I bought a for parts PSone and got something interesting.

So I picked this psone up last week and it arrived today. The seller was selling it as parts only, and mentioned that it powers on but won't boot games. It's a Japanese model, SCPH-100 with a VCD card added, here's some pictures.










The mod job looks professional, all the solder points are clean. I'm going to check everything over before I boot it up. I'm guessing the glob chip is a modchip? it only has 4 wires coming off it. Unfortunately I don't have a psone power supply to test it. If I manage to get away from the house tonight and run to the local overpriced "retro" shop, I'll try to post an update soon! Has anyone run into one of these and knows how it works? Thanks


Edit: I just said screw it and bought a complete working psone with PSU off ebay, I figured I could use it for parts if the laser is dead in the one I just received. In the end it will be cheaper then just buying the PSU from the local shop. I'll be able to post an update in a couple days when it arrives. I'm really hoping the previous owner just didn't realize it only boots Japanese games and possibly other regions with a swap.

 

I've never seem that mod before. I've seen a parallel for that model, but not an entire vcd board that BIG.

If you ever decide to sell it let me know, I have an archive of parallel and vcd mods for playstation, and I don't
have one of those.

 

That's the currency symbol for Chinese Yuan, right? Maybe it was modded to be used as a cheap Arcade kiosk. You know, with one of those timer circuits. That would explain the quality of the mod (probably done by someone who would do this as a business).

Wonder what the "password" is all about...

 

Sort of - it's not actually the currency symbol (that's ￥just like Japan, although people sometimes use ¥ to reduce confusion), but 元 is used in the same way 円 is in Japanese， as a counter for currency units. Strangely, despite the fact that we use HK $, that 元 symbol turns up on a lot of price labels here now - I guess it's just that Chinese label printers are cheaper

From the wiring, that glob top is just a mod chip - by the time the PSone came out, people were making them like that simply for cost reduction. That "VCD + Password" thing most likely just indicates that it has cheat cart functions in addition to being able to play VCDs.

 

Wow that a great pick up I wonder if it boots up diffrent?

 

Very unique find ! This is also the first time I have seen something like this.

 

I'm pretty sure it boots into an action replay style menu, where you can select to play VCDs, add cheats and various other options. What makes this mod different than the other VCD mods is it is hard wired directly to the psone's AV port. All the other VCD mods I've seen have come with an additional cable that replaces the psone's AV port and sticks out the back, causing you to switch the AV cable if you want to watch a VCD. My PSU should be here in a couple days, I'm really excited to get it booted up. I've also got a official PSone LCD screen coming, I'm curious to see if the VCD function works with the LCD screen, turning it into a portable VCD player! I'll be posting pictures as soon as I get it running.

Is there way way to tell what version mod chip it is? I was under the impression all psone mod chips were 8 wires.

 

Looking at the wiring, it's using the old "3 wires + link" approach, but with an extra reset connection. You can use any mod that's designed for SCPH-750x or later in a PSone - the reason a lot of them were 8 pin is that they were also implementing a patch to the boot ROM to bypass the territory check, but this doesn't seem to be the case here. It's possible that the cheat cartridge function is capable of booting out of region discs, or it might just be Japanese only.

 

IT LIVES!

This has got to be one of the best deals I've ever gotten. It works completely fine, I didn't even have to clean the lens.


This is what it boots to when you power it on.


Code select screen.


CD Explorer


VCD swap screen.


Booting a retail copy of Final Bout (JPN)

Booting a backup of LSD Dream Emulator, no swap needed!

This is defiantly a cool find for me. I only wish I could change the setting to english, it would make looking at codes a whole lot easier. I will test it with the official PSone LCD screen soon. I got rid of all my VCDs years ago, so I have a commercial VCD coming to me in the mail to test the VCD option.

UPDATE:


It works with the LCD.

I'll update again if VCD works with the LCD.

 

Never seen anything like this before... Thanks for sharing it. Also I love LSD Dream Emulator. That is one of the most bizarre games I've ever experienced before.

 

I'm sorry to say VCD does not play on the PSone LCD. I can hear the sound, but I get no picture. I think this is due to the card forcing a different resolution when it plays VCDS. It will play on a regular TV, and is pretty standard VCD quality playback. The on screen instructions tell you to swap out a psone game with the VCD to get it to boot. Probably due to the modchip, I can just put a VCD in and it will play every time without a swap.

 

When hooked up to the TV, are you using Composite Video, S-Video, or RGBS? I heard that VCDs only support Composite Video so that may be why the screen isn't working as it uses RGBS instead of Composite Video.

 

I'm using composite, I only have composite psone cables at the moment.

 

If you can, try an RGB SCART/JP-21 cable. It might be that VCDs don't work with RGB.

Try plugging the composite cable from the PSOne screen's multi-out into the A/V in jack on the PSOne screen. If you get a picture, VCDs won't work with RGB.

 

If that's the case then I'm not sure what could be causing it to not work on the PSOne LCD.

 

What a great find.

 

Looks like it's a Caetla hack.

 

I want it

 

Oh its like this one!

I want it too!