6/2/2023 0 Comments Playstation classic pcsx![]() RX is likely the remaining pin that isn’t VCC. When you have the right baud rate and other serial settings, you should see readable data being received. The next pin I’d recommend locating is TX, which will go into the RX pin on the USB TTL adapter. GND can be found with the continuity buzzer mode on a multimeter connecting the pin and a known ground point, such as the metal casing of the USB port. It’s worth checking the output of the pins before connecting anything.Ī trick to locating UART pins - is to start with the easy to find pins first, then work your way back. However, you may see other voltages, such as 1.8V. The UART runs at 3.3V, which is quite common (along with 5V). When connecting to UART with a USB TTL adapter, you do not need to connect the power (VCC). The image below shows the pin layout for the UART interface (excuse my bad soldering job). Later on, when using fastboot, we’ll connect the PSC to a computer over USB. To actually boot the PSC, it needs to be powered by a wall socket as the operating system checks the charger type. Unfortunately (for us) device manufacturers are now restricting UART to output messages only, password protecting logins, or using a restricted shell to limit command usage. You’ll often find messages are output to the UART interface, or even a usable shell prompt. A USB to TTL adapter is a valuable adapter for communicating with a target device’s UART interface and costs only a few dollars. It uses four pins: ground (GND), transmit (TX), receive (RX) and power (VCC). UART is an asynchronous serial communication protocol for data transmission between two devices. It’s likely the pins are mapped to General Purpose Input/Output (GPIO) pins on the System on a Chip (SoC) which are being checked by boot scripts to enable/serial the serial interface.įortunately, I didn’t need spend time working this out as the location and purpose of these pins was already publicly known, thanks to Yifan Lu. However, output is disabled once the operating system has booted to a certain point unless the following two pins on the 'SIDE B' of the board are bridged together. There is a UART interface on the PlayStation Classic. The first step to gaining visibility of how the PSC works is looking for debugging interfaces, such as Universal Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitter (UART) or Joint Test Action Group (JTAG). There’s more soldering and destruction involved, but it works and the same methodology applies to other similar devices. However, this blog post is about hardware hacking, so we’re going to take the PSC apart instead and reflash a modified rootfs partition to give us a root shell over serial. You just pop in a USB flash drive with a prepared script, and off you go. The advantage of gaining command execution through USB is it’s easy for users to exploit. The GPG keys are stored on the flash to allow authorised update providers to run update scripts on the PSC to make changes to the file system - as the PSC has no network connectivity. These projects rely on executing an arbitrary shell script on the PSC by encrypting and signing a script with GPG keys and a passphrase that is stored on the flash in /root/.gpg. ![]() Googling for “hack playstation classic”, you’ll come across projects like BleamSync and AutoBleam for loading up extra game ROMs. Essentially the PSC is a Raspberry Pi with a couple of USB controllers. It is a fork for ARM processors of the PCSX-Reloaded emulator. ![]() The console runs an open source emulator called PCSX-ReARMed. The PSC comes with 20 game ROMs stored on the flash, and they’re loaded into the console emulator from the retro looking UI. Unlike modern gaming consoles, a minimal amount of effort has gone into securing the console. It comes with a cool miniature version of the original console casing, and two controllers. The PlayStation Classic (PSC) is a hobbyist gaming console - for the nostalgic types. Ben discusses a method for gaining a root shell on the PlayStation Classic with the use of hardware hacking techniques.
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