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Sony Playstation

What is PLAYSTATION

The Sony Playstation, aka PS-X, is the initial video gaming console by electronics giant, the Sony Corporation of Japan. The
Sony Playstation has been admittedly been in development for the last 2 or 2.5 years - remember the SNES CD!? (see history)
Development included both working with LSI Technologies and creating a video game/electronic media department, known as
the Sony Computer Entertainment of Japan (SCE)

The Playstation is the initial hardware entry by the Sony Corp. into the video gaming arena. Anticipation of the Playstation is high,
as well as its expected retail success; although selling the projected 3 million in the first year is quite optimistic though ;)

The Playstation is set to compete against the 'next generation' of consoles, which include: 3DO; 3DO M2; Sega 32X; Sega
Saturn; Atari Jaguar; Atari Jaguar II (whenever it DOES arrive); Atari Jaguar CD; Nintedo Ultra 64; and the rumored Amiga
PA-RISC system.

Technically, the Playstation is a 32-bit RISC, CD-ROM/XA2 based video game console. The Playstation is capable of
spectacular graphic effects that include: high volume of texture-mapped polygons, incredible sprite renditions, hardware tri-axial
rotation, gorraurd shading, among others. Although 3D is seemingly stressed in the majority of the scheduled games, and in the
RendorMorphics graphical libraries, there is a built-in 2D background and sprite engineAlso, instead of having on
board RAM for saving game positions and games; Sony Corp. opted for a 'Neo-Geoish' option, they are utilizing memory cards.

The PLAYSTATION history

The Sony Playstation actually has a history... a quite controversial one at that. The Playstation is the product of the
un-consummated relationship between the Sony Corp. and Nintendo of Japan. The Playstation was the name and designation of
the SNES CD-ROM. NOJ and the Sony Corp. briefly combined in a joint effort in order to create a CD-ROM peripheral for
the SNES; for the purpose of competing with the Sega-CD. However, NOJ suddenly defaulted on the agreement and
re-announced the SNES CD, to be developed by Phillips Electronics; an European corporation. This version of the SNES CD
never came to fruition, and the Sony Corp. was stuck with a working model of the SNES CD; known as the Playstation.

During the time that the Sony Corp. did work with Nintendo of Japan, which was stated to be only a month, but in all actuality
was longer than that (how long, I really do not know); but the Sony Corp. did have three variations of the Playstation up and
running: one was the add-on, or SNES CD, one was a 'stand-alone' version, and another was a chipset that could be
re-manufactured by anybody that licensed it. These versions had a NEC V800 chip, not the RISC R3000A chip in the released
version of the Sony Playstation.

What to do!? Well, the Sony Corp. enhanced it, combined with LSI Logic for chip design(s), and are ready to finally release it
into competition with the 'next generation' consoles; with its sights set primarily upon the Nintendo Ultra 64, 3DO, and Sega

PLAYSTATION SUPPORT

Supporting the Sony Plastation are a number quality software developers. This list includes: Konami, Capcom, Technosoft,
Namco, Taito, Time Warner Interactive, SunSoft, Virgin, UBI Soft, and Takara. Also included on this list is the newly formed
Sony Computer Entertainment of Japan (SCE); expect some great titles from these guys (Europe and Japan).

PLAYSTATION COMPATIBILITY

Will the American, Japanese, and European Playstation be compatible!?

Unfortunately, the answer to this question is no... Sony, and Sega, announced that there will be territorial lock-outs implemented
on the Sony Playstation (and Sega Saturn). However, it is unknown whether or not this lock-out will be hardware or software...
but, rumors that the Sony Corp. has yet to answer specify that the lock-out announcement was/is just a ploy to stop, or at least
slow down, importing...

PLAYSTATION TECH-SPECS

     CPU
     R3000A 32bit RISC chip @ 33.8mhz
     Clearing capacity: 30 MIPS
     Bus bandwidth: 132 Mb/sec

CD-ROM
CD-ROM/XA2 double speed CD-ROM

     GTE
     3D Geometry Engine (High speed matrix calculator) called the GTE (Geometric Transfer Engine)
     Clearing capacity: 66 MIPS
     1.5 million flat-shaded polygons/sec
     500,000 texture-mapped and light-sourced polygons/sec

     Data Engine
     Date engine called the MDEC
     Clearing capacity: 80 MIPS
     CPU, direct bus connection
     Compatible with JPEG, MPEG1, H.261 files (It will not, however, play CD-I type MPEG1 FMV CD's, and since the
     standard is beeing abandoned (even by Phillips), there will probably never be hardware to support such software either...)

Graphics processing unit
GFX processor unit, called the GPU

     Sound
     ADPCM, 24 channels
     Sampling frequency: 44.1 Khz

     Graphics
     16.7 million colours
     Resolution: 256x224 - 640x480 (max) Resolution: 256x224 - 740x480 (max 1,677k colors)
     Sprite/BG drawing
     Adjustable frame buffer
     No line restriction
     Unlimited CLUTs (Color Look-Up Tables)
     4,000 8x8 pixel sprites with individual scaling and rotation
     Simultaneous backgrounds
     360,000 polygons/sec

     Memory
     main RAM: 16Mbits
     VRAM: 8Mbits (despite controversy, it does have 1 megabyte of VRAM)
     sounds RAM: 4Mbits
     CD-ROM buffer: 256K
     Operating System ROM: 4Mbits
     RAM cards for data save, RAM cards are 128kbyte flash-memory cards

THE END