ROM

Overview

PS2 contains one or two Mask-ROMs, "BOOT ROM" containing the BIOS and "DVD ROM" containing the DVD Player, with the latter being optional, since early PS2 consoles (SCPH-10000 and SCPH-15000, A-chassis) came with no DVD Player preinstalled. On these consoles, it had to be installed onto Memory Card from the Utility Disc bundled with the console. PSX also has no DVD Player in ROM; it's loaded from HDD instead. In many consoles containing a version of the DVD Player in ROM, it is physically located within the same ROM chip as the BIOS. Despite this, the DVD Player section of the ROM is electrically addressed independently and handled as a separate device by IOP. Other consoles contain two physically separate ICs. Many fat and early slim motherboards have solder pads for both variants and can have these installed either way.

All BIOS and DVD ROMs have the version of the BIOS / DVD Player they store marked on the IC. In all consoles except A-chassis (SCPH-10000 and SCPH-15000), these versions are prefixed with a "B" for BIOS (e.g. B-20-030) or a "D" for DVD (e.g. D-221-030). On ROMs containing both, BIOS and DVD Player, both versions are printed separately on the IC. Instead of the dashes within the version numbers given in the examples, the writing can also have spaces, or no separator at all.

The following sections are incomplete and work in progress!

Known BOOT ROM versions

• 00-100
  • BOOT ROM of early SCPH-10000 consoles (GH-001)
  • Found in consoles manufactured until March 25th, 2000
  • Is the only version that does not block launching the buggy DVD Player 1.00 from Memory Card, which allows a region code check bypass
  • Contains the Protokernel, which lacks several features and has several differences to later versions, creating some issues with homebrew software
  • Comes in a different package with a much larger footprint than all other ROMs except 00-101
• 00-101
  • BOOT ROM of later SCPH-10000 and and all SCPH-15000 consoles
  • Found in SCPH-10000 consoles manufactured later on as well as in SCPH-15000 consoles
  • Blocks launching DVD Player 1.00 from Memory Card
  • Contains the Protokernel, which lacks several features and has several differences to later versions, creating some issues with homebrew software
  • Comes in a different package with a much larger footprint than all other ROMs except 00-100