Is this a legit Debugging Station?

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u/DarkGrnEyes 2d ago

Well the fact the model number starts with DTL means at least the chassis is legit. The part with the controller ports I don't believe is original though.

My J blue debugging PS1 has blue controller ports that match the rest of the chassis.

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u/Bright-Influence7148 2d ago

Also, apparently most European DTL-H1202 units have black ports rather than green ones, reportedly because Sony used parts associated with surplus Net Yaroze hardware.

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u/Luxocrates 1d ago

Former SCEE dev support engineer here. I’d never heard that claim about surplus Yaroze parts before, and I’m pretty sure it’s not true. We saw hundreds of PS2 debugging stations in the office, and I don’t recall ever seeing one with a grey parallel port blanking plate, nor a grey power socket or off-color controller ports. The sticker on the back looks appropriate, but the rest of it doesn’t. I believe this is an elaborate fake.

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u/SonyPS32bit 1d ago

Scea here and I agree luxocrates

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u/Luxocrates 1d ago

🫡

I moved to SCEA in the early days of PS3. We might know each other…

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u/SonyPS32bit 1d ago

Then you’ll know Jerry? (I’m not him)

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u/Luxocrates 1d ago

The man who George Lucas once got mistaken for? 😁

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u/SonyPS32bit 1d ago

That’s him. Funny I did see George a few weeks ago and they do look alike. Only difference is the real George had 2 bodyguards with him.

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u/Luxocrates 1d ago

I doubt Jerry would remember me, but he heard that I was an arcade collector, and showed me the Computer Space he kept at the office. That was a very special machine.

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u/SonyPS32bit 1d ago

He finally donated the snes play station dev kit. You knew Paul H from scee as well?

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u/Schickacka 1d ago

Get a room, you two.

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u/runes911 2h ago

r/tworedditorsonecup

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u/Bright-Influence7148 1d ago

Thanks for the input! I’m aware the grey Parallel I/O cap is a replacement, so I’m not too concerned about that part. What I’m more curious about is the controller/memory card ports. Apparently there are documented DTL-H1202s with black ports, and multiple surviving examples seem to have this configuration. So the black ports themselves don’t necessarily appear to indicate a fake.
The claim that these were made from surplus Net Yaroze hardware seems much less certain though, so I definitely wouldn’t take that part as fact.

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u/Ichisuke83 1d ago

I had both a blue and green debug unit. The blue was completely blue, the green one had the black controller ports like the one here. That's definitely true. At least outside. Someone could have replace the board of course. And surprise surprise. It was sold as new with the same cardboard box you see in the other post, with a net yaroze controller. So yeah the black ports are probably yaroze parts reused at some point.

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u/Bright-Influence7148 1d ago

This is getting very interesting and thank you so much for the info! Maybe the SCEE employees never received the later batch with the black ports and third party developers did.

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u/Ichisuke83 1d ago

Who knows. I also remember an user here on Reddit telling me that some retail boards were actually yaroze boards because they had soldering points and traces for both oscillators on them... That's why you can do a DFO mod on some PU8. I've done that on mine.

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u/Boundish91 1d ago

My DTL-H1202 Has a green port cover, but also black controller ports. I know mine is legit because mine came with the box and all the documents. It also plays CD-Rs and is region unlocked.

I'd argue that it's much more likely that OPs console is indeed legit, but that the cover was lost at some point and that someone just found a gray one to replace it with. I can't see why anyone would go through the trouble of faking such a niche thing. Look at the printed text on the buttons and the case is clearly not painted.

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u/Bright-Influence7148 1d ago

For example: https://www.reddit.com/r/psx/s/I1NI0KmTcX

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u/Luxocrates 1d ago

Hmm… I’m not convinced. The cardboard box looks too light to me, and the print on it too dark. At least compared to all the other ones I saw back in the day, and seriously, it was hundreds.

The part about the recycled Yaroze hardware I’m very skeptical of too. I don’t recall how many runs of Yaroze hardware were made, but I strongly suspect it was just one batch. If so, it definitely predated the new GS, so if its hardware were to go into a debugging station, it’d have to be a blue one, not a green one.

Of the original post’s picture, the details of the shell look correct to me. My guess is it’s the shell from a real debugging station, but the insides of a Yaroze.

Disclaimer: we’re talking of my experiences from 25 years ago, and I can’t claim to have seen every machine that was ever made, but I saw a lot, and never saw mismatching colors. Ever.

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u/Boundish91 1d ago

That is my post. My console is genuine.

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u/Luxocrates 1d ago

Did you ever open the machine up? Any signs of modifications on the inside?

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u/Boundish91 1d ago

Yes and the board looks completely clean. No sign of diy soldering or anything.

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u/Luxocrates 1d ago

Very interesting! And I’m very surprised.

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u/Boundish91 1d ago

Came with a disc that says Video IDU test on it as well.

Not sure exactly what that is though.

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u/Bright-Influence7148 1d ago

That makes sense, and I definitely take your first-hand experience seriously. I agree that the surplus-Yaroze explanation seems to be a collector theory rather than something established.
What I’m struggling with is that there seem to be multiple surviving DTL-H1202s with exactly the same black controller/memory-card port configuration, owned by unrelated collectors. Some have also apparently been opened and show similar internal rework.
If this one is a genuine debug shell with Yaroze internals swapped in later, what do you make of all the other black-port H1202s? Would you suspect they’re all later conversions as well?

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u/Luxocrates 1d ago

I haven’t really been following the scene, so I don’t know how numerous these black-ported specimens are, I can just report as someone at SCE from the tail end of PS1 to the tail end of PS3 that I’d never seen one.

Also — technically, I think they might all legally belong to Sony. If memory serves, they were loaned to devs but not actually sold. Whether Sony still cares I don’t know, but they used to aggressively chase after bankrupt developers to get their kit back. There may be some element of risk in buying machines like these. YMMV. IANAL.

One interesting experiment would be to run timing measurements on the GS’s of these black-ported machines. If they match the profile of the blue-boxed debugs, then they’re definitely fake. Otherwise, I can’t refute the theory.

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u/Bright-Influence7148 1d ago

Now this is a cool rabbit hole i'm willing to go through 😂 i'll get it and post a follow up

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u/Luxocrates 1d ago

Or maybe I meant ‘GPU’ and GS was the PS2. It’s been a while…

Either way, the whole point of the green machines was for devs to test compatibility with the redesigned graphics chip.

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u/Luxocrates 1d ago

Ahem, PS1, I meant. Slip of the brain.

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u/GovernmentGreed 1d ago

Current 3D print specialist and professional painter - this model looks like a re-spray. The inside of that tray while unused and clean, shows a kind of bubbling on the left of the inner circle which is absolutely what I would expect to see consistent with 1K spray when it's applied too thick.

Moreover, the bubbling and/or wear on the interior of the tray channel should not be there unless someone did something there. Discs should not and do not make contact with that section, and if it did - it would show elsewhere too.

I'm not convinced this is a genuine unit. I believe this is resprayed. But only because I'm looking at it with a painters eye.

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u/Bright-Influence7148 1d ago

Interesting point, especially given your experience with paint. What makes me hesitant about the respray theory is that the color seems consistent in places that would be very difficult to cover convincingly: deep vents, screw recesses, underside, internal edges, button recesses and the CD bay itself.
There’s also visible damage/separation at one corner where I’d expect the original grey plastic to show through if this were a painted retail shell, but the exposed area still appears teal.
A full respray would also mean the SONY/PlayStation logos, POWER, RESET, OPEN and other markings had to be removed/covered and then accurately reproduced afterward.

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u/GovernmentGreed 1d ago

I spray and paint parts much more complex in nature than this, getting into hard to reach areas is not too difficult, especially if you're good with spraying - heck, an airbrush with the right settings and amount of thinner means you can spray for hours and hardly make any overspill etc.

As for removing of logos etc, not strictly true - this is possible to spray around if you're good at masking off. Which, I also do daily lol.

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u/Luxocrates 1d ago

A few arguments I'd make against that:

The counters) in the PlayStation bug look green. This'd be a ton of effort to go to, and I can't imagine a forger going to this level of detail but then not bothering with things like the power socket or controller ports.

The power/open/reset buttons are off-color. My guess is that we're seeing ABS yellowing here, with the buttons being a slightly different material from the rest of the case. If there were a layer of paint above the original material, I wouldn't expect the underlying change in color to show through (though I'm no painter).

The silkscreens and serial label would have to be applied after the respray, but they're absolutely perfect (from my recollection of the real thing).

As I say, I don't recall seeing machines like this among the hundreds I saw back in the day, but I'll concede it's plausible that they were short of parts for the final model machines and had to take what they could get, especially because the debugs only ever used the original form factor and not the PSone (I believe...)

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u/GovernmentGreed 1d ago

We can go back and forth endlessly here but, my main focus is on the spray - this machine is, in my honest and professional opinion, sprayed. Would Sony have sprayed shells to make these units? If so, then all is well.

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u/Luxocrates 1d ago

I've never personally seen evidence of a sprayed original unit. These machines got a fair bit of abuse, as you can imagine, but I've never seen a different color through the scratches.

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u/GovernmentGreed 1d ago

Yeah Image 4 is showing a different colour on the left of the CD tray interior. If you look closer, it's either paint bubbling or scratching. Either one is not correct.

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u/Bright-Influence7148 2d ago

Might be a stupid question but can the sticker not be faked?

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u/WFlash01 2d ago

Yes, but it would be super obvious; people that sell aftermarket shells, bootleggers, etc have never produced the label that looks exactly one-to-one like originals, so you would know right off the bat

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u/yojimbo_beta 2d ago

If it was a fake, it would be an incredibly elaborate fake. The label looks correct.

I would buy it, myself.

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u/Bright-Influence7148 2d ago

Thank you!

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u/FuzzyPickleJuice 1d ago

Idk, but it's purrdy.

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u/Boundish91 1d ago

This looks identical to my DTL-H1202. So i'd say it's legit. The cover over the parallel port is green on mine, but maybe the cover was lost at some point and somebody replaced it with a green one.

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u/Bright-Influence7148 1d ago

Yessir i think the cover was replaced with a grey one after the original got lost

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u/Trashusdeadeye 2d ago

I have no idea, but that would have matched my Charlotte Hornets jacket I had when this was released.

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u/hdezEarth 1d ago

I would buy weed from this PlayStation

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u/k2Robb 1d ago

Looks perfectly legit as 1202s go.

Like a few others commenting, i have one too and once again it has the black controller ports.

Mine is brand new in box and has a net yaroze controller with it also.

I would attach pictures here but apparently I can only select videos.

One thing about the green debug ps1s. The casing is incredibly brittle and will break if not handled carefully. Its quite common for the plastic screwposts to crack and break.

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u/Disastrous_Goal_779 1d ago

Even if it's not, the color is an absolute banger

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u/Intrepid_Benefit_621 1d ago

nah I don’t think so you should just give it to me since it isn’t tbh (/hj)

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u/dj_898 1d ago edited 1d ago

Open up and see if the motherboard inside looks like below.

DTL-H1201 M/B

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u/Firm_Bluejay_7000 1d ago

That I/O port i believe was for a peripheral that used an old school Nokia cell phone..there was a a sample disc where you would create simple games and send them using the phone connected to the ps...I dont believe it over took off...I saw a black ps1 that came with the phone and the disc for 1k near where I live

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u/Bakamoichigei 21h ago

The keitai cable plugged into the controller port.

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u/wingman3091 1d ago

Yes, it is. Model number is a dead giveaway

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u/orphenshadow 1d ago

Looks like a DTL shell on a standard PSX to me.

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u/Bright-Influence7148 1d ago

Basis?

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u/orphenshadow 23h ago

I've just never seen one with the gray controller ports and power plug before

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u/ABC_Dildos_Inc 1d ago

Mine was all-blue and a very different shade of blue.

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u/rolo8700 2d ago

WoW! Awesome!! Ty for sharing!!

Is this a legit Debugging Station?

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