Playstation/PSOne mouse kills memory port on the same side.

[DarkBubble]

After putting it off and putting it off, I snagged a new Pelican mouse for my PS and started toying around with Clock Tower.  Being point and click, it plays much better with the mouse.  However, when it came time to save, the game seemed to have frozen.  As my PS is nearly ten years old and I've been having to do replace some parts, I thought maybe the controller/memory port assembly was about to go as well.

I tried the memory card in the second player slot and it recognized it.  I put it back in the first player side, but still nothing.  It didn't start until I plugged in the mouse, so I hooked up my digital pad in its place.  The card was recognized.  I tried a Dual Shock, and it worked yet again.

Does anyone know if the mouse takes advantage of the pin in the plug that isn't used or is missing from other PS controllers, which ends up rendering the memory port useless?  If that's the case, I can just try unplugging the mouse when it's time to save.  I'm not sure if Clock Tower supports the second memory card port.

On a side note, the mouse is fantastic.  I fired up Dune 2000 and it was infinitely more playable than it is with a pad.  Of course, the zoomed-in view still detracts from the overall experience, but it still felt more like the PC version.

[SavannahLion]

There's not really any other pins to take advantage of. It's a bus and all of the pins have their function or aren't connected. You can read about the pinout and packet structure here: http://pinouts.ru/Game/playstation_9_pinout.shtml

But since you know how to fix your PSX, you've probably seen how it's all wired together. My guess? Is the voltage pin all tied together or does each pair (mem slot + controller) get their own power? I have a first gen PSX gutted but I can't remember what I did with the parts to check. Since it's a third party mouse, it might be pulling too much out of the shared voltage pin preventing the memory card from functioning properly. According to the page, controllers are speced to operate as low as 3v, but it says nothing about the mem card.

[DarkBubble]

My repair knowledge is primarily in regards to the drive assembly and a small amount of board work, but I've not gotten down to the nitty gritty on the controller/memory assembly.  It's been a learn-as-needed process.

There's just so little info out there on the mouse (you'd think we'd be hacking PC mice to work with them by now, or else have PS/2-to-Playstation adapters, but the periphrial never caught on, I guess), that I wasn't sure what was up.  What you're saying about the voltage draw of the mouse makes a lot of sense though.  It's also cause for concern.  If it's pulling too much, I can end up having to replace the port assembly.

I'll dig up some more info on the controller port and it's wiring so I can throw a multimeter at it and see what the deal is.  I'm not sure if there's an accessible fuse like there are on some other systems, so I may have to refrain from using it unless there's a way to get the mouse to operate at 3v.

Thanks for pointing my head in a more probable direction.

[SavannahLion]

It occured to me that it might not just be the mouse. Is your memory card a Sony or is it a different brand?

[DarkBubble]

It's a Mad Catz 32x.  This is the only time this issue has arisen.

[SavannahLion]

It's a Mad Catz 32x.  This is the only time this issue has arisen.

I figured. Do you have a Sony memory card you could try?

Here's my convoluted theory. I'll have to go and double check a couple of facts though.

If we postulate Sony memory cards have the same operating voltage (3v to 5v) range as the Sony controllers then a Sony memory card should work with the mouse.

For a while, there were some quality issues with third party memory cards, specifically with the high capacity cards. If EEPROMS only require a low voltage for a read operation but a higher voltage for a write operation, then it wouldn't be a far stretch to guess that the third party cards are using EEPROMS with narrower tolerances. In other words, the card by itself works fine on a PSX putting out an expected 5v. But if the PSX voltage drops for some reason... say when someone attaches a different third party controller, then the card fails to function.

[DarkBubble]

Nope.  No Sony cards in my stock.  I started out with Mad Catz 15-block cards in '97 because Sony cards were scarce.  Started picking up the multi-cards because they were cheap and reliable.

[SavannahLion]

Started picking up the multi-cards because they were cheap and reliable.

I recall early on in the PSX life, issues with some third party memory cards causing problems such as lost games. It was a block switching memory card with a digital counter on the face. Push a button on the card and it was supposed to switch to a different "virtual" memory card. I don't remember why it was having problems. Unfortunately, I don't recall the manufacture either.

It's just something to try out. Pick up a Sony branded memory card from somewhere. American and Japanese cards work equally well after a format.

[northerngames]

I had some of them digital counter block tyoe also i bought 2 and they both were junk.

lost game save
sometime would not save
then flat out dies withing a few weeks

[DarkBubble]

The issue with early multi-memory cards, one of the most notorious being the Performance Mega Memory Card, was built-in compression schemes that let them use the standard 15-block storage space (possibly double) in order to achieve much greater save capacity.  Besides the propensity for corrupting the data, I've also heard it mentioned that the games that really had issues with compression-based cards are the games that incorporated their own brand of compression to reduce the necessary space on a standard 15-block card.  Needless to say, lots of people were fine with their Mega Memory Cards or similar card until they got down and dirty with Gran Tourismo or something along those lines.  Even my own friends were saying "Where the **** did my savegame go?  I have to start over?!!"

The Mad Catz cards that I'm using are uncompressed, using full physicial memory, rather than a compression scheme.

As far as Performance, it should be noted that a lot of their reputation as cheap junk probably stems from the Mega Memory Card.  I've got at least three Performance products - a pad for PS1, a 4x memory card for Dreamcast, and a vibration (Jump) pack/1x memory card for Dreamcast - and none of these items have had any issues at all over the years.  Performance is Interact/Recoton's cheaper brand, often the same products with thinner/lighter casings and perhaps cheaper manufacturing.  And lots of PS1 digital pads use the Performance pad as their basis, particularly the licensed pads.  The pink Barbie PS1 pads?  Performance.  And they're actually great pads, good enough that I'd actually buy the Barbie pads as spares.

[SavannahLion]

Try a SONY card anyways. eBay regularly sells SONY branded cards for around $5 a piece.

[DarkBubble]

Yeah, I've sourced them out.  Found a seller a month back that had stacks of them for somewhere between $2 and $5 each.  I'm not all that fussed, but I may look into it in the near future.