Nintendo PlayStation repaired CD drive

Now everything works as it should in the “nonexistent” game console.

On SNES-CD, the console, which is also called the Nintendo PlayStation, was already told on Geektimes. This system was found and dismantled last year; then we learned from which components the prefix was created. Unfortunately, the console prototype did not reproduce the sound, and the CD drive did not start. After traveling to Hong Kong, the prefix stopped showing a picture - something broke.
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In order for this “something” to be repaired, the owners of Nintendo PlayStation Terry and Dan Diebolda (Terry and Dan Diebold) turned to Ben Heck, a well-known specialist in hardware. The device owners wanted their system to start working again. Heck agreed to carry out repair work, and took two videos at once with a demonstration of this process.

Let me remind you, the console Terry Diebold received along with a bunch of different things, bought them from the company in which he once worked. For $ 75, Terry purchased several boxes of various things, including CDs, cups, saucers, hole punching and other office supplies. And in one of the boxes there was a game console, which turned out to be the legendary SNES-CD.



Of course, Ben Heck gladly took up the proposed work. During the disassembly of the console was able to find out some interesting details of the design of the device. Firstly, the button that was responsible for the release of SNES cartridges was blocked and did not function while the console was running. Power was connected to SNES-CD in a special Sony connector - in the 90s the company used such a connector in many of its camcorders. At the bottom of the console is an additional expansion slot - probably, the company designed it to connect additional modules that Nintendo could have developed if the development of the console had continued and had not been abandoned.

Inside, the console almost completely repeated the design of the SNES. Exception - CD drive.

Ben Heck used a special plug for power supply (7.5 V). He also removed a few extra wires, swapped places and replaced some jumpers. He also blew the cartridge connector in order for the system to work with it again (it was necessary to somehow check the performance of this method). As for pushing through the base of the cartridge - of course, this is more of a joke than a real attempt to fix something in this way.

Unfortunately, the CD-ROM is still not working. System check was stopped on the test "CD I / F". The console sent commands to the drive, but there were no response signals. According to Ben, this meant that there was nothing catastrophic and irreparable. He suggested that the drive was turned off on purpose, before transferring the console to the first owner.

After replacing a number of old capacitors and eliminating part of the wires leading to the drive controller, it began to work again. Unfortunately, no one has the original software for SNES-CD, so it was not possible to test the operation of the hardware. But one can hope that everything works as it should. An interesting point is that in order for the CD-ROM to work, you need to insert a cartridge into the console. On the cartridge there is a ROM with a loader and a memory for placing the data read from the disk. The amount of memory - 256 KB. The most important is the code in this ROM.



In any case, this system works fine as the original SNES. Soon, participants in the project to restore the console hope to test the operation of the CD drive, using the recently created software and game. The game was written this year . Creating it, the developers first made a dump of the cartridge firmware. Then the calls to the ports that were used in the finalization of the emulator were highlighted. Restored and file system. The gameplay is a bit strange. In the game, a nameless Sony executive finds out that the console prototype technology was somehow stolen and made public. These technologies were used to create an emulator. And the responsible manager goes to the streets to fight those who have leaked the technology. On the way of a talented manager who turned out to be a fist fight master, there are various heroes of other games, including Sackboy from LittleBigPlanet, Parappa the Rapper and others.

Maybe soon this game will be able to run on the console, using its CD drive.



UPD. It turns out that the audio CD was not read because the laser diode is too weak in the system. If you install a stronger, then the discs are likely to be read without problems.