Hey, anyone here remember the Gold Finger attachment for the PS1? I bought it at a flea market back in 2009 to play CD-Rs for the Policenauts English patch (and it worked wonders for that). However, the printer style parallel port in the back of the device has always been a mystery to me. I figured it was used for some sort of firmware updating, however, has anyone used it for something more significant? I ask this because we now see projects like PSIO that demonstrate the potential speeds you could derive out of the I/O port on the PS1. Could anything like the above be performed through the Gold Finger's parallel port, or was it severally crippled in usability?
Memory hacking? I remember being told that it wasn't a parallel port and it was something else that used a DB25 connector but I might be wrong and confusing it with the AR+ for the Saturn (which is PC COMMs whatever that is). PSIO is a different beast entirely.
You need a PC Comm Link to use this parallel port, and use it to search codes, load files into memory, and update the firmware. With Caetla, you could even do debugging and open files located on your computer.
I googled "PC Comm Link" and came up with this. http://easybuy2000.com/store/playstation accessories/commlink.shtml I had no idea that this thing existed. What sort of speeds were achieved when transferring from PC?
Actually, quite fast - over 100KB/sec. The biggest problem is that the software has no support in any recent version of Windows. It also requires an ISA slot , which very few modern boards have. Honestly, you are much better off getting an Xplorer/Xploder cart - that will plug directly into a parallel port.
