USB support...

[Lazy Bastard]

misfire: Yes, remote dumping is far superior in nearly every way; that's already established. However, not everyone has a laptop, or the ability to place their PS2 and PC within reach of each other just to hack. Remember, we too were once 14-year-old kids living in our parents' homes, without an income of our own. I did quite a bit of hacking before I ever had a computer of my own, and hacked a few hundred PSX codes with nothing but the PSX and a GSPro 3.2.

Sure, hacking became much easier when I got a PC, and started using GSCC2k and/or the official GS tools, but it was IMPOSSIBLE to do so for quite some time. Waiting twice the time for a memory dump (and in the PSX GSPro's case, even performing searches within several strict memory regions one at a time) was not an issue compared to not hacking at all.

I know you believe that hacking should be free, but I would take that a step further and say that hacking should be free and available to as many people as possible. This doesn't mean I expect you to spend any time on the USB solution; I'm merely explaining the desire for such a solution. I will likely have to post bounties to get that part of the job done, and I've accepted that, if it will help some poor bastard who can't afford a PC but would love to tear apart his favorite PS2 games.

[Lazy Bastard]

OK, Viper187 has added file compare functionality to PS2CC. I've put together a package including PS2CC and jimmikaelkael's IGMassdumper, which will allow you to perform dumps to a USB flash drive, then take the flash drive back to your PC and perform comparisons between the different dumps, just as you would during live searching. Obviously, this is a slower, more tedious, less reliable method of hacking games (not to mention the fact that IGMD hasn't been updated for some time, as it was merely a proof-of-concept, so it won't have the same compatibility as current versions of Artemis), but it will allow you to hack codes nonetheless, and several people have asked for such a solution.

Enjoy, and thanks go out to Viper and jimmi.

[bowsersenemy]

sorry for the late reply, but yeah, for the GC, i have the BBA. but i don't for PS2.

[Parasyte]

(Please note: This post has nothing to do with dumping to USB mass-storage, which I believe it already supported.)

The problem with connecting two USB ports together is technical. In the world of USB, you have terms such as "Host controllers," "devices," and "nodes."

* An example of a USB host controller is your computer. Another example of a host controller is a PS2.
* An example of a USB device is a flash drive. Another example is a joystick.
* An example of a USB node is a USB hub.

USB specifies that a host controller can only talk to a device (and vice-versa). This directly implies that a host controller cannot talk directly to another host controller; nor can a device talk directly to another device. A host controller can talk to any device through up to 4 or 5 nodes.

Now, let's break it up to the simplest description: remove the idea of nodes temporarily, and you're left with just two USB host controllers: A computer, and a PS2. They cannot be connected directly with just any simple USB cable, even if it has two USB-A plugs on both ends (I have such a cable; they do exist). The only solution is a USB cable which contains two USB devices somewhere in the middle of the cable. For example, an ASCII representation:

Computer <--- USB-device === USB-device ---> PS2

Where the "===" represents an internal connection that allows each USB device to communicate with each other directly, thus forming a proxy between two USB host controllers.

This is the kind of cable I'm talking about: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-094-_-Product (I don't advocate buying this particular cable; this is just an example of what they might look like.)

After that little problem is solved, then you need drivers for the computer/operating system to send/receive data over it. And then your PS2rd/PS2cc needs some similar work to use the cable as well. Chances are that the drivers that will come with a cable like that will not be suitable for direct communications. As far as USB driver development go, you got me; none of the standard USB device classes are really ideal for comms. USB CDC is probably the closest, that I am aware of. But that just puts you back at square one; installing a transfer cable as an ethernet device means it will require an IP address and all the standard networking configuration that you're dealing with now.

So that really only leaves two options: RS232, or the "vendor-specific" device class. The former is a pain in the ass to use effectively (lack of flow control and such) and it's terribly slow, generally with a maximum transfer rate of 115,200 bits per second (14.4 KB/s -- yes, the old school modem speed!) and that's without any error correction or the things that USB takes for granted. And of course, sadly, the latter option means another ugly proprietary (non-standard) solution to something that should be dead simple.

So, I hope this helps to enlighten you on why you cannot just plug in a USB cable and have things magically work. It's much easier to just get the ethernet adapter!

[bowsersenemy]

fair enough para, but why not just make it simpler? from what you're saying, you can have two way communications between a host controller and a device, correct? then why not build a program that would perform the necesary memory writes that would setup one of the usb ports on the PS2 to be considered a device, and use the PC as the host? or for that matter, one could turn in the other way arround. why not make the PC the device, and let a program take full controll of a usb port on the PC end? basicly what i'm saying here, is make the PC an artemis/ps2 compatible "mass storage device".

[Parasyte]

... why not build a program that would perform the necesary memory writes that would setup one of the usb ports on the PS2 to be considered a device, and use the PC as the host? ...

Because that is not possible. Software has *no* control over USB ports. The only thing you can do with a USB port in software is follow the spec! And the spec says, hosts cannot talk to one another.

why not make the PC the device, and let a program take full controll of a usb port on the PC end? basicly what i'm saying here, is make the PC an artemis/ps2 compatible "mass storage device".

USB is all hardware-controlled. And this is my primary gripe with USB; you just don't have that kind of power over it. If it was an RS-232 serial port, or ECP parallel port, yeah, sure... this would be a piece of cake (neglecting all timing considerations; both ports are far too slow to be used for mass storage).

[bowsersenemy]

for me, i guess it won't matter soon. i'll be getting a new PS2 and just hooking artemis up to it through the built in ethernet port. i need one anyway. my current PS2 is failing me. it sometimes gets DREs. but i'd still like to see a better USB solution in the future.

hey... here's one. do for the PS2, what USB Gecko does for the wii! of course, that still means shelling out the cash for something you probably already have, but the idea of the freedom a homebrew device (sorry for the pun here) gives, as compared to a standard BBA, would be a good thing, aside from speed issues.

but then, where's that any different from mod chipping?

[Parasyte]

Arduino + Ethernet Shield is another possibility to bypass the need for a PS2 broadband adapter. This combination puts programmable ethernet hardware into your hands for about $50. You would need some way to connect it to the PS2 (using EE-SIO, maybe? This thread suggests you can get approximately 37mbit out of it) and software to control it on the PS2-side. On the PC-side, everything will be done over a standard TCP/IP network.

And the real beauty of this one? The Ethernet shield handles all of the TCP/IP complexity for you! That is, it contains a full TCP/IP stack. The data access between the shield and Arduino is simple serial I/O. It's the same simple serial I/O between a console like PS2 and the Arduino.

Oh, and it's also all open source hardware and software.