What happened to the forum??

[Warlock]

When i left 4 months ago this forum was thriving.What happened? Did all the other members leave?? It seems these same post have been hanging around for the last few day's with nobody posting anything new. This was the best gamecopy forum online. Now it seem's everyone is going to the ps2ownz help forum's, DAMN, what happened??

[charlie_ps2]

Welcome back. You didn't get him, did you?

Also when you left, I was on 500 posts and when they moved this forum, they lost my data (though not my old posts). I had reached 1850 posts by then! You weren't around so someone (with help from a few others) had to carry this thing on.

No, it wasn't me who drove them away! It was the crippled speed of the forum coupled with the opportune moment over Christmas (when everyone gets their PS2) when PS2OWNZ got their latest home sorted out.

The MESSIAH that you presaged in August has been and gone in that time! It was so successful (depsite only shipping a couiple of thousand) that SONY got them nuked in the UK courts. So it's gone underground and there is a supply drip that keeps prices high - and demand i insatiable for the best chip ever to come to earth.

The NEO4 is and remains a crap chip, but disappointed Messiah fans have had to turn to this 44 wire piece of mis-design inorder to get something better than NEO2.2. They've also discovered that bolting on an Origachip (15 more wires) makes the NEO4 a complete no swap solution. So that's something.

Talking of the Origa, that's doing a lot better now. I had both my JAP PS2s OrigaChipped and the power of the Forum had grown their revenues enormously.

Sony's v5 have crapped on the NEO2.2 community because GS2/1.x won't work on it; and GS2/2.x won't work on the earlier models with DVD-Rs. So that chip has gone to Ludwig (as we say). The NEO2.5 sort of deals with everything but the GS2/2.x process is so convuluted that it isn't worth it.

So the chips of the moment are Messiah/CLones (when you can get them - NTSC is unproven); Origa and NEO4+Origa.

So, nice to see you again. Anything else you feel I haven't told you?

[Warlock]

Hi Charlie, Great to hear from you, Hope you and your family are well. Sorry, I didnt get him, elusive little bastard isnt he?? Still it isnt over yet. Thanks for the much needed update. Reading through it i can see i missed quite alot, most importantly the messiah, Figures Sony would shut it down before it made it to the US, never would i have guessed Paul Owen and playstationmods.com would have ended modchip sales without a fight, I bet i bought 1000 modchips from them in the past, Oh well at least a few of you lucky Brit's got a messiah. Hopefully someone will clone from them and HEX one thats compatable with the US console. I am still using a neo 2.2 which as you already know is about obsolete so i will keep my fingers crossed. Thanks again for the info Charlie, Hopefully in a few weeks i will be back up to date on everything.

[Warlock]

The NEO4 is and remains a crap chip, but disappointed Messiah fans have had to turn to this 44 wire piece of mis-design inorder to get something better than NEO2.2. They've also discovered that bolting on an Origachip (15 more wires) makes the NEO4 a complete no swap solution. So that's something......................................... ............................... Damn 59 wires! Everyone used to debate on which chip would be the best, Looks like Messiah wins this one easily!!

[charlie_ps2]

You said from the outset that the Messiah, if it delivered on its promise would shine. It is NTSC ready so far as setting bridges to squirt Region 1 stuff into the controller. It is now reported to work on the v4 NTSC U/C but PS1 games play B&w. There is a $5 fix somewhere (Freedomview is it?).

Messiah won't die. I don't think it can be cracked and a hex released. It's one of those difficult to crack ASICs. There will be a steady (if not slow) supply so long as Sony are unable to touch the Messiah Clonemakers. You can't imagine that the Russioans and the factory that was established have put their legs in the air for the buzzards to come down and bite their nuts off? Those guys are busy.

The wise ones who give up on Messiah take Origachip. That's because Christmas saw the surge that didn't happen last year because of initial production. So all the v5s that came out didn't have a good solution.

Origa did especially well in Europe because MGS2 and FF X still haven't launched. So import original were/are important.

SO that rounds off the picture for you.