Mon 23 Apr 2007
After thinking about using the NES as a embedded system, I thought about what can be done with the original PlayStation. There is already available information on an undocumented UART in the Emotion Engine CPU of the PS2, so it would be natural to see if something similar was also included in the R3000A-based PlayStation processor. Without any available documentation for the CXD8606, it would be a difficult task to figure out which pins are connected to the UART, providing one exists. Sure there are only 208 pins, but that is a lot of time. Looking at the Toshiba and IDT derivatives of the R3000A, both include a UART. The Toshiba device is also in a 208 pin format and seems to have some promise. That is to say, the pins on the PS1 mainboard that are labeled as ROM address and data in the Toshiba datasheet seem to be going to the ROM, etc. I will test this in the lab later and will hopefully be able to expose the dark underbelly of PS1 games through a serial port.
( tx3907f2ds.pdf )
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