Playstation 3

History

 Sony officially unveiled the PlayStation 3 (then marketed as PLAYSTATION 3 ) to the public along with its original returning boomerang style controller  on May 16, 2005, during the E3 2005 conference. A functional version of the system was not present there, nor at the Tokyo Game Show in September 2005, although demonstrations (such as Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots) were held at both events on devkits and comparable PC hardware. Video footage based on the predicted PlayStation 3 specifications was also shown (notably a Final Fantasy VII tech demo). The initial prototype shown in May 2005 featured two HDMI ports, three Ethernet ports and six USB ports; however, when the system was shown again a year later at E3 2006, these were reduced to one HDMI port, one Ethernet port and four USB ports, presumably to cut costs. Two hardware configurations were also announced for the console: a 20 GB model and a 60 GB model, priced at $499 (€499) and $599 (€599), respectively. The 60 GB model would be the only configuration to feature an HDMI port, Wi-Fi internet, flash card readers and a chrome trim with the logo in silver. Both models were announced for a simultaneous worldwide release: November 11 for Japan, and November 17 for North America and Europe.

 On September 6, 2006, Sony announced that the PAL region (Europe and Oceania) PlayStation 3 launch would be delayed until March 2007, due to a shortage of materials used in the Blu-ray Disc drive.
At the Tokyo Game Show on September 22, 2006, Sony announced that it would include an HDMI port on the 20 GB system, but a chrome trim, flash card readers, silver logo, and Wi-Fi would not be included. Also, the launch price of the Japanese 20 GB model was reduced by over 20%. and the 60 GB model was announced for an open pricing scheme in Japan. During the event, Sony showed 27 playable PS3 games running on final hardware.
Hardware
System unit

 The PlayStation 3 is convex on its left side, with the PlayStation logo upright, when vertical (the top side is convex when horizontal), and has a glossy black finish. PlayStation designer Teiyu Goto stated that the Spider-Man font-inspired logo “was one of the first elements SCEI president Ken Kutaragi decided on and the logo may have been the motivating force behind the shape of PS3″.

 The PlayStation 3 features a slot-loading 2x speed Blu-ray Disc drive for games, Blu-ray movies, DVDs, CDs, and other optical media. It was originally available with hard drives of 20 and 60 GB (only the 60 GB model was available in PAL regions). An 80 GB model has since been introduced in NTSC regions, and a 40 GB model has been introduced in all regions. All PS3 models have user-upgradeable 2.5″ SATA hard drives.
The PlayStation 3 uses the Sony, Toshiba, IBM-designed Cell microprocessor as its CPU, which is made up of one 3.2 GHz PowerPC-based “Power Processing Element” (PPE) and eight Synergistic Processing Elements (SPEs). The eighth SPE is disabled to improve chip yields. Only six of the seven SPEs are accessible to developers as the seventh SPE is reserved by the console’s operating system. Graphics processing is handled by the NVIDIA RSX ‘Reality Synthesizer’, which can output resolutions from 480i/576i SD up to 1080p HD. The PlayStation 3 has 256 MB of XDR DRAM main memory and 256 MB of GDDR3 video memory for the RSX.

 The system has Bluetooth 2.0, gigabit Ethernet, USB 2.0 and HDMI 1.3a built in on all currently shipping models. Wi-Fi networking is also built-in on the 40, 60, 80 GB and slim models while a flash card reader (compatible with Memory Stick, SD/MMC, and CompactFlash/Microdrive media) is built-in on 60 GB and CECHExx 80 GB models. The system supports up to 7 controllers that are connected via Bluetooth 2.0 technology.

 The PS3′s hardware has also been used to build supercomputers for high-performance computing. Fixstars Solutions sell a version of Yellow Dog Linux for the PlayStation 3 (originally sold by Terra Soft Solutions). RapidMind produced a stream programming package for the PS3, but were acquired by Intel in 2009. Also, on January 3, 2007, Dr. Frank Mueller, Associate Professor of Computer science at NCSU, clustered 8 PS3s. Mueller commented that the 256 MB of system RAM is a limitation for this particular application, and is considering attempting to retrofit more RAM. Software includes: Fedora Core 5 Linux ppc64, MPICH2, OpenMP v 2.5, GNU Compiler Collection and CellSDK 1.1. As a more cost-effective alternative to conventional supercomputers, the U.S. military has purchased clusters of PS3 units for research purposes. Retail PS3 Slim units cannot be used for supercomputing, because the PS3 Slim lacks the ability to boot into a third-party OS.
On March 22, 2007, SCE and Stanford University released the Folding@home project for the PlayStation 3. This program allows PS3 owners to lend the computing power of their consoles to help study the physical process of protein folding.
In December 2008, a group of hackers used a cluster of 200 PlayStation 3′s to hack the security protocol SSL.
Original model

 There are five original PlayStation 3 hardware models, which are commonly referred to by the size of their included hard disk drive: “20″, “40″, “60″, “80″ and “160″ GB. The only difference in the appearance of the first five models was the color of the trim and number of USB ports. All retail packages include one or two Sixaxis controllers and/or a DualShock 3 controller (beginning June 12, 2008), one miniUSB to USB cable (for connecting the controller to the system), one composite video/stereo audio output cable, one Ethernet cable (20, 60, and CECHExx 80 GB only) and one power cable. All models support software emulation of the original PlayStation, but support for PlayStation 2 backwards compatibility has continually diminished with later models. Compatibility issues with games for both systems are detailed in a public database hosted by the manufacturer. All models, excluding the 20GB model, include 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi. In addition to all of the features of the 20 GB model, the 60 GB model has internal IEEE 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi, multiple flash card readers (SD/MultiMedia Card, CompactFlash Type I/Type II, Microdrive, Memory Stick/PRO/Duo), and a chrome colored trim. In terms of hardware, the 80 GB model released in South Korea is identical to the 60 GB model released in the PAL regions, except for the difference in hard drive size.
Like the South Korean and European models, the North American 80 GB (2007) model also excludes the PlayStation 2 “Emotion Engine” CPU chip. However, it still keeps the “Graphics Synthesizer” GPU. Due to the elimination of the “Emotion Engine”, the level of compatibility was reduced. The 40 GB, 80 GB (2008), and 160 GB models have two USB ports instead of the four USB ports on other models, and do not include multiple flash card readers, SACD support, or any backwards compatibility with PlayStation 2 games. This was due to the removal of “Graphics Synthesizer” GPU, which stripped the units of all PlayStation 2 based hardware.

 No official Wi-Fi or flash memory card readers were ever released by Sony for the 20 GB system, although Sony had plans to do so. As of September 2009 Sony have placed no further emphasis on these proposed add-ons.[citation needed] Nevertheless, as the model features four USB 2.0 ports, wireless networking and flash memory card support can already be obtained through the use of widely available external USB adapters and third-party PS3-specific media hubs.
It was rumored that the Cell processors in the third-generation PS3s (40 GB, 2008 80 GB, and 160 GB) would move from a 90 nm process to the newer 65 nm process, which SCEI CEO Kaz Hirai later confirmed, and later to 45 nm. This change lowers the power consumption of the console and makes it less expensive to produce.
Operating system
System Software
Sony has included the ability for the operating system, referred to as System Software, to be updated. The updates can be acquired in several ways:
• If the PlayStation 3 has an active Internet connection, updates may be downloaded directly from the PlayStation Network to the PS3 and subsequently installed. Systems with active Internet will automatically check online for software updates each time the console is started.
• Using an external PC, a user may download the update from the official PlayStation website, transfer it to portable storage media, and install it on the System.
• Some game discs come with system software updates on the disc. This may be due to the game requiring the update in order to run. If so, the software may be installed from the disc.
The PlayStation 3 also includes the ability to install other operating systems, such as Linux. This ability has been removed with the introduction of the new slim model and will not be available in any future hardware revisions.

                                                                                              Gamer God World Team