with the boot screen, and didn't change anything important - the necessary fix was put into the later versions of the BIOS, and the later consoles use the same BIOS as a retail. Note that unlike the Yaroze a debug is only designed to operate in one video mode and there were separate debug consoles for each region. The console doesn't know or care about the access card - the only thing that checks for it is the boot disc. If the card isn't there and you are using an unpatched copy of the boot disc, then it will display "ACCESS CARD CHECKING...NOT FOUND" on boot and won't proceed until you plug the card in.
