3 ms·

Reverse-engineering Playstation 1

124 points by rasz_pl 12y ago

AlyssaRowan 12y ago
I don't speak Russian, but I know good RE work when I see it. The big parts have been black-boxed already - my own console had an Xplorer cartridge running Caetla at the time the PS1 was big! - but it'd be nice to see what actually really goes on inside, say, the SPU, or the GPU's actual handling of a few corner cases. PS1 emulators are already very good (indeed, they can even run the specially copy-protected images without any patches now, as I tried a couple of months ago with a couple of rare games), but those last few percent are the hardest. I saw MAME mentioned, and that makes sense, given the attention to detail.
rasz_pl 12y ago
It gets even better in the Wiki http://translate.google.com/translate?depth=1&hl=en&sl=ru&u=http://wiki.psxdev.ru/index.php/CPU_CELLS http://translate.google.com/translate?depth=1&hl=en&sl=ru&u=... and results land in SVN repo as Logisim modules (logic level simulator) http://code.google.com/p/psxdev/source/browse/#svn%2Ftrunk http://code.google.com/p/psxdev/source/browse/#svn%2Ftrunk
YAYERKA 12y ago
>The street became colder, short Russian summer moves for the winter. Brains cooled down a bit and began to think. I've always anticipated winter with a similar sentiment--I like the way this was said.
josu 12y ago
This is a bit off topic, but I'm amazed how understable the text is given that it has been translated by a machine, in a matter of seconds, for free.
- TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
  And not even seconds, milliseconds.
userbinator 12y ago
When I saw "translate.google.com" in the URL, for some reason I had a feeling it was going to be in Russian... I don't know if it's a cultural thing for Russians to be reverse-engineers, but there certainly seem to be a lot of them. This reminds me of http://breaknes.com/info http://breaknes.com/info , which judging from the style of the diagrams might be done by the same person. There's been a ton of transistor-level RE on the NES, but I hadn't seen it done for the PS1 until now. The level of attention to detail is amazing. It's also interesting that they're using Logisim, which is often regarded as a "toy"-level/educational logic simulator (it has some pretty limiting features that make it rather unsuitable for real diagrammatic logic design.)
- rasz_pl 12y ago
  Logisim was last updated in 2011, and just a ~month ago Author announced he is ceasing development. http://www.cburch.com/logisim/retire-note.html http://www.cburch.com/logisim/retire-note.html He probably could make some money by tooling it into a ios/android app. EveryCircuit is similar in spirit and quite popular.
- malkia 12y ago
  Lots of reverse engineering had to be done in ex-communist block (USSR, Bulgaria, others) - all because of this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CoCom http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CoCom This was Bulgaria's clone of Apple ][ (and Oric too) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pravetz_computers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pravetz_computers
- busterarm 12y ago
  And what's with malware researchers all being Italian? Seriously! They're pretty good at RE too.

124 points by rasz_pl 12y ago

I don't speak Russian, but I know good RE work when I see it. The big parts have been black-boxed already - my own console had an Xplorer cartridge running Caetla at the time the PS1 was big! - but it'd be nice to see what actually really goes on inside, say, the SPU, or the GPU's actual handling of a few corner cases. PS1 emulators are already very good (indeed, they can even run the specially copy-protected images without any patches now, as I tried a couple of months ago with a couple of rare games), but those last few percent are the hardest. I saw MAME mentioned, and that makes sense, given the attention to detail.

rasz_pl 12y ago

It gets even better in the Wiki http://translate.google.com/translate?depth=1&hl=en&sl=ru&u=http://wiki.psxdev.ru/index.php/CPU_CELLS http://translate.google.com/translate?depth=1&hl=en&sl=ru&u=... and results land in SVN repo as Logisim modules (logic level simulator) http://code.google.com/p/psxdev/source/browse/#svn%2Ftrunk http://code.google.com/p/psxdev/source/browse/#svn%2Ftrunk

YAYERKA 12y ago

>The street became colder, short Russian summer moves for the winter. Brains cooled down a bit and began to think. I've always anticipated winter with a similar sentiment--I like the way this was said.

josu 12y ago

This is a bit off topic, but I'm amazed how understable the text is given that it has been translated by a machine, in a matter of seconds, for free.

TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
And not even seconds, milliseconds.

userbinator 12y ago

When I saw "translate.google.com" in the URL, for some reason I had a feeling it was going to be in Russian... I don't know if it's a cultural thing for Russians to be reverse-engineers, but there certainly seem to be a lot of them. This reminds me of http://breaknes.com/info http://breaknes.com/info , which judging from the style of the diagrams might be done by the same person. There's been a ton of transistor-level RE on the NES, but I hadn't seen it done for the PS1 until now. The level of attention to detail is amazing. It's also interesting that they're using Logisim, which is often regarded as a "toy"-level/educational logic simulator (it has some pretty limiting features that make it rather unsuitable for real diagrammatic logic design.)

rasz_pl 12y ago
Logisim was last updated in 2011, and just a ~month ago Author announced he is ceasing development. http://www.cburch.com/logisim/retire-note.html http://www.cburch.com/logisim/retire-note.html He probably could make some money by tooling it into a ios/android app. EveryCircuit is similar in spirit and quite popular.
malkia 12y ago
Lots of reverse engineering had to be done in ex-communist block (USSR, Bulgaria, others) - all because of this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CoCom http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CoCom This was Bulgaria's clone of Apple ][ (and Oric too) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pravetz_computers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pravetz_computers
busterarm 12y ago
And what's with malware researchers all being Italian? Seriously! They're pretty good at RE too.