Counterfeit PS1 Memory cards or Genuine?

I have two PSOne (in color scheme at last) memory cards that didn't work, so I took them apart to see if there was anything obviously wrong. There wasn't. But I was quite surprised how different they looked on the inside. 

One had a big SONY emblazoned on the flash chip itself, the other had no mention of Sony anywhere. The PC boards certainly looked like different kinds of layouts, different pcboard dye, etc, and one was taller than the other. Since both were dead I can't speculate about the "crappy" counterfeit quality. 

Certainly I expect Sony made several iterations of their 128KB memory cards over the many years the PS1 was sold, but since these are both PSOne colored I assume them to be from that relatively short era at the end of the life cycle of the PSX.

PS: the PSone was named in contrast to the PS2, and was a smaller but genuine full-fledged PS1 console made by Sony and sold concurrently with the PS2. Sometimes it's called the PS1mini, creating confusion today since it's entirely different than the ARM based emulator sold a decade(plus) later to retro enthusiasts who didn't know better.

So what do you think? Do I have One, Two(!) or zero counterfeit memory cards?

Comments

Post a Comment

Email me

Name

Email *

Message *

Popular posts from this blog

Panasonic TH-42PX75U Plasma TV review: input lag and upscaling tested using the piLagTesterPRO

Image
This 720p Plasma TV from 2008 is very unique and quite nice in many ways. It used to retail for around $1300. If you can find one it's a great choice for retro gaming.  Overview/Image quality This is a plasma TV, which generally means at least the following: nearly infinite viewing angles, and jaw dropping weight. That's true in this case as well. This 42" model weights 75lbs.  At native resolution (720p) this TV crops 20 pixels off the top/bottom and 30 off the sides. 480p/i crops 20 pixels off all sides. Both modes have aliasing, too, though it's not too bad. There's really no excuse for aliasing on a TV this big: you know the panel was designed specifically to be a tv. Why not hit 720p exactly? And as for 480p/i, they could have at least offered a zoomed out mode with black borders and 1:1 pixel mapping. But no such luck. There are zoom/stretch options to crop even more, but none that crop less. While the native resolution supposedly is 1366 x 768 it does accept...
Read more

piLagTester PRO order page

Image
The piLagTesterPRO measures your monitor's input lag and response time. It is a cheap, full featured add-on to the Raspberry Pi; I provide the sensor and required software, you provide the Pi (a $5 pi Zero is more than sufficient). Although it has a DIY aesthetic, it is quite functional and in fact offers quite a lot more features than the commercial alternatives (Leo Bodnar and the Time Sleuth), and has been tested with over 40 TVs, including 4k models .  Here's what it looks like in action: The pi draws a black background, and then roughly once a second displays a set of target rectangles (top/middle/bottom). You place the sensor over the desired target, and the piLagTester measures the monitor's response starting from the moment the frame of video data is sent over the Pi's HDMI port. This is plotted in the graph, which is sideways for space reasons. The lag tester measures two thresholds. In red it shows how long it takes for the monitor to start displaying t...
Read more

A $5 TV Input Lag tester using a Raspberry Pi Zero

Image
High speed monitors are all the rage now, with quoted response times  of 1-4ms. But does that mean that 1-4ms after you make an input (say, jump) you will see that on your screen? No. Often a much bigger issue is  Input lag. This is   the delay between your computer / game console sending a video frame to your display and your display starting to actually show it, and it ranges from 4ms to 80ms. The problem with measuring input lag is that you can't, at least with everyday hardware. The solution for hardware review sites is to purchase dedicated lag testers such as the leo bodnar tester,  timesleuth (both ~$100), or the pi lag tester pro ($40) or use homegrown methods utilizing an oscilloscope ("free" if you already own a $400+ oscilloscope and perhaps a $50k+ engineering degree). Here I introduce a $5 solution (or, "free" if you own the required equipment). What's required: A Raspberry Pi Zero ($5 + S&H from several sources). This single b...
Read more