HackSpace – September 2019

CAN I HACK IT?

Can we hack this mini retro nostalgia console?

n the late 1990s, Sony released the original

PlayStation upon a generation nurtured

by Sega and Nintendo. CD-based games

with sprawling levels, full-motion video, and

high-quality audio became the norm. But, fast-

forward to 2018 and Sony released its own

mini retro nostalgia console, following the success

of the NES and SNES consoles. Alas, supplies of

PlayStation Classic exceeded demand, and in 2019

it was put on offer as clearance. And that begs the

question, “Can we hack it?”

A PlayStation Classic?

Can I Hack It?

I

Les Pounder

@biglesp

Les Pounder loves

taking things to pieces

and seeing how they

work. He teaches

others how to be

makers and tinkerers

at events across the

UK. He blogs at bigl.es

GENERAL CONSTRUCTION

The all-ABS plastic chassis is made from a firm plastic

that can be worked with hand/power tools. The top

and bottom of the case are held together with five

cross-head screws that tap directly into plastic struts.

With the bottom of the case exposed, we can see

that there are a further four cross-head screws which

need to be removed to enable the circuit board to be

released. These screws also hold a large metal cover

to the board. The cover is our heat-sink, connecting

directly to the CPU via a 2 mm-thick thermal pad. Take

care to remove the heat sink without damaging the

pad, as it is needed to keep the CPU cool.

ELECTRONICS

The single circuit board is powered by a MediaTek

ARM (MT8167A) system on a chip (SoC), with

a quad-core ARM Cortex-A35 CPU running at

1.5GHz. This is partnered with 1GB of DDR3

RAM and a PowerVR GPU. Storage is provided

by 16GB of flash memory, enough to house the

games and the operating system. This is a

typical configuration for tablet devices,

something this chipset is designed

to work with. Power comes in

the form of a micro USB port,

so 5 V is the norm, and we

can solder connections to

the port for powering

projects. This also

means that the board

can be powered

from a USB battery

for portable hacks.

In our tests, the

unit used 180mA

on average at idle;

when gaming, this

rose to 320mA during

a brief bout of Tekken 3 for

testing... yes, testing.

YOU’LL NEED

Sony PlayStation

Classic

COST

£44

WHERE

hsmag.cc/ymXZkK

A PlayStation Classic

released. These screws also hold a large metal cover

to the board. The cover is our heat-sink, connecting

directly to the CPU via a 2

care to remove the heat sink without damaging the

pad, as it is needed to keep the CPU cool.

ELECTRONICS

The single circuit board is powered by a MediaTek

ARM (MT8167A) system on a chip (SoC), with

a quad-core ARM Cortex-A35 CPU running at

1.5GHz. This is partnered with 1GB of DDR3

RAM and a PowerVR GPU. Storage is provided

by 16GB of flash memory, enough to house the

games and the operating system. This is a

typical configuration for tablet devices,

something this chipset is designed

to work with. Power comes in

the form of a micro USB port,

so 5

can solder connections to

the port for powering

unit used 180mA

on average at idle;

YOU’LL NEED

Sony PlayStation

hsmag.cc/ymXZkK