After the Mega Pi Project I was looking at doing another retro type Raspberry Pi project. Initially I was planning to do a full conversion of an N64 however after a few emulator performance tests I decided against it.

Still itching for another retro project I set my sights on the PSone. Emulator performance in Retro Pie was good and after looking at various pin outs for the ports I decided it was possible and went ahead with purchasing the parts required.

First step was to test the controllers by wiring them up to the Raspberry Pi GPIO:

After some tinkering with the wiring and configuration I managed to get the controller working in game.

Playing Tony Hawks:

Next step was to wire up controller 2:

Here is the pin out for the Raspberry Pi (Credit: Retro Pie):

The data lines for the controller are separate using gpio labeled Pad 1 and Pad 2 and the Command, Select and Clock are combined for all controllers.

With the controllers working and configured I moved to preparing the hardware of the PSone. First step was to desoldering the components I needed from the mainboard:

Controller ports removed:

Controller ports:

Multi AV out:

Power switch:

Next step was to wire up the controller ports to the ProtoHAT:

Soldering the wires to the pins of the controller port:

Controller 1 wired to board:

Board complete (Underside) :

Board complete ( Top side):

Controllers attached and ribbon cable to pi:

On the HAT I soldered a 90 degree pin header to the top side for a flatter connection with the ribbon cable to Pi (The head room in a PSone is limited!)

That's as far as I've gotten so far, currently waiting for power switch circuit to wire up the PSone switch and a flat LED and a composite cable to wire up the Multi AV port.

More to come soon!