The is a development kit for the
PlayStationThe PlayStation is a 32-bit fifth generation video game console released by Sony Computer Entertainment in December ....
video game consoleA video game console is an interactive entertainment computer or electronic device that produces a video display signal which can be used with a display device to display a video game...
. It was a promotion by
Sony Computer Entertainmentis a video game company specializing in a variety of areas in the video game industry, and is a full subsidiary of Sony. The company was established on November 16, 1987 in Tokyo, Japan prior to the launch of the original PlayStation video game system...
to
computer programmingComputer programming is the process of writing, testing, debugging/troubleshooting, and maintaining the source code of computer programs. This source code is written in a programming language. The code may be a modification of an existing source or something completely new...
hobbyists in 1997.
Yarōze means "Let's do it!".
For about $750
USDThe United States dollar is the unit of currency of the United States. The U.S. dollar is normally abbreviated as the dollar sign, $, or as USD or US$ to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies and from others that use the $ symbol. It is divided into 100 cents .The U.S...
, the
Net Yaroze package would contain a special black-colored debugging PlayStation unit with documentation, software, and no
regional lockoutRegional lockout is the programming practice, code, chip, or physical barrier used to prevent the playing of media designed for a device from the country where it is marketed on the version of the same device marketed in another country.-Video games:...
. The user still had to provide a personal computer (
IBM-PCIBM PC compatible computers are those generally similar to the original IBM PC, XT, and AT. Such computers used to be referred to as PC clones, or IBM clones since they almost exactly duplicated all the significant features of the PC architecture, facilitated by various manufacturers' ability to...
or Macintosh; NEC PC-9801 was also supported in Japan) to write the computer code, compile it, and send the program to the PlayStation.
While without
regional lockoutRegional lockout is the programming practice, code, chip, or physical barrier used to prevent the playing of media designed for a device from the country where it is marketed on the version of the same device marketed in another country.-Video games:...
, the Net Yaroze console exists in three variations, for Japan (DTL-H3000), North America (DTL-H3001), and Europe plus Australia (DTL-H3002).
The is a development kit for the
PlayStationThe PlayStation is a 32-bit fifth generation video game console released by Sony Computer Entertainment in December ....
video game consoleA video game console is an interactive entertainment computer or electronic device that produces a video display signal which can be used with a display device to display a video game...
. It was a promotion by
Sony Computer Entertainmentis a video game company specializing in a variety of areas in the video game industry, and is a full subsidiary of Sony. The company was established on November 16, 1987 in Tokyo, Japan prior to the launch of the original PlayStation video game system...
to
computer programmingComputer programming is the process of writing, testing, debugging/troubleshooting, and maintaining the source code of computer programs. This source code is written in a programming language. The code may be a modification of an existing source or something completely new...
hobbyists in 1997.
Yarōze means "Let's do it!".
For about $750
USDThe United States dollar is the unit of currency of the United States. The U.S. dollar is normally abbreviated as the dollar sign, $, or as USD or US$ to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies and from others that use the $ symbol. It is divided into 100 cents .The U.S...
, the
Net Yaroze package would contain a special black-colored debugging PlayStation unit with documentation, software, and no
regional lockoutRegional lockout is the programming practice, code, chip, or physical barrier used to prevent the playing of media designed for a device from the country where it is marketed on the version of the same device marketed in another country.-Video games:...
. The user still had to provide a personal computer (
IBM-PCIBM PC compatible computers are those generally similar to the original IBM PC, XT, and AT. Such computers used to be referred to as PC clones, or IBM clones since they almost exactly duplicated all the significant features of the PC architecture, facilitated by various manufacturers' ability to...
or Macintosh; NEC PC-9801 was also supported in Japan) to write the computer code, compile it, and send the program to the PlayStation.
While without
regional lockoutRegional lockout is the programming practice, code, chip, or physical barrier used to prevent the playing of media designed for a device from the country where it is marketed on the version of the same device marketed in another country.-Video games:...
, the Net Yaroze console exists in three variations, for Japan (DTL-H3000), North America (DTL-H3001), and Europe plus Australia (DTL-H3002). The DTL-H3002 boots in PAL mode, while the others boot in NTSC mode. There are further differences between the Japanese kit and the others; presumably the manuals come in Japanese, the software for Japanese PCs is included, and the discs and access card sticker have different printing. The Japanese version is sometimes officially referred to as DTL-3000 rather than DTL-H3000.
The Net Yaroze was only available for purchase by mail order; but Sony also provided it to universities in the UK, France (Epita) and Japan.
The European Net Yaroze kit contains the following items:
- 1 Net Yaroze PlayStation console (black matte texture)
- 2 PlayStation controllers (black matte texture)
- 1 AC power cord (with UK plug; in France an AC adapter was also included)
- 1 AV cable
- 1 euro AV adapter
- 1 Net Yaroze boot disc (A greenish PlayStation CD-ROM)
- 1 Net Yaroze software development disc (A CD-ROM containing development tools for PC)
- 1 access card (a black memory card-like dongle, required for booting in remote-controlled mode), with sticker
- 1 communications cable (a serial cable used to link the console and the computer)
- 1 "Start Up Guide" manual
- 1 "Library Reference" manual
- 1 "User Guide" manual
Additionally,
CodeWarriorCodeWarrior is an integrated development environment for the Macintosh, Microsoft Windows, Linux, Solaris and embedded systems that is developed and marketed by Freescale Semiconductor. Specialized versions for the PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube, Nintendo DS, Wii, Palm OS, and Symbian OS also...
was ported for the Net Yaroze. Lightwave 3D was as well but many of its features were impractical with only 4MB of
RAM-Ram, ram, or RAM as a non-acronymic word:As a non-acronymic word Ram, ram, or RAM may refer to:-Animals:*Bighorn Sheep, A North American mountain sheep species*Sheep, an uncastrated male of which is called a ram...
.
The Net Yaroze lacks many of the features the full Playstation developers' suite provides, such as advanced hardware/software tools and Sony's extensive technical support (including live telephone support). Dedicated Usenet groups, with access restricted to Net Yaroze members, were maintained by Sony; homepage hosting was also provided. The access was restricted according to the kit's region of origin, which made collaboration between users in different territories impractical.
Many games made by hobbyists on the Net Yaroze were released on various demo discs that came along with the
Official PlayStation Magazine from the late 1990s up to 2004. The last
Official PlayStation Magazine UK issue, number 108, featured a compilation with many Net Yaroze games. A regular PlayStation disc, featuring a number of user-developed games, was produced by SCEE and sent to PAL zone Yaroze owners.
Some of these games are:
- Adventure Game
- Between The Eyes
- Blitter Boy (Chris Chadwick)
- Bouncer 2
- Clone
- A Dog Tale
- Gravitation
- Haunted Maze
- Hover Car Racing
- The Incredible Coneman
- Mah Jongg (Gerhard Rittenhofer)
- Opera of Destruction
- Psychon
- Pushy 2
- Rocks'n'Gems (Gerhard Rittenhofer)
- Super Bub Contest (Alex Herbert)
- Terra Incognita
- Time Slip
- Total Soccer
- Tunnel
Some of these games were based on arcade classics such as Mr. Do and
Puzzle Bobbleis a 1994 arcade puzzle game created by Taito Corporation. It is a simple game based on Taito's popular 1986 arcade game Bubble Bobble, featuring characters and themes from the original...
, while others (eg Time Slip) were illustrations of a novel concept. The Game Developer UK Competition, organized by
Scottish EnterpriseScottish Enterprise [SE], is Scotland's main economic, enterprise, innovation and investment agency. Covering the eastern, central and southern part of Scotland from the Moray Firth to the Borders and is a sponsored Non-Departmental Public Body of the Scottish Government.Similar services are...
in collaboration with the Scottish Games Alliance, Sony and
EdgeEdge is a multi-format computer and video game magazine published by Future Publishing in the United Kingdom. It is known for its industry contacts, editorial stance, distinctive anonymous third-person writing style, yearly awards, and longevity.-History:...
in 1998, accepted Net Yaroze entries; the overall winner was Chris Chadwick for his game Blitter Boy: Operation Monster Mall.
Contrary to popular belief, the Net Yaroze was neither the only nor the first official consumer console development kit. The PC-Engine
DeveloThe Develo is an official Japanese PC Engine hobbyist development kit for NEC's console. It includes a C compiler and an assembler. Some games made with this kit were published on demo discs, such as Freesbee John....
predates it, and the
WonderWitchThe WonderWitch is an official hobbyist development kit for Bandai's WonderSwan console. It was available only by mail order to Japanese residents. Everything related to the WonderWitch was handled by Qute....
followed it. The
GP32The GP32 is a hand held console built by the Korean company Game Park.- Overview :The GP32 is based on a 133 MHz ARM CPU and 8MB of RAM...
could run user programs out of the box. Finally, many earlier consoles (Astrocade,
FamicomThe Nintendo Entertainment System is an 8-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America, Europe and Australia in . In most of Asia, including Japan , China, Vietnam, Singapore, and the Philippines, it was released as the , commonly abbreviated as the...
…) offered limited programming capabilities with
BASICIn computer programming, BASIC is a family of high-level programming languages. The original BASIC was designed in 1964 by John George Kemeny and Thomas Eugene Kurtz at Dartmouth in New Hampshire, USA to provide computer access to non-science students...
dialects.
The Net Yaroze had no direct successor on the
PlayStation 2The PlayStation 2 is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony. The PS2 console is the sequel to the original PlayStation console. The successor to the PlayStation, and the predecessor to the PlayStation 3, the PlayStation 2 forms part of the PlayStation series of video game...
platform, but Sony's Linux for PlayStation 2 is similar in its appeal to hobbyists and amateur developers, although the demo disk that was bundled with the system on release had an application called Yabasic and allowed users to program in basic and run on the playstation 2 system, it came preloaded with some simple games and users could save their programs to the memory card.
The
PlayStation 3The PlayStation 3 is the third home video game console produced by Sony Computer Entertainment, and the successor to the PlayStation 2 as part of the PlayStation series...
allows versions of Linux to be installed and from within Linux programming is possible, similar to the PS2. However, access to the RSX graphics chip is prohibited, so games created must be done in software only using the CPU.
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