PSX Debugger

Hi What all does A ps1 debugger do? It was recommened as the first thing to buy to start a collection Any reply would be appreciated

 

Its basically an all regions all burned discs PS2. Easily available for under $100, and a nice item to get hold of. Theres a fair few varieties, some are green and some blue. The other main difference is which console style they are based on, i.e. scph1000, scph3000 etc.

 

Huh, that's odd. I don't see a definitive thread on PSX debugs... you would have thought we would have talked about them at one point since moving to the new board.

But basicly the_steadster is right, they're region free ps1 consoles and they play burned disks. The blue ones have some issues with displaying certain colors of red on the screen, it has to do with the graphics chip they used. They may have fixed this in later models of the blue unit. The green debugger has the capibility of introducing disk read errors and memory card fragmentation errors while testing games. It has no color issues. There's also the Yaroze system, which isn't a true debug but it is an "official" ps1 capible of playing disks from any region. It was sold to the public so that you could write small games for the ps1, but support in America was short lived. The yaroze was crippled due to political infighting from Sony.

Oops, i forgot about the PSOne debugger. So far, only one has fallen into collectors hands (as far as i'm aware) it's modeled after the PSOne retail unit. Sony basicly underestimated the lifecycle of the ps1 and ran out of the standard debuggers late in the consoles run. The developers were paying good money for their support contracts, so Sony had to provide some sort of debugging hardware to replace ageing and damaged debuggers. So they converted some of the new PSOne's into debugging stations. Few were made, expect to pay a fortune if you ever run into one, as everyone and their brother wants to take a look at them.

 

Ok

I already have a modded ps1 got it at a pawn shop for 10$ :nod:
Anything else that is cheap that is good to collect

 

Are you here to collect or play pirated games? I'm still confused...

Debug PSXs and TEST PS2s are collecter's pieces. If you simply want to play burned games, a chipped console is the cheaper solution. If you want to collect, why not pay the $50 for a debug PSX? You asked where you should start a collection, and this is a good starter item.

 

Hmm... you're being dificult... lol. Let's find you something to collect. If you're truely interested in rare, and you want cheep, start with limited edition VMU's for the dreamcast. There have to be a few dozen of them, and i don't know of anyone with a complete collection. Otherwise famiclones are fairly cheep (for the most part), or you could start collecting the freebies from the industry. Game companies give out tons of crap, just check out my site for ideas...

Rare usually means expensive, that's just the way it is. When collecting rare and development consoles, you'll find that you will have mulitple copies of the same console. If you're here to be a true collector, don't shrug off a ps1 debugger just because you have a modded console. I have at least 8 ps1's.

 

i wouldn't call VMU collecting as cheap...
sure most factory issue don't cost arm and leg but those -direct/sega-direct items are bit hard to get hold of and cost bit more. And then there's promotional VMU which is very hard to get hod of... one of rarest VMU was something that gave away as prize and finding one like that would be almost pure luck - provided you have big bank account...

but collecting all region factory VMU won't be too hard... (I'm taking hiatus from collection at the moment and spending more time with building scale modes atm but I have around two dozen VMU or so last time I counted from memory)

 

Just turned this into a wiki!
http://assemblergames.com/wiki/dogatemysnes/pmwiki.php?n=Topics.PSXDebugger

 

OK

Does anyone have a debugger to sell I'm interested in one

 

Not bad, i like it.

 

Cheers, I thought I'd get it all down while we were discussing it.

 

Are you sure? Sounds strange.

CF

 

Some info:

How to detect a fake Debugging Station without opening it:
http://www.assemblergames.com/forums/showpost.php?p=40206&postcount=6
by Melissa

About replacing Debugging Station lasers, video encoder issues, GPU issues:
http://assemblergames.com/forums/showpost.php?p=109846&postcount=5
by myself

All Debugging Stations I have seen have had PU-8 based motherboards (various revisions). The Yaroze have a PU-8 based motherboard as well. I have never seen a PSOne Debugging Station...

CF

 

Any chance you can put the Video and GPU issues into the wiki? I've put the info on lasers and checking genuine debuggers, but I don't fully understand the video issues, sso I don't feel in place to write about them.

I would love to see a PS1 debugger, if anyone has any pictures of one. Would be a good thing to integrate into the wiki....In fact I should look into putting some images of othr things up...

 

After all the questions about it I am going to ask the source. Its very fishy that another hasn't turned up yet. I can't tell if this unit was meant to be a debug or is infact a late prototype of the released model. That might make more sense. It has several FCC warnings that it has yet to be approved for sale in the US and has yet to pass radiation test.

 

PSone debug units do exist. They're just not very common.

-hl718

 

That would be great!!! Pictures would be fantastic of course. Two ideas:
(A) If you can't get pictures, would you ask the source about the DTL or SCPH number? (B) And if the lucky owner would consider doing the retail vs debug "SCEx test" (as described in the wiki) that would be great too. I don't suspect that it's chipped, but I am curious about how it's handles the "ATIP wobble" security (aka boot protection).

CF

 

I'd say the ATIP wobble thing is in the Motorola MCU, which (IIRC) functions as some sort of disc controller. Software can actually interface with it and obtain some information, such as the number of SCEx codes read! It would be interesting to check that out...

 

I'm the current owner. I meant the I'd ask the person who sold it to me exactly what the deal was. I'll run it through any test you want but pictures at this time are not possible for reasons I won't get into.

Adam

 

Thank you very much, this will be very interesting to all PlayStation collectors! Having studied the various PlayStation models and protection systems a lot, I would love to find out:

(A) What is the DTL / SCPH / ??? product number?
(B) What is the result of the "debug vs. retail" SCEx test described in the wiki and in this post: http://www.assemblergames.com/forums/showpost.php?p=40206&postcount=6

Regarding the PSone debugger questions:

(A) The "DTL or SCPH" question is important to know if Sony considers the unit to be a Developer Tool or a consumer product. A Debugging Station will always have a DTL product number.

(B) The "debugger vs chipped" test is important to know how the CD controller in this particular unit handles the SCEx signal. Does it act like a Debugging Station, like a Yaroze or like a chipped retail unit?

Cheers!
CF

PS: The wiki need to be updated. The Yaroze (DTL-300x) don't boot backups.