PocketStation support

[paolo-caroni]

With Arduino can be send to the memory card any type of command?
So in theory the PocketStation can be fully supported?

I have a memory card adapter for ps3 but due hardware limitation the PocketStation can't be fully supported on it.
Arduino can be a solution?

[TheBlueTroll]

in theory, yes. in practice it would take a lot of work, but i cannot see a hardware reason why the Arduino cannot send any arbitrary command to a pocket station.

the MemCarduino could be extended to support more commands as it does low level communicate on a per byte level (arbitrary byte onto the bus). but from a look at the no$psx documentation, the pocketstation uses quite a few commands, and might need a full PlayStation emulation running at the same time to correctly communicate for some games.

[Kdenk]

I don't know what you mean by "fully supported", but I can confirm that I'm able to read/write from/to my PocketStations without problems using MemCARDuino and MemcardRex.

[paolo-caroni]

I don't know what you mean by "fully supported", but I can confirm that I'm able to read/write from/to my PocketStations without problems using MemCARDuino and MemcardRex.

Read and write are only two command, the pocketstation have more command, for set date and time for example or for other utility...

I close the issue, because seems that is possible on harware level support all type of command.
Thank you

[padraigfl]

Just to add to here, I've had issues reading/writing on MemcardRex when the PocketStation has a battery in it, but so far it has worked for me when the battery is removed so if someone is having issues reading/writing maybe try that first.

[ShendoXT]

Thanks to @padraigfl for kindly donating me a couple of PocketStations.
I have started to implement PocketStation specific commands to MemCARDuino/MemcardRex.

Also, it looks like PS3 MC Adaptor supports sending custom commands to the interface so it should be possible to do the same with it.

I reopened the issue so we can discuss this if needed.

[ShendoXT]

I updated the MemCARDuino sketch and python 3 script with PocketStation support.

The new commands are:

--psinfo (print info from pocketstation)
--psbios (dump bios from pocketstation)
--pstime (appy pc time to pocketstation)

Support is already added to MemcardRex alpha build which I will commit to repository soon.

[paolo-caroni]

Wow.... I have tryed to add it on the ps3mca card adaptor without luck for years (see ps3mca-ps1 in my repo)... this memcarduino is very very interesting and promising. Also @ShendoXT if you add full support on the ps3mca I will kill myself for incompetence :-)

[ShendoXT]

@paolo-caroni Already did 😉
If you compile MemcardRex from repository it comes with PocketStation support for MemCARDuino and PS3 MCA.

And extra flex, I managed to make it fully work on at least one 3rd party adaptor.