I used to program PSX mod chips and install them 20 years ago from my door room in Jester Dormitory at UT Austin. I printed out an ad, taped it on my door and waited for the knocks to do business. Back in those days, I would burn chips with hard-to-find .bin files using generic EEPROM programmers that used a printer parallel port. And I never had to buy any chips because, at the time, I'd request samples from the big silicon distributors (e.g. DigiKey / Mouser) and they'd send me dozens for free.
The most fragile part of the PlayStation, just like the GameCube and many other consoles, is the optical drive. I don't know what the AFR is for a typical CD-ROM drive, but when you consider that the PlayStation hardware is 20 years old, it's unsurprising that so many of them have failed.<p>So I think flash card readers for the PlayStation are a much more interesting technology.
Wow, this brings back memories.<p>I had my Playstation 1 hard modded, at a local shop near the Tacoma Mall.<p>I "convinced" my dad to buy a CD Recorder because I could "copy my own Playstation games." It was an HP 2X external burner that connected via the printer port.<p>Our AST Pentium (overdrive) 83mhz didn't cut it, and would produce 1 good copy for every 3 attempts. My dad went out and got a COMPAQ 333MHz Pentium II.
This brings me back. I had a friend in high school who offered to mod my ps1. He put in some sort of mod chip and had to solder things if I remember correctly. He later on inspired me to attempt things like that myself. I mean he was some 15 year old kid soldering mod chips on peoples ps1. I always thought that was cool. Fast forward 15 years and I was doing the same to xbox 360. I don't condone piracy but I also have 2 ps4 games that have stopped reading for me. I wouldn't feel bad if I could play a ripped copy of the game I already bought.
I would recommend looking at the PSIO if you're wanting to mod a PSX today. It's a bit on the expensive side, but it allows you to insert a SD card instead of having to use CDs. Over time discs degrade and become unusable, as well as the optical drives of the playstations themselves.
On a related note the firmware of the PlayStation's CDROM controller has been successfully dumped by No$ and other reverse engineers: <a href="http://www.psxdev.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=557" rel="nofollow">http://www.psxdev.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=557</a><p>The microcontroller is a well documented off-the-shelf part, so I attempted to emulate it: <a href="https://gitlab.com/flio/psx_cd" rel="nofollow">https://gitlab.com/flio/psx_cd</a><p>It's not complete yet unfortunately, I hit weird timing inconsistencies that require more debugging, and then real word got in the way...<p>The license string described in TFA is emulated here: <a href="https://gitlab.com/flio/psx_cd/-/blob/master/src/cdc/cxd2545q.rs#L148-193" rel="nofollow">https://gitlab.com/flio/psx_cd/-/blob/master/src/cdc/cxd2545...</a> and here /<a href="https://gitlab.com/flio/psx_cd/-/blob/master/src/cdc/cxd2545q.rs#L148-193" rel="nofollow">https://gitlab.com/flio/psx_cd/-/blob/master/src/cdc/cxd2545...</a>
There used to be a web site named modchip.com or something like that which sold mod chips for various video game consoles.<p>Why bother with PSX systems when you got PSX emulators for the PC that can display in a higher resolution?
Installing these and burning games is what paid for my beer in college for a couple of years. Good times. I did brick 1, bought a used ps1, modded it and threw in a few free games to the owner.