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