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Developer Heart: Sony PlayStation 1 Devkits

The platform’s father, Ken Kutaragi, designed the PlayStation not just as a response to inappropriate actions on the part of Nintendo, he sought to create a reference product that all game devs of the generation will focus on. Taking into account the experience and mistakes of the closest competitors, Kutaragi created the most user-friendly system for the developer, who eventually gained phenomenal success among gamers of the nineties. And the reason for this, on the one hand, was the experience on the Nintendo Play Station , on the other hand, some experience in the production of the Sony Network Engineering Workstation (NEWS) family of computers , but most importantly, Kutaragi’s indefatigable desire to create the console of his dreams.



It is logical that the first PlayStation prototypes called MW.2(DTL-H500 revision), and then the revised MW.3 (DTL-H505 revision) received hardware completely compatible with Sony NEWS , thereby opening up the possibility of developing the first games for the still-designed console. In principle, this practice was not new and was actively used to create the FM Towns Marty and Amiga CD32 by Fujitsu and Commodore, respectively. MW.3 in fact was both a devkit and the console itself. And so that at first you did not have to be wiser with the exterior, it was completely borrowed from the Sony NWS-3710 .



The MW.3 was a bulky and expensive device without an integrated CD-ROM and hard drive. But the SCSI interface made it possible to connect both. It is noteworthy that in addition to standard composite connectors and S-video, RGB-scart was located on the rear panel, unfortunately, it did not get into the retail version of the console. However, the technological solution to combine NEWS with the future console was not supported by SN Systems , which worked in cooperation with Psygnosis .

The fact is that, having acquired Psygnosis studio , Sony not only got an experienced game dev, but also access to SN Systems development tools . Psygnosis , as before, Cross products, became a licensee of SN Systems development tools . This time around, Psy-Q, a quick toolkit for programmers compared to SNASM, became such a product.



What can I say, to adopt the monstrous and inconvenient in programming MW.3 was not easy. Therefore, SN Systems optimized the received PlayStation specifications by placing all the iron consoles on 2 expansion boards of the ISA standard for an IBM PC-compatible computer. In addition to an external CD-ROM and a CD-ROM emulator board, a special adapter was included in the kit for the PlayStation Board (DTL-H2000 revision), which allows connecting gamepads from MW.3 and a memory card, and 8 MB of RAM additionally expanded the capabilities of programmers.



“The PlayStation inside a regular PC” was so impressed with Sony's leadership that it immediately gave the project a green light. So in January 1994, the PlayStation Board (revision of DTL-H2000) became the official tool for game development , completely replacing the bundle “MW.3 - Sony NEWS” . The software contained a C compiler, assembler, linker, and a library management program, including those written by Sony, which provided developers with a very comfortable environment for creativity. Nevertheless, some differences between the devkit and the retail console forced the final testing of games on the debugging console Blue debugging unit (revision of DTL-H1000).





Subsequently, SN Systems transferred the hardware to one PCI expansion card, releasing two revisions of the DTL-H2500 and DTL-H2700, respectively. The architecture of the devkit was brought to a practical ideal to the delight of both large gaming studios and independent developers. It is noteworthy that the serial PlayStation underwent minor changes from revision to revision, so games were now debugged both on the Blue debugging unit and on the updated Green debugging unit test station (DTL-H1200 revision).





But the Psy-Q PlayStation Plug-in development system , based on the Blue debugging unit, became the limit of SN Systems perfection.. The Psy-Q set consisted of an adapter connected to the console expansion port, an ISA standard expansion card, a SCSI cable for connecting the PC station to the PlayStation and a boot disk. The Psy-Q PlayStation Plug-in was fully compatible with the DTL-H2000, DTL-H2500, and DTL-H2700 revision software and was much cheaper. Interestingly, Psy-Q did not allow the CD-ROM drive emulator to be connected and worked with 2 MB of RAM, but this did not prevent the wide spread of devkit among developers.



4 years after the development of MW.3 , Sony introduced its second system for game devs, a devkit for indie developers Net Yaroze(revision of DTL-H3002). In fact, the system was similar to the blue and green test stations, adjusted for black and the inability to run CD-R. In general, the architecture of Net Yaroze did not differ from the retail version of the SCPH-1002 console, but thanks to a serial cable for connecting to a PC, a special access card, a boot disk and a disk with a Net Yaroze Software development kit, it turned into a full-fledged developer kit. Surprisingly, at some universities in Europe, the USA and Japan, Sony was engaged in mass training in game programming using Net Yaroze, thereby expanding the horizons of its personnel policy.



In addition to the blue and green debugging consoles, as well as the black indie devkit, there was a so-calledSony PlayStation SCPH-1002 Continuity Checker , a check station designed to test peripheral devices for functionality. The main feature of the system was the presence of special LEDs marked “NG” and “Good”, as well as an additional Start button that starts the check test. The main marker of health was the voltage reading between the controller / memory card and the console itself. Interestingly, the main buttons of the Reset, Power, Open console were painted the same color as the blue debug station, making the check station truly unique.



Of course, the debut of Sony PlayStation dramatically changed the idea of ​​game developers about the potential of home consoles. This was facilitated by many factors: the liberal policy of Sony, the convenience of programming games, the abundance of top studios that supported the system. It is true that the Sony PlayStation quickly gained cult status, dramatically changing the balance of power in the mid-90s.

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