I recently bought a Sony Playstation. Just to play Tekken2. Well, thats not the whole truth. I also own a cd-burner and I can rent psx-games from a local dealer. It would be nice to copy some games I thought...
The psx game-discs are however copyprotected. To make copies of a playstation game you must override the copy protection scheme. The copyprotection works the following way:
The black-bottom original psx cd's have certain positions on the cd which contain errors. The psx checks for these errors before booting. When copying a psx cd, the cd-burner are uncapable to read these sectors and therefor cannot duplicate the cd succesfully. The copy is missing the bad sectors which the psx checks for prior to boot. All data on the copy is however correct. You just need to fool the psx into believing that it has checked for the bad sectors and continue booting. To do this you can either do a swap-trick which involves booting up with a music cd or a original cd, and when the system has performed the sector check, switch the original cd for the backup. This method works better on older versions of the psx as the newer version needs to have a double-swap-trick.
If you don't like swapping discs, or have a new psx (like I have) and like to play around with electronics you can modify your playstation with a chip that sends a ok-signal to the system to boot every time, even when playing imports or backups.
1. PIC-chip. PIC stands for Programmable Integrated Circuit. There are several models which differ in size. The newest one is the pic12c54 which has 12 pins. Older ones have more pins, as the pic16c54 which has 18 pins. The pic-chips are available from all bigger electronics shops. In Sweden you can order them from Elfa.
2. Assembler code for the pic-chip. Scott Rider (his excellent homepage on http://www.aeug.org/~chip/ ) did figure out how the copy-protection scheme worked and wrote a piece of code which sends a ok-signal and this makes the psx to boot up. You also need a pic-programmer. If you decide to buy one, you can use it for making D2Mac decoder cards, because they use the same PIC's as the playstation.
You can also buy the chip pre-programmed. Just search the net. A good place to start is http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Vista/1289/Mod.html
3. Soldering scheme for the PIC chip. You now can solder the PIC-chip to the "motherboard" of the psx. Depending on code programmed to the PIC-chip you need different soldering schemes. You cannot now which code is on which chips so you have to be careful. If you buy a preprogrammed chip you get soldering charts from them. Depending on chip-type you need to solder from four up to ten (!) pins of the PIC to the motherboard. As before, Scott Rider's page has more detailed information.
The pins are numbered from top left to bottom left and continued on bottom right to top right like this;
The top 4 pins (numbered 1-2 and 17-18) are not used.
If you have the newest version of the playstation (scph-5502 in europe and scph-5501 in the us) AND Scott Rider's code, you can use the following charts to solder: solder
4. Just reassemble your psx and go.
Playstation backup programs
To backup a psx-game you need ofcourse a cd-burner. There are several programs to use, EZCD-Pro, Gear, DiscJuggler, WinOnCD, DAO and so forth. A game-disc usually contains one data-track and several audio-tracks. Data-track is written in mode-2.
EZCD-Pro:
I haven't got this program to work with my Panasonic cd-r. It won't write a mode-2 cd with one data-track and several audio tracks. Why it refuses to work, I don't know. Perhaps it works better for you.
Gear:
Copy all tracks to hd. Make a cue-sheet. Drag & drop files in correct order, i.e. data-track first and then audio-tracks. Right click on data-track and change it to mode-2.
DAO:
To copy the contents of the psx cd to your hd :
From a DOS-prompt type:
snapshot cuefile.cue datafile.dat /id=0:6:0
Leave out the /id=x:x:x if you only have one cd on your scsi card.
To write data type:
dao cuefile.cue /id=0:6:0 /test
/test simulates writing. When writing, simply leave the switch out.
Playstation covers
When you have made your backup, get a cover for your jewel case at http://home.sn.no/~ldaniels
Best Games
The best games I've tested so far for the Playstation are Tekken2 and Soulblade. If I want to play complicated games, I use my computer. The psx is for pixel-pushing only. I'm looking for a good horisontal-scrolling shooter, such as the old Hybris2, Xenon2 and the likes on the Amiga. Any tips? Don't hesitate to mail me...