Source library
Real-Hardware Testing Lessons — PS1
docs/ps1/real-hardware-testing-lessons.md
This is the website shelf page for docs/ps1/real-hardware-testing-lessons.md.
It exists because the project has hundreds of Markdown files and the website
should not pretend the interesting work only happened in the polished essays.
Why this file matters
Active PS1 reference. This is active engineering documentation for the PS1 port. It is close enough to the code that stale claims here become real bugs.
Hard-won rules from the 0.9.13/0.9.14 release marathon (July 2026): twenty burned CD-Rs, one worn launch-era drive, and a week of chasing graphical bands, dead audio, buzzing, freezes, and red screens that no emulator ever reproduced. Every rule below was paid for with a coaster.
File facts
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Source path | docs/ps1/real-hardware-testing-lessons.md |
| Lines | 228 |
| Approx. words | 1808 |
| Code fences | 0 |
Outline
- Real-Hardware Testing Lessons — PS1
- The Prime Directives
- GPU: the queue, the FIFO, and direct writes
- CD-ROM: the drive is an unreliable narrator
- SPU and interrupt-side memory safety
- Diagnosing on a console with no debugger
- Process lessons
- The symptom → mechanism cheat sheet