Older video game consoles from the ’90s might not have the same level of fancy graphics or perform as well as the expensive beasts of today.One advantage they do have—they were built with repairability in mind. That modularity means they tend to have a longer shelf life, and makes them ripe for tinkering and modding for those so inclined.
Elliot Coll, a YouTuber who runs the channel Retro Future, is one of those tinkerers. His most recent project: taking a trashed and neglected original PlayStation and upgrading it with an assortment of modern bells and whistles. It’s like the video game enthusiast version of restoring old muscle cars with modern parts that make them more drivable—and less likely to blow up in smoke. In this case, Coll outfitted a three-decade-old device with 1080p HDMI output, SD card game loading, a wireless controller, and USB-C charging. The end result, he says, is the “ultimate PS1.”
From trash to treasure: reviving an abandoned PlayStation
Coll says he snagged the PlayStation off eBay for what seemed like a good deal. The excitement of that bargain wore off when he plugged it in and found out it didn’t work. Physically, the device was a sorry sight as well, caked in dirt and miscellaneous debris from a long gaming career. Coll removed the console’s filthy exterior shell and gave it a bath in hot soapy water.
Poking around the console, Coll immediately spotted something unusual. Soldered onto the back was a small metal rectangle. The errant piece of metal was clearly added by “someone who isn’t Sony,” as he put itWhen Coll removed the metal rectangle and read the markings on it, he discovered it was a modification that had likely allowed the former owner to play games outside the console’s assigned geographic region. Looking over the motherboard, he found another mod that appeared to have let someone play games burned onto unofficial discs. Coll clearly wasn’t the first one to fiddle with this device.
Once the old mods were out, Coll was free to start making his own additions to the now-blank PlayStation canvas. First, he added a pre-assembled PicoStation ZeroWire mod board. The board connects to the circuit board and essentially lets the original PlayStation launch games from an SD card. That addition, crafted with feedback from the modding community, takes a process that would otherwise require considerable skill and patience and makes it relatively straightforward, as long as the user is comfortable with a soldering iron.
Next, Coll installed an HDMI adapter picked up from Amazon. With some fiddling, he was able to get the device to upscale to 1080p. That makes classic games much easier on the eyes during extended play sessions. Finally, Coll added a mod that made the device compatible with wireless controllers over Bluetooth. A reminder in case you were not playing “Crash Bandicoot” in 1996,” the original PlayStation used a wired controller.With these changes, someone playing the “ultimate PS1” could do so with a PS5 controller—in theory
To top it all off, Coll sent the shell to a colleague who gave it a custom “dev kit blue” paint job. The new coating is a nod to the dark blue PS1 seen in promotional videos from the ‘90s that was never actually sold to the public.
And, most importantly, the new and improved console actually worked. Fittingly, Coll tested it by playing “Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater.”
The post Tinkerer transforms a filthy 1990s PlayStation into the ‘ultimate PS1’ appeared first on Popular Science.