The nsOne challenge joins a rising neighborhood of homebrew PlayStation 1 {hardware} developments. Different current tasks embody Picostation, a Raspberry Pi Pico-based optical disc emulator (ODE) that enables PlayStation 1 consoles to load video games from SD playing cards as a substitute of bodily discs. Different ODEs like MODE and PSIO have additionally turn out to be in style options for retrogaming collectors who play video games on authentic {hardware} as optical drives age and fail.
From restore job to reverse-engineering challenge
To grasp the traditional console’s bodily structure, Brodesco bodily sanded down an authentic motherboard to show its inner layers, then cross-referenced the uncovered traces with part datasheets and repair manuals.
“I spotted that detailed documentation on the unique motherboard was both incomplete or totally unavailable,” Brodesco defined in his Kickstarter marketing campaign. This discovery launched what would turn out to be a complete documentation effort, together with tracing each connection on the board and creating multi-layer graphic representations of the circuitry.
Utilizing optical scanning and guide net-by-net reverse-engineering, Brodesco recreated the PlayStation 1’s schematic in fashionable PCB design software program. This course of concerned creating part symbols with correct pin mappings and figuring out—or in some circumstances creating—the right footprints for every proprietary part that Sony had by no means publicly documented.
Brodesco additionally recognized what he calls the “minimal structure” required as well the console with out BIOS modifications, streamlining the design course of whereas sustaining full compatibility.
The mock-up board proven in pictures validates the footprints of chips and connectors, all redrawn from scratch. In line with Brodesco, a completely routed model with full multilayer routing and last structure is already in growth.
As Brodesco famous on Kickstarter, his challenge’s purpose is to “create complete documentation, design information, and production-ready blueprints for manufacturing totally practical motherboards.”
Past repairs, the documentation and design information Brodesco is creating would protect the PlayStation 1’s {hardware} structure for future generations: “It is a tribute to the PS1, to retro {hardware}, and to the idea that one particular person actually can construct the inconceivable.”
