[ego533]

First of all, does anybody know of any site or document that describes the PSX boot procedure?

Also, does anybody know what the entries in the "system" file on the PSX CD's mean? To be specific:

BOOT = cdrom:\<boot file>
TCB = <decimal number>
EVENT = <decimal number>
STACK = <hex number>

 

[r30y162part2]

The boot procedure of the Playstation comes in two flavors. Hardware Mode and Application Boot.

Hardware mode corresponds to booting the actual hardware.

Application boot jumps to a specific address in ROM and performs a check of the hardware. Next, it checks to see what type of disc is in the Playstation. If it's a Playstation disc, it gets the system designation file (SYSTEM.CNF) and executes it.

If there is no disc, it goes into looping demonstration.


The SYSTEM.CNF is basically the Autoexec.bat of the Playstation. Each section is as follows:

BOOT: Specify the name of the file to be started. The default is GAME.PSX.
Example: BOOT = PSXAPP.EXE

TCB: Specify the number of tasks. The default is 4.
Example: TCB = 5

EVENT: Specify the number of events. The default is 16.
Example: Event = 5

STACK: The stack pointer value when the file specified by BOOT is started. Default is 0x8001FF00.
Example: STACK = 800FFF0

 

[ego533]

more knowledge

Yay! Someone actually replied! Thank you.

Okay, so when the system initializes the system.cnf file, what, literally, are the EVENT and TCB values? What would be the consequence of altering the values to , say,

TCB = 8
EVENT = 32

Also, if the System.CNF file is skipped and the .EXE file specified in
( BOOT = ) is directly executed, what is different about the boot
process?

 

[r30y162part2]

TCB and EVENT correspond the the multitasking R3000A processor.

Setting TCB to 8 would mean that 8 tasks can be performed at one time. This would come in handy if you were using I or D cache.

The same is true with EVENT.

If SYSTEM.CNF is skipped, the Playstation will default to 4 tasks, 16 events, and 0x8001FF00 as the stack entry point.

 

[chp]

Can we imagine to burn in one CD many "little games" like the demos disks from PSX magazines?
Does it exist a proggie to do that?

 

[KojiroTakenashi]

Won't that still require those darned little boot-blocks?

 

[r30y162part2]

chp: http://www.loser-console.org has a PlayStation binary that will do just that. It's a Menu for loading other executables. You specify which files will be used by the menu in a standard text file. It's called "Multisession exe loader v0.3". It really comes in handy if you don't have the extra hardware for uploading your programs to the PlayStation.

 

[KojiroTakenashi]

Well that certainly makes things alot easier.

 

[r30y162part2]

Wow. Almost four years since my last post....

 

[hushypushy]

thanks for reviving a thread with a pointless spam response..