Net Yaroze

The Net Yaroze is a development kit for the PlayStation video game console. It was a promotion by Sony Computer Entertainment to computer programming hobbyists. The user has to provide a personal computer (an IBM PC compatible or Macintosh) to write the computer code, compile it, and send the program to the PlayStation. It is identical to a standard PlayStation console except that it has different boot ROMs, lacks a regional lockout, uses a different encryption scheme, and is black. The kit was only available for purchase by mail order; but Sony also provided it to universities in the UK, France (EPITA), and Japan. There are no direct successors on subsequent PlayStation platforms, but Sony's Linux for PlayStation 2 and YA-BASIC offered a similar feature to hobbyists and amateur developers on the PlayStation 2 console. The Yaroza's primary RAM in territories was 2 megabytes. Game libraries were limited to 2 MB of RAM, 1 MB of primary RAM, and 0.5 MB of sound RAM, since the Net Yaroza will not play user-burned CDs.