The looming software kill-switch lurking in aging Playstation hardware

Re:The looming software kill-switch lurking in aging Playsta... by userbinator on Thursday April 15, 2021 @09:33AM (#26820250)

In a more niche area, some test equipment has this problem too, where the calibration data is stored in battery-backed RAM. To avoid having to do an expensive and difficult recalibration, changing the battery before it dies is done by either putting a new one in parallel temporarily, or with the unit powered on.

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Re:The looming software kill-switch lurking in aging Playsta... by city41 on Thursday April 15, 2021 @10:23AM (#26820866)

Capcom's CPS2 system is essentially the same, a battery keeps decryption keys in RAM, used to decrypt the game so it can be played. This used to make owning CPS2 games a real headache, but the community has now completely nullified the issue.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CP_System_II

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Re:The looming software kill-switch lurking in aging Playsta... by ed25519FUUU on Thursday April 15, 2021 @10:15AM (#26820783)

You’d figure equipment like this would simply have two coin cell batteries rather than one. It would make swapping them much easier.

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Re:The looming software kill-switch lurking in aging Playsta... by sokoloff on Thursday April 15, 2021 @11:01AM (#26821305)

On test equipment (and many older CRT projectors) these are typically lithium batteries embedded within the package of a non-volatile SRAM IC (often Dallas Semi) rather than an easily replaceable coin cell. There are zero exposed coin cells, not one, not two.

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Re:The looming software kill-switch lurking in aging Playsta... by joezydeco on Thursday April 15, 2021 @11:51AM (#26821983)

I use FRAM for this exact reason. Higher cost but zero worries down the road.

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