Sony & Sega Devkits and Test Systems - Show & Tell
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- čas přidán 30. 10. 2019
- Devkits are a weird and wonderful world, expensive development and test systems which only rich developers have access to, until now. Alan brings to The Cave his collection of development systems for us to poke around in and enjoy.
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That's a lot of DevKits! If you could pick one which would you take? I'll distract Alan, you grab it!
Neil - RMC
Gotta have em all. How long can you distract him? 😈
That PS3 devkit is an absolute unit. Is there no way to extract that PS3_GAME data using a certain FTP server obtained from the usual places?
Where's the mighty PS TOOL? I nearly got my mits on one about 12 years ago!
I think I'd like the Dreamcast if I had to choose. :)
I want a shot of that awesome PS3 server. Owft!
I had 2 PS3 dev kits and 2 Xbox 360 dev kits on my desk when I was working for EA Sports Central Online in Orlando, FL. I could build on my PC and push to one or both (for whichever platform) and test the game in online mode. If you ever used SportsWorld (avatar on bottom right) or the OnDemand News (ESPN) from within an EA Sports game on either platform in game years 2008-2010, that's my code. My name (THOMAS BERNAL) is in all the sports games (PS3 & X360) for those years.
BTW I loved the X360 dev kit, hated the PS3. The Xbox 360 I could use Visual Studio to build, push, and remote debug. The PS3 had it's own remote debugger that sucked.
EE E EEEEEEEEEEEE
czcams.com/video/P1zFq4jLkJM/video.html
@@k001daddy Was ProDG also used for real PS3 debugging or is that just a thing that the homebrew community picked up?
@@KacKLaPPeN23 OMG yes, that's what that was called. I hated it! Yeah, that was legit.
guess those stories about devs hating ps3s are true
This is my 3rd time watching this. I can't stop. Dev kits are fascinating. It's like a peek into a world the consumers are not suppose to know!
That's awesome 😁
I worked at Sony on PS3-related software from 2007-2012, and I was so happy when the smaller devkits became available - I got rather tired of whacking my knee against the 2U rackmount one that I kept on the floor under my desk.
4:12 somehow that fumbling with the card, and giving up amused me more than it should have
😂 and how his face went from smiling to grumpy
and given up :D
Thanks for being an awesome host Neil :) I've nearly got everything I need to repair the Katana unit and build a development PC to go with it, we must do a follow-up once it's working..who knows what we will find hidden on it.
I've used a lot of these dev kits over the years. The initial version of the heavy PS3 dev kit did not throttle back the fans at all, so it was deafeningly loud, we all moved them under the desks until there was an update some moths later. I think the most interesting dev kit I used was for the Gameboy Advance. Rev1 was a bare circuitboard with a screen on it, and it was super sensitive to static electricity. If someone even walked past your cube when you were developing, the whole thing would crash. Thankfully, they eventually release a rev2 dev kit than had the screen and controls in a regular GBA case with a ribbon cable attached. This one was a lot more stable.
I'd actually forgotten what the GBA devkit was like until you mentioned it! I used the rev2 kit to develop "Family Feud", one of my only released games (only released in USA). I also worked on several DS games, but to my dismay none were ever released, including the semi-legendary "Mean Girls", which was just... awful. It was a bad game.
@@philipcorner574 Yeah, the rev 1 GBA devkit was horrible. They got it right with the DS one though, I worked on at least one unreleased DS game.
Worst thing about those beast PS3 devkits was the USB ports. By the end of that console gen, don't think I saw a single one which hadn't broken off in some way. Bluetac was applied liberally to hold cables in place! :)
@@TheRealBobHickman Which game?
@@philipcorner574 Interesting point on Mean Girls DS. That game is considered lost media at this time, so any info on the game would be greatly appreciated. I know 505 developed it, why was it cancelled aside from the game's quality?
APP/PS3_GAME is basically the debug game folder. If you loaded something on that debug drive, it would show up in that folder just like a regular game
Also, even if nothing shows up on the system itself there could still be data there that can be recovered though, if the HDD is the original one that was used during development. I know people on ObscureGamers.com have had lots of luck recovering deleted game builds from PS3/Xbox devkits in the past, could be worth reading up on there, or asking about it in their Discord. *(For the best chance of it make sure not to do too much with the system though, like making new save data/user profiles/installing packages/etc, since that can easily overwrite any deleted builds)*
@@Lucknutxbl Yeah image the drive and look into what's in the image
Could that game be Playstation Home?
I remember the PSP test units, never saw burned PSP discs. the only PSP discs I saw where the gold submission test discs for standards and final pass. They where always pressed.
The reason for Linux on the PS3 was a tariff dodge, with Linux it was classed as an pc and not a console, also the reason it banned from sale to embargoed countries. The PS3 Reference system is a 2U server chassis.
Sooo... no Linux on PS3 anymore? I want a PS3 for the LINUX! YELLOWDOG!! Weeeee!
@@pianokeyjoe I sold mine when The update just removed the boot option but just left the partition there taking up space. I was just using it as a thin client for my media server at that point and tinkering. I was mad. I kick myself now it was a gen 1 ps3.
Of course, that backfired a slightly when it was bought as a linux system and used by researchers because it was cheap for the hardware it had (which is a common console tactic - make the money back on games). Which is mentioned in the video, of course.
I used to leave my fat PS3 on almost constantly, so it could run that cell division screensaver that Sony included - it made for PS3 part of a distributed computing network that was specifically targeted toward helping find cures to certain cancers. Sadly, they removed that particular functionality after a few years. Wold love to see it brought back - but I suppose in an age where electronics corporations have to be increasingly conscious of the Co2 and Carbon emissions associated with their products, it's unlikely. :(
nope, that's still a thing! the same organization is alive and well. it's being utilized now more than ever actually. just not on PS3's anymore. -- it's called "Folding At Home" and you can install it to run on any Windows/Mac PC, or anything that runs Linux. - foldingathome.org
computers are so powerful these days, it can do a lot of work in the background or on standby without even using that much power. but of course you can still look at the awesome visuals and control its usage however you want
@@RyanMan767 someone needs to integrate folding@home with a crypto coin so that crypto miners actually do something productive!
@@JaredConnell that is so true!
I remember leaving my PS3 on, as well, and feeling all proud that I was somehow helping the World... lol
@@RyanMan767 so if you could get your hands on a modded ps3 or one on a firmware with other os you could do this on a ps3
Great video.
I was in a video game bar in Tokyo and they have one of the dreamcast dev kits used to develop shenmue..... Also... I touched it
That is a relic!
Did you enjoy touching it? What did you experience?
I've got one of those blue PS1 debug stations! Picked it up from one of the Assembler guys in the aftermath of the Acclaim bankruptcy way back when, I think I paid about $90 for it? It's even still got an Acclaim asset tag on the bottom. :) Buddy of mine got one of the green ones at the same time. As it's multi-region it's still my go-to system for playing PS1 games even today.
Thats Awesome!
Between two the Green Debugstation is more desirable. If the game was programed without the patch to overcome the chipset error the game will crash on the Blue Debugstation since this one's designed to do so. :)
From Acclaim bankrupt sale I bought the PS2TEST myself.
@@gunplaojisan7557 Neat! I knew there was a difference beyond the color but wasn't sure what it was. I haven't yet run into any retail games that won't run on it.
I'd love to get one of those PS2TEST machines as well. One day...
@@djsquarewave That was the point of Blue and Green Debugstations. Retail games must ran without crashing on both Debugstation before it could be mastered. :)
Fellow Dev Kit collector over here - this is what I have.... Game Cube GDEV, Game Boy Advance, Wii, XBOX DVT-4 with unreleased game on the HDD, PS2 TOOL, PSP, Vita, DSi and some weird SNES kit. Naturally I loved watching this video and am also a big fan of Fusion magazine too - its like this video was made just for me :)
Oh man, I wish I would own the blue PS1 Testkit...
My collection holds so far:
• PS3 Testkit
• 2x PS2 Testkit (Slim and Fat)
• PS Vita Testkit
I worked at studios during the PS2 and PS3 lifecycles. I remember someone dropping one of the server sized PS3 dev kits on the floor (there is a 1U version of the same kit, IIRC)... They were expensive and it did not go down well... But thats what happens at 4am and hitting crunch time of year! It made the biggest noise I had ever heard, this was in the old Psygnosis office... Looking back on those menus brings back so many good memories :) a few friends still have the Net Yaroze's and a few still have the PS3 FATs with regions free PS2's inside. The PS4 dev kit early revisions (before third party studios go a hold of them) had a reset button that accidentally bricked the device before they were patched... Good times... So many good launch day titles from first parties...
RMC : "It's a different beast.. all together".
Everybody else : "It's a different beast".
Surely you can't be serious
I can ...
@@RMCRetro I am serious. And don't call me Shirley.
I definitely did not expect an Airplane! reference here
Absolutely love all of these different dev kits and debug systems!! It's crazy how far gaming has come. Thank you for bringing these to the cave!!
The Error you're getting when trying to access the directory on the PS3 Reference kit is fine.
The directory is a shortcut to the root folder of the game you've currently loaded. If you had a blu-ray loaded or emulated it would allow you to access the game files and load the game using that shortcut.
That's right - sorry to disappoint anyone hoping for "hidden games" but it's just a shortcut, there's no game data there.
upvote this so RetroManCave can see!
@@CNash85 Correct, hard drive is not original. I remember original hard drive was Hgst, Toshiba or Hitachi. Sony never would use Seagate.
So, during development, hard drive might have been removed or destroyed. Either upgrade because space is not sufficient for development console. As such GTA 5 couldn't install on 40 GB hard drive.
attention collectors. Make sure you actually know what you're buying. ;)
@@technocody9296 or Maxtor on their PS2 development kits/external drives
Great video! I was working in games in the early 2000’s and we had a couple of the larger PS2 devkits with “Tool” on the side, they were massive!
This video is fantastic. Thank you for everything you do and all the effort that goes into your channel.
You are most welcome and thank you for taking the time to watch
32:42 /app_home/PS3_GAME/ will start the HDD mounted game - similar as if you would click the disc button when a real BD-Game is inserted
Great video. Going old school I remember PDS being used on a PC where code could be written then downloaded to the Atari ST or Amiga. My friend coded a few games professionally and he and another employee wrote a homebrew version so we could write on an Atari ST/Falcon and send the executable to another ST or an Amiga. This saved time as we didn't have to write to floppy, transfer it to the target machine, reboot, etc. If the target machine crashed we had a debug screen saying where it had stopped and why. Unfortunately there was no feedback like PDS which took you to the line in your source that caused the crash.
Mind blown that Ridge Racer fit in 2MB without audio.
The PS2 "TEST" systems will not play (movie) DVDs.
Great video guys, thanks to both of you- nice.
That Dreamcast Katana- there was one at VCF West. It was a beautiful machine
Ahhhhh, Devil Dice!!
My mom loved that game and I still have it! :)
Such a satisfying video, guys. Thanks for sharing.
Now THAT'S a treat thanks Neil and Mark
Fascinating.. RMC would love to see you do the restoration...
I love seeing old prototype consoles and dev kits! It's a fascinating peek behind the curtain of gaming history.
Very interesting video. Thanks Neil and Alan.
I used to work at PlayStation in 2005 and was there at one of the best times for me personally because it was during the transition of PS2 to PS3, the launch of the PSP and the birth of PlayStation Network. On my desk I had the PS2 "TEST" units (I still own one at home) as well as the PSP and PS3 dev kits. Fantastic times, especially since the bulk of my employment was at the old Psygnosis offices and got to have really good chats with some of the original staff and look at boxes and boxes of old Psygnosis artwork from some of their best games, I even managed to get my name in quite a few games of the time including the PSP version of Lemmings.
Really cool Video! Thanks a lot!
These things look so cool. The National Videogame Museum have also got a bundle of Dev kits on display 👍
I loved you could play any CD while you played Ridge Racer!
Great video, really interesting, thanks
PS2 best memories for me. 2001 I will never forget the amazing games that came out that year.
Great video and share knowledge . THANK YOU ! ! !
Man, that DC start up sound..! So many memories!
Interesting collection, thanks for sharing
Great Video as Always I did have 2 Boxed Net Yaroze’s in the collection with boxed software unfortunately were wasted with me as had as display items so are now with new owners who are using them to try and develop on 😁
The PS2 TOOL seems conspicuous by its absence in this collection. Does Alan have plans on trying to get his hands on one?
don't think there's need to have one unless one is actually working on making PS2 games? :)
Also it'd be far too big to carry around me think.
Pretty hard to get supposedly, didn't Square Enix buy like every single functioning one they could get their hands on?
This vid was great, thanks Neil!
You're welcome James!
Fantastic show
Dev kits just look cool. End of. Great vid Mr. RMC :)
I wonder if the MIDI ports on the DC were used for an ad-hoc comms to emulate having a modem for online play etc. It'd be fast enough - 31250 bits per second, compared to the speeds we'd get get on a phone line back in those days.
lovely video, thanks!
Your high quality content deserves way more than about 89k subs. Speaking of quality: Where is that awesome background music from?
Thanks so much! The music comes from Epidemic sounds which is a subscription service which gives me rights to use their library. It still takes a lot of searching to find suitable tracks though!
Amazing video! That PS3 devkit is impressive....
A friend of mine had a PS2 dev kit, similar to the one seen here however it was about twice as thick as this on the lower “thinner” bit from the front, which housed a separate Linux system which had its own hard drive and dev tools on it. He got it in a none working state, fixed it up and got it working and later sold it on for around 3 times what he paid for it when it wasn’t working.
A nice system, had a monitor out for the dev environment and a TV out to test the game with in system.
I quite enjoyed this video, thanks
Another superb video mate. Really like the look of the "patent posters" in your Etsy shop. Do you plan sell any Amiga or Sinclair ones in the future? Thanks.
This is definitely a treat for Halloween.
Interesting stuff! I did some game testing for a PSP title while living in Tokyo years ago, however I cannot recall if the test consoles had the cable pre-attached. What is the cool music from 37:10, by the way?
Excellent!
Two things:
1. The PS1 doesn't do signed executables, it just checks the wobble of the CD
2. The Dreamcast does have MIDI in and out, it's part of the general output connector (IIRC)
Subscription achieved today pal ,and now four hours later and one phone charge....still watching your stuff 👌👌👌now that's a binge
Hehe welcome aboard Chris and thank you for taking the time to Sub
Cream? Cream!? Surely it's grey!
😂 I totally missed I said that in editing. Yes Grey!
I very nearly got a ps1 for my birthday when it came out, my mum was on holiday visiting some relatives in Australia, I knew she wouldn't allow me to get a games console for my birthday (or I strongly believed that to be the case) so I badgered my dad and we trapsed around trying to find one but they were sold out everywhere. I eventually panicked and decided to get a Sega saturn as they were available and I feared my window of opportunity was closing. I have the one with the round grey power and reset buttons, I still love it but at the time it wasn't what I wanted, the PS1 seemed so much sexier.
Funnily my mum ended knowing a guy in Belgium who worked for Sega and he gave us a free mega drive with some games and a free saturn so I also have the black elliptical button version too 🙂
The leaked images of the PS5 that appeared not long ago, are actually dev kits, so they are not going away anytime soon :D
That is the actual console.
Nice vid thanks
great stuff
When the PS2 came out, the fact that you could use it as a DVD player is the only reason my parents bought me one brand new lol
I'd really love some footage of the debugging being done on these.
A few facts about the CELL Processor: It was made by the STIDC, the Sony, Toshiba, IBM design center. It was used in a number of supercomputers like the SuperMUC or RoadRunner. The PS3 clusters running on linux could not use the GPU, as access to that was restricted beyond the framebuffer. The supercomputers did not have a GPU, but instead used that bus to attach a second Cell CPU to the first. Lastly, the PS3 and the Cell Processor were export-restricted to some countries not for their computing power, but because they contained crypto IP that was considdered sensitive.
I love Alan Hammerton, he's my hero!!!
He truly is a lovely man
A good friend
Is the PS3 pc style dev kit boot hard drive encrypted and locked like the retail ones are? Because I would hate to have to throw it out when the drive fails.
I really wish my desktop looked like that PS3 Ref one. It looks super cool.
Devil dice, i remember seeing the trailer for it on a playstation station at the shopping centre, all it did was show preview of games to come out, about 10 buttons on the side of the container showing off 10 different trailers, Devil dice was one of them and i remember Mr Domino was another
Fascinating
Now that the Net Yaroze has shown up in the cave I expect the prices to go even higher, Bugger.. I always wanted one because it came in black. Fantastic insight into the gear used to create some of our favourite games.
Now you've gone and gotten me into DevKits! :)
I apologise to you and your wallet
You had better apologise to your bank manager as well :)
An interesting hobby. I haven't really heard of people collecting dev kits before. I love that rack-mount PS3. Pop it in a rack at work... SAN... VDI... PS3...
Did anyone else feel a slight pang of sadness when we found out that the Dreamcast dev kit was damaged in transit and now doesn’t work properly
Interesting to see Alterra FPGA chips in the Sony dev systems. Actually pretty smart way of updating hardware behavior of actual machines as release time approaches. They just change the FPGA setup to match and they're off.
Idea: The midi ports on the Katana could be used to let it provide the metronome beat for the in-game music as it's being scored. (and govern game/music synchronization in other ways)
Remember wanting a Yaroze, being a bit of a back bedroom coder. I remember trying to raise money from the Prince's Trust in the early 90s to start a games company with a couple of friends from college. We were focusing on the ST and Amiga towards the end of life with the idea of using them as a platform to move onto other platforms eventually. Our interview didn't go well. The interviewers wanted to know why we were focusing on these machines instead of the SNES and Megadrive. They didn't get it that, at the time, dev kits for those cost something like £10,000 each and, being new to the industry, notwithstanding the fact that they weren't going to give us £10,000 for one, never mind £20,000 for two, it would be difficult for us to persuade SEGA and Nintendo to let us buy one.
That was a cool video. That big boy ps3 dev kit speaks to me.
The RidgeRacer less than 2mb thing is true, you could even swap out the game disc at the main menu for an audio cd of your choice and race to your own tunes!
And boy did Sony annoy the airforce when they removed linux native support from the PS3. I feel sorry for the poor intern tasked with telling some grizzled General that his supercomputer wasn't working anymore, but worst case scenario they just might be able to have the worlds largest CoD4 LAN lobby
@Dillon Sykes Actually, the "Condor Cluster" came online after Sony removed Other OS (Update 3.21 dropped in march 2010, Condor came online November 2010)
@Dillon Sykes *HAVE
@Dillon SykesThe average IQ there must be below 75.
i always find these things so interesting , Devkits from previous generations. Now that consoles are moving to a more PC like architecture, we might see dev kits disappear, but im sure Test consoles will still be around. Blue PS1 looks soo cool only costs a flight to japan
The PS2 had a large dev system before the test one came out. It was as big as the one for the PS3 but amazingly, it was shaped like PS2, thins and all!
A big wave of nostalgia for the Net Yaroze. We had a couple of these in the computer lab at Plymouth university 95-99. I decided to create a game with big ambitions, but soon realised learning C, the IDE and libraries in 1 semester was rather over ambitious! We had them hooked up to Macs, I’m guessing Performa or Quadra. IDE was CodeWarrior and the Net Yaroze came with a lot of inbuilt tools to get going. I managed a very average bottom-top 2D scrolling shooter. I should still have it on a Jazz disk somewhere 😄
I don’t think you could understand how hard my jaw hit the floor when I saw that sega katana. I didn’t know that was a thing!!! I’ve had this dream of building an amstrad dream pc. Half 1999-2001ish gaming pc half Dreamcast or Naomi. But I could use that instead.
Loved my 1st and only console... the original PS 1, that big square thing, built like a tank, last ages.
Rebug is very popular PS3 Custom Firmware that gives debug menu and some debug features to all PS3's - that can have a custom firmware installed on them.
I have a full Net Yaroze devkit here! (In the UK) including cables, key card, discs, and manuals! I bought it from Sony around about year 2000 I think. Can't fully remember. I joined the offical sony newsgroups (yes we used news servers!) and developed some PC Serial comms software for Windows 95 which I called PSXComm. I remember some great community games, including a clone of Dr Robotnics Mean Bean Machine - but I can't rememebr what it was called! I also have the PS2 Linux Kit - an offical linux environment for PS2 which you could write games in. They were complicated!
in the psp dev kit i noticed a altera cyclone V. i wonder what the fpga was being used for.
The PCEngine dev system was pretty interesting. Very rare.
My guess would be that the midi port was for music developing for the kit...
The best way to read the Katana drive is to take it out of the devkit and attach it to a PC.
Then make a byte for byte dump so anything on there (whether its deleted or not) can be recovered if nothing is overwritten
Done that to my Devkit and got ToeJam & Earl 3 recovered that way. Of you need help, drop me a message
Okay, so does the access card do the same for any other PSX? Because it super duper sounds like the black "dev kit PSX's" most notable feature, was that it was black.
It's a pity that many of the new devkits require a whitelisted IP and have to "phone home" to actually function. Without a live account they're basically bricks :(
@Ali Hendrickson Agreed. Right now I recently discovered a revival of Playstation Home, MAG, Socom: Confrontation. And other PSN Titles that have medius servers with Sony. If the Medius servers can get reverse engineered, they can comeback online and be use-able again!
"trick up our sleeve which we will reveal later". Going to guess Sega since it's in the title.
I would of gotten away with it if it wasn't for you pesky Zabulus
@@RMCRetro oh dammit, now I have to get a dog, a van and another guy and two girls to solve mysteries with. All your fault!
fascinating
I have a few PS2 and PS3 debugging stations, been trying hard for awhile to get at least one working PS3 reference tool. For people that have the PS2 debugging station that wont load updates via the memory card you can put the install for FMCB on a master disc and just install anything to a HDD in your system.
I just noticed that the psp dev unit houses an altera fpga . pretty cool.
Is the video upscaled from lower res to 1080p, or isn't it fully processed yet by YT?
It was uploaded today so perhaps YT is processing it? It is recorded and edited at 1080p
@@RMCRetro Awesome video nontheless :)
There was another dev for the PsOne called the PsOne Tool. It was switched to this because Sony wanted to do an office environment and to make it easier to develop games for the PsOne. Surprisingly, the Dev kits came bundled with a PsOne DTL bios to test games and Microsoft Windows 98 to develop them. There's images online
I really want to know what's on that Katana system.
I actually own almost every one of these. I have a Katana, NDEV, Gamecube devtower, red wii, green wii, ps3 slim and phat devkit (has bonk brink of extinction on it), psp test and psp tool, ps2 test unit (wish i had a tool), xbox 360 prototype dev kits, couple prototype 360 controllers. Probably missing something here...just can't recall. Oh, right hah silly me, the two PS1 units plus the entire PS1 PC dev kit (PCI cards that go into a computer). Too think, this is nothing compared to some people :| Wish I had the PS3 stuff he has :(