144w ago - Earlier today we reported that the PSJailBreak PS3 modchip is
easily dumped and that
PSJailBreak clones are already on the way, and now some PlayStation 3 developers are working on reverse-engineering the costly USB device in hopes to make a less expensive or free scene alternative available soon.
Tsujin,
knightsolidus and
bushing have made brief attempts at determining the PSJailBreak IC chip and pin-out, while
Neme6 of Logic-Sunrise (linked above) has also shared his findings thus far.
More pictures are available
HERE for those curious, and to quote, roughly translated on the linked pics:
"Many teams are studying the JSP to try to clone a low cost and how it works. From the photos released, I tried to determine the electronic design of PSJ.
Here is the result of my work and my observations. Feel free to post if can lighten the shadows that remain.
First ICP is probably the type PIC18F declination 4455, 4550, 4458, 4553. The size of the EEPROM is 256 bytes."
Comments:
Components (red dots)
A: Resistor, 1K
B: LED
C: LED
D: Resistor, 1k
E:?? Resistor ?? Resistor??
F:?? Capacitor ?? Capacitor??
G:?? Resistor ?? Resistor??
H:?? Resistor ; 1K (Pullup resistor) ?? Resistor, 1K (pullup resistor)??
I:?? Capacitor ?? Capacitor??
J: Capacitor, 100nF (Decoupling cap)
. . : XTAL
• The blue dots A, B and D control the LEDs.
• The blue dots ¤ K, L, G and H are for power (Vdd, Vss).
• I suppose the blue dots M, I and J are to program the PIC (ICPGC, ICPGD, / MCLR).
• Points E and F are blue and OSC1 OSC2. They should be connected to XTAL (orange dots A and B).
• And the GND (file alpha) through two 22pF capacity.
• The orange dot ¤ F, there should be a link with USB.D-(I can not quite see from the photos).
• Maybe the orange dot at point C is connected blue M (ICPGC).
• Maybe the orange dot C is connected to pin 33 (/ ICRST).
• I guess the orange dot E is connected to a via (through hole) noted alpha.
How the dongle works is not known yet. If it's something thats static, you could sniff it with some USB sniffer and implement it to other hardware as well.
If the dongle is just handshaking its hardware ID to the system at startup, would it be possible to create a serial-to-USB cable from the PC to the PS3 and have it pulse the HW ID right as the system starts up to accomplish the same thing (I assume because of the presence of the oscillator, that it sends it as a pulse. Correct me if I'm wrong).
$5 chips, you'll still need resistors and such in addition to putting together something to program it with. $20 clone sounds like a much more worthy choice... then again FREE is nicer.